This Sunday at Church: Praying for your Church’s Outreach Effort

 

This Sunday at Church I want to encourage you to do the following: Praying for your church outreach effort.  It might mean someone’s eternity with life and death (read to the end).

 

Yesterday our church had an outreach for Asian Lunar New year.  It was all day event (hence I haven’t been on here much).

I was grateful for the opportunity to share the Gospel.  We stayed at late as possible since it was expensive to pay for the booth and I wanted to maximize outreach.

While it was festive I also felt its important to share the full Gospel.  That include being honest with the biblical bad news about the sinfulness of our sins.  I imagine some people might find that awkward for Lunar New Year to talk about sin and death.

For dinner I went to a certain restaurant to pick up a specific noodle that my kids and wife enjoy.  The noodle place share address and is connected with a nearby dance hall where they share restroom and doors.  Two hours later there was a mass shooting incident at the dance hall.  News aren’t clear at 1:35 AM but it seems there’s at least 16 casualties.  I really hope the lady who run the noodle shop didn’t get hurt, as the dance hall aren’t separated with any lock doors during business hours.  She’s a hard working immigrant who always gives my family extra hot sauce and she knows our family is Christian since we frequent there often and have developed a rapport.

That totally shocked us when we came home to hear about that.

I don’t know details yet of the what and the why.  But it got me thinking, if I shared the Gospel or tracts and fliers to anyone who was on their way to attend the dance studio that night did we give enough information that someone who was passing away can think about the biblical truth of the Gospel to come to trust in Christ as their Savior?

That is rather sobering.

First it made me not regret moments yesterday when I didn’t hold anything back about Jesus.

But it also sobered me if I could have talked to more people and not just simply let people go away so easily.  Or if could share more.

Yet I’m also sobered by God’s sovereignty.  We were meant to be there to share the Gospel clearly and biblically.  

When I do outreach nonbelievers don’t really get under my skin.  What gets me irked are some (not all) of those who call themselves Christians, both genuine ones and false ones.  There was one guy that was rudely asking one of our church members if our church did anything for others.  He was super impatient and asked for our denominations’ church closest to him.  I answered with the name and the city and the area but he was upset I didn’t have the address.  I told him he could have googled himself and I’m only trying to be helpful.  In the back of my mind I wonder if he’s this awesome Christian why did he never did his own search for the closest denominational church to him long ago before he came to our table and insult people with saying why we didn’t know anything about our denomination and implying he knows so much more.  What a waste of time when people’s eternity is at stake. 

After tonight I thought about the question he ask if our church do anything for others.  Sure there were crafts, VBS sign up, gifts and all…but there is nothing more powerful humanly we can do than to share the Gospel to a loss and dying world.  

How could we not pray for our church’s effort to outreach the lost?

Moreover when we are not focus on reaching others with the Gospel it is easy to ride a hobby horse. 

Focus on praying for your church outreach effort; focus on the Gospel.  Its a crazy world; and people need it.