Author: Pastor Steve Duffy
When it comes to sharing our faith, no matter what that looked like in the past, it becomes clear when we re-engage in that activity just how long it has been since our previous times of sharing. Through our first few Wed pm meetings in July we have been talking about serving those outside the church family, including serving them by sharing the truth of the gospel of Christ. This past week it was time to be “doers of the word” (James 1:22)!
When I mention serving, what I’m also including are tangible acts of care towards others. With that, being reminded that the care is not meant to be an end in itself, but rather a means, a means to a greater service which would be opportunities to engage in conversations about Jesus Christ. However, it is a rare thing, and a huge jump, to go from starting a conversation to sharing about Christ. That can happen and is a legitimate way of evangelism, but that doesn’t seem to fit well with our day to day reality of relationships. So, practically speaking we have been breaking our approach down to start simple, with prayer and specific acts of service (care), and building our conversation muscles. What has this looked like so far?
We spent the first few Wednesdays in July building a foundation on prayer and share, in both teaching and doing. First, was some key teaching on prayer and with that doing a prayer walk to/around Cherry Hill park. This built the importance of prayer for any effort in connecting with people who do not know Jesus, whether that be people on the way to the park, at the park, and even extending that to people in our current lives that don’t know Jesus. Prayer was the focus of that night, to integrate it more with what we do as we go along in our day, and the on-going foundation to build upon. Next, with sharing, we clarified the essential elements of the gospel message using the one-verse evangelism tool and put this into practice by role-playing a conversation and drawing the diagram (illustrating Romans 6:23) on pavement with sidewalk chalk and on a napkin with a pen. We also handed out the one verse witness cards that includes a summary of the illustration and verse to carry with us.
Last, we put all these (prayer, care, share) together in a trip to Cherry Hill park. Our planned caring, or acts of service, centered around picking up trash at the park (the place that the people we were going to engage were using) and with the parents permission handing out ice pops to the young ones there which was a good fit since it was warm out. Some good learning took place each time we were “doers of the word” so far, and that proved to be true related to our desired destination of Cherry Hill park. As we drove to the park we pulled up, and there was no one at the playground! We quickly changed our destination to Morgan Creek park playground area. As we arrived, there were quite a few families at the playground. So, we broke up into the following teams of two, all who were charged with engaging in prayer throughout their activity:
- Trash teams: picked up trash around the permimeter of the playground, the grass areas around the playground, and the parking lot and parking lot perimeter
- Engage-invite teams: introduced ourselves, approached the adults on the playgound to invite them and their young one(s) to have a free ice pop
- Treat teams: served the ice pops to all those that were sent their way, and attempted to engage them in conversation
Through our experience and as part of our debrief time, we had the following observations:
- A personal observation to start: when selecting which team each student wanted to be on, all but one student said the trash teams. I sensed a hesitation in engaging people. However, this is part of the workout. For these students, their next step was just being part of an intentional effort where they could do their part in caring (serving via trash pick up) and being mindful of why they were there so that they could pray also. It was emphasized how important this was to the greater effort. Being on the trash team was still a step of faith to make progress in this area of exercising their faith.
- People noticed the trash teams, and some specifically expressed their appreciation. The learning with this was that the park was a space they appreciate and use, so we were showing care by taking care of something important to them. This seemed to be a bigger deal than we realized. Here our thinking initially was to serve the city/county through the park cleaning, but the greater impact seemed to be an expression of care towards those using the playground. This also likely contributed to being more receptive of the invite as well as sparking curiosity.
- Every person engaged was appreciative of the invite to get a treat. Almost all accepted the invitation. The more kids that went to get a treat the more attention/curiousity occurred. Lots of opportunity to greet and meet people, to get to know their names, etc.
- We hit a language barrier with one family, and they didn’t know if the treats were free. One suggestion was to consider asking someone who spoke spanish to come along with us.
- A good improvement idea from a student was to share what church we were from rather than just say “local youth group”. This would be a good way to identify with Christ in the invite. Another suggestion was to have trash teams also approach people on the playground to ask them if they’d like to throw their trash away, just as another means to engage them.
Everything about this night was intended to build upon work we have done last fall on the topic of evangelism, engaging others in conversation with the hope of sharing Christ with others. This also sets the stage to continue to work out this area of our faith as we head into our next ministry year with the theme of personal evangelism. The aim is for students/leaders to grow in this area of their faith, to become increasingly familiar with teaching related to evangelism, and also engage in practical application by being “doers of the word”! My prayer is that students would even lead the way in their families and with their friends to urge one another on to connect with others by praying, caring for them in practical ways, and engaging them in conversations that may lead to sharing about Jesus Christ. The praying is a means, the caring is a means, the sharing are conversations with an end desire to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, Lord willing.
Join in and workout dormant or underdeveloped muscles of engaging in conversations prayerfully, asking the Lord to give boldness, strength, wisdom, and open doors to those that don’t know Jesus. If an option, care for those you are praying for in practical ways, and leave the open doors and outcomes up to the Lord.
Back to Morgan Creek park… the aim was to have this initial experience, learn from it, and adapt as we head back there next Wednesday to continue to be “doers of the word”. Stay tuned next week for part 2 of this adventure!
