Many of our church ministries are about outreach. The jail ministry preaches to and prays for the male inmates every week—something that you could be a part of. The military ministry preaches to and prays for the Marine recruits multiple times every month—something that you could be a part of. The Good News Clubs go into our public schools and shine the light of the Gospel in places where people are trying to snuff it out. You could do that, too. The Retirement Home ministries are about encouragement, yes, but we also go into these homes and preach the Gospel so that some might be saved before it is eternally too late. On top of that, we try to systematically go through our community and spread the Word from house to house through the maps that we have available every service, and through our monthly door-to-door All Church Outreach days.
Glory to God for our outreach ministries! The Christmas play is an event-based outreach. We invite them to come in from the outside and sit in OUR home and hear OUR message under OUR circumstances. This is good. We want to use event-based outreach as much as possible. Easter, Christmas, Open House Sunday, and other big days are times when we will preach the Gospel as clearly as possible and see what God does with these one-hit moments in people’s lives.
But what about the time in between all of that?
What about the friend you talk to every week? What about that parent that you have been praying for? What about that coworker who’s antagonistic to you and all the other “Bible-thumping-Christians” at work? Who’s going to reach your classmate?
There’s an entire Temecula Valley full of people that may never come to a big day here at our church. You work beside people that live 60 miles away and may never come close to any of our church ministries. Who’s going to tell them about the Gospel?
There are passive ways that “we” can preach the Gospel as a church. “We” can host a Christmas program, and “we” can do outreach, and “we” can see people saved.
But who is “we?”
The church is not some institution that magically does work. The church is made up of individuals—YOU! You are the church. You are the “we.”
Your personal interactions with people are going to be a MUCH bigger factor to seeing people saved than a slick website.
“Pastor, we need to have…” Maybe adding more things on the calendar isn’t always the best answer. Maybe a new tract design isn’t always the answer. Maybe a new Christmas play isn’t always the answer.
I am ALL about using these as tools, so long as we only see them as tools. A nice design on a tract won’t bring the masses in… only you can do that. A nice website won’t convince people that the Gospel is life-changing… only your changed life can show that.
YES, let’s lean into the Christmas program. But let’s lean into a Gospel-changed LIFE even more.
—Pastor Ryan