Taking the Church on the Road pt. 2

Posted Tue, 10/27/2009 - 8:19am by Matt

Incarnating the gospel in a local community starts with intentional effort.  As a leader of a church it must be our desire to teach, train, and provide opportunities for our churches to learn that the mission of God pervades their lives on a regular basis.  It is not simply something you engage in on a weekly basis, but rather an all consuming lifestyle of seeking to model, live, and speak the gospel into the lives of others. 

 
This week we decided one of the ways that we could teach our people to seek and seize opportunities would be to equip them with some tools that they could use to communicate the gospel with those in their lives.  As a church, we bought everyone in our core group a pocket size ESV Bible and gave them out on Sunday morning. We challenged our congregation to pray to God would give them an opportunity over the coming week to engage in conversation with someone far from the Lord and bless them with a free Bible. 
 
While it is not a perfect plan, it is a start in teaching our team that God is at work throughout the world all the time.  I am convinced that we daily miss opportunities, not because they aren’t there, but because we aren’t looking.  It is our desire to build a church that thinks like missionaries – joining in with what God is up to in the world. 
 
And God has blessed it.  From waiters and waitresses at area restaurants, to a teenage girl hurt badly in a car accident, to a family member going through a challenging time, God has allowed our people to bless our community with the message of the gospel and a gift of a Bible.  In these small ways the church goes on the road and the message of the gospel spreads….