- Prayer is the key to everything. When Jesus was not preaching and teaching. He was praying. I also love your emphasis on the Bible in the church. The study of the Word of God is strangely missing in contemporary churches. The Word of God reveals who God is. Prayer must be supported by His Word. Prayer connects us to the Living Word of God, Jesus. The Word of God shows His power and His nature, at least what God has revealed to us about Jesus. 🙏
Let's Talk About Outreach
Greetings, LCC family,
Our Missions Conference was wonderful. I loved how Chris Anderson pointed out the connection between our worship and our evangelism. We would like to keep the outward focus going. To that end, I'm going to be sending out some outreach and evangelism notes to the congregation. It would be tough to get everyone together, so I'm going to attempt to come to you via email :-) .
Just as there is a relationship between missions and worship, there is a connection between church health and outreach. While it would be silly for a church in need of revitalization to think that they are only a good marketing campaign or two from being “back” and neglect the crucial matter of church health. Yet, as we saw in our “Church by the Book” series, evangelism is one of the primary purposes of the church, and doing “church by the book” is making our Lord’s final command—our first priority. Healthy things grow. One of the factors that contribute to the decline of spiritual health is an inward, self-focus. So…let’s talk about outreach!
Outreach Lesson #1
Effective Evangelism Starts with prayer.
Outreach and evangelism begin with Prayer and Preparation. Evangelism is a spiritual thing so we need to start with God and prayer. This is the 1st element of effective evangelism.
There are things that the spirit of God does that we cannot do.
Jn 16: 7-10. It is the Spirit of God that convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgement. Only God saves people, only God draws people. Salvation is of the Lord. Only Jesus draws people to Himself.
Jn 12:32 “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
What draws people to Jesus? Only Jesus! I challenge you to do a quick read through the book of Acts and see how vital corporate prayer was to the life of the early church.
There are things that God will not do until we pray.
This is important to note. Mk( 9:29 9 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”5 (Matt 17:21 Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.)
Here are a few specific ways I encourage you to pray.
Here's an encouraging illustration. For the past month or so, we've been praying these 3 things in prayer meetings and on our prayer sheet. What’s awesome is that we've already seen answers to these prayers. Some guests far from God and searching showed up at a service and shocked some relatives. Some individuals in a liberal church came to our services. When this happens, it’s no doubt a “God thing.” When we pray and God works, He alone gets the glory!
LCC, can you get behind this element of evangelism?
Do you regularly pray for guests to come to your church?
Let’s talk about outreach. If you want outreach, pray, and come to prayer meetings.
That's where it starts. Effective Evangelism Starts with Prayer.
Hear the heart of heaven beating; Jesus Saves!
Reference: See 21st Century Effective Evangelism