A DEVOTIONAL GUIDE FOR “THE TEN
TIMELESS VALUES FOR DISCIPLESHIP”
Value 9- Week 4 Witness
Word: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would
sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had
need. Day by day, as they spent much
time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with
glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the
people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being
saved.” Acts
2:44-47
Reflection: An Evangelistic Church
The early church was at its heart an
evangelistic church. They understood
their primary purpose was to bear witness to the love of God in Christ for the
purpose of reaching new people, relating them to Christ, and incorporating them
into the “Body of Christ”. That desire
was the motivation for all they did.
They ministered to those in need as a social witness, they had joyful
worship, they publically praised God in everything they did, and they met in
homes and invited people to their tables.
They conducted their lives and ministry in such a way that they were
described as having “the goodwill of all the people”, and as a result new
people were added daily. The amazing
thing is that they wanted to grow and designed everything they did to that
end. The same was true in the early days
of the Methodist movement. It was at its
heart and evangelistic church whose primary purpose was to bring new people
into a saving relationship with Jesus.
Today
it is questionable in many of our churches whether or not we want to grow. It’s not that we don’t want to grow in our
own relationship to God, which in fact has become our primary purpose. The church exists for us, the insiders, to
meet our spiritual needs and to nurture our children in faith. But, Do you know how many youth ministers I’ve
seen run off because they started bringing in kids from the “neighborhood”; how
many pastors are criticized for spending too much time with “new people”; how
many people that complain when a church manages to start growing, “I don’t like
it because I don’t know half the people here anymore.” I can’t tell you how many churches I’ve
visited who have no greeters out front to welcome and accompany people, no
means and plan to find visitors when they leave, no intentional effort to keep
a visitor from sitting alone, much less any intentional outreach to the
community or planned design of worship styles to accommodate younger or
unchurched adults. Our services require
insider knowledge to participate without embarrassment, and our preaching too
often lacks an invitation to a relationship with Christ. Our fellowship groups are effectively but not
officially closed to outsiders, and our budgets are heavily weighted to serving
those who are members instead of reaching those who aren’t. In short, we’ve stopped being an evangelistic
church, and as our faithful die off and our children grow up and find other
more relevant places to worship we find ourselves in decline. We’ve forgotten our purpose and lost our way
and if we can’t return to a place where we value those on the outside of our
churches more than we value ourselves we are doomed to die a slow death. Jesus made it clear our purpose was to make
disciples in all places and that disciples were those who were willing to deny
themselves for a greater purpose. The
question we need to ask our communities is what is our church’s “witness”? How do those on the outside see us?
Practice: Take and honest look at my church’s
ministry, worship style, budget, outreach program, hospitality ministry, and
ask, “For whom do we exist”? What is our
primary purpose here? How can we change
it?
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