As I was reading the first chapter of "Lost and Found" the following quote from the author stuck out and really made me think about how we do outreach or evangelism.
"It is essential that churches focus on more than invitations. The focus needs to be incarnational - going and living among the people who are far from God."
It takes more than a "hey would you like to come to church with me this Sunday" to get people to come to Church. It takes transformation on our part. It takes us being different. We need to show love to those who do not receive love. We need to show mercy to those who no mercy has been given. We need to forgive those who have done wrong to us. We need to hold up the weak and defend the defenceless. We need to be among these people living and looking like Christ to them. We need to act and treat peole the way Jesus treated us. As followers of Jesus we need to get out of the pews and into the masses.
Here are my questions for you:
1) What does incarnational living look like?
2) What does it take for us to become this way?
3) What are obstacles/barriers that hinder us from doing this?
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
1. I would call this "intentional" living. We need to intentionally seek out the lost. And we don't have to go far either. We can build relationships with our neighbors and teach them about Christ. If you regularly go to a particular restaurant, you can build a relationship with the staff and teach them about Christ.
ReplyDelete2. To become this way requires us to daily die to ourselves and submit to Christ.
3. Obviously our flesh is in a war against the Spirit. We also struggle with materialism. TV (except for Dave), internet, shopping, the American Dream all pull us in an earthly direction.
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