I need to start this
article off with all honesty as well as sincerity, knowing only one way of
writing and that is transparently. If you by any chance happen to read this
article you are most likely in the throne room, and no it’s not the throne room
of heaven. Was that too real, too soon, and too much info? If so stop reading
now! I’m not a person who plays politics or sugar coats things so people feel
better about themselves.
When I was asked to
write this article on outreach I was honored. But then I started to think about
the big outreach my church has coming up, and started thinking about how I
could share on the growth we have seen and blessing we have been to our city.
But, I have to be honest; I’m over all that. I’m over the idea that outreach,
and the vehicle of evangelism, has to be skate parks, free bbq’s and giving
things away. That has in fact never been the true meaning of outreach, it has
only just been man’s perversion of it. Some pastors are motivated to do
outreach and give all sorts of ways to show the wealth of their church or the
prominence of their ministry. It has gone from being about the people to being
about the bragging rights of pastors.
If I haven’t lost you
yet chances are you were not dissuaded by the above paragraph of my own
personal complaining. Which is good, on account of I really do love outreach, I
have done it all my life. I’ve done the skate parks, giveaways, bbq’s and
concerts. They have worth and have a great range of impact but widespread
lasting impact does not come from a one-day event or bi-weekly summer event.
The core of outreach is just what its name says, plain and simple; reach out.
We are called to reach out to the hurting, wounded, and dying. Outreach has
become a quarterly event rather than a daily mission. Every day we are passing
those in need of someone to reach out and share the hope and love of who Christ
is. I could talk about outreaches I’ve done in the past and the growth we have
seen but I believe it has all been heard before. I have not reinvented the
wheel I just created a new chrome rim but it’s just as shiny as the rest.
My heart is to share the
vision of outreach and the potential that it has to change the lives of those
reached out to and the one reaching out. The impact of outreach is limitless
when the perspective is brought back to the passion of the impact of outreach.
The church today has placed outreach in a box that says it has to be an event
ever so often that is created and implemented by the church. It has not been
classified as what it truly is, living life as a mission and not mundanely. If
we are purposeful with every encounter every day outreach becomes a lifestyle
not a day at the park with the church folk and burnt hot dogs. Sorry that was
tinged with a little frustration.
We don’t need people who
live like hell everyday of their lives telling me Jesus loves me when they
don’t believe He loves them. We need people who are praying “give me your eyes,
your ears and your heart for people”. When we truly seek to see what God sees
we don’t see irritating people, we see the broken and hurting heart as it is
cultivated into the heart of the Father; drawing us to them to build
relationships and minister on a opportunity basis. What I mean by opportunity
basis is any and every opportunity.
Now comes the part of
the article where I tell you how its worked for me and the growth we have seen
in our church and city. However, I don’t want to. I don’t want to tell you it
works because based on even the most limited of Biblical knowledge we know it
works. Jesus himself said, “Go and make disciples” He asked the disciples if
they wanted to be, “Fishers of men”. We know what the word says, we have to
stop compartmentalizing it into how we think it should look and recognize that
it is in fact the light that is to invade every area of our lives. When a trip
to the grocery store becomes more about divine appointments for us to pray with
people and encourage others, to date night with the spouse becoming about
looking for ways to serve. To illustrate, allow me to share this story with you
about a night my wife and I had this past Valentine’s Day.
It was a Valentine’s
like any other; dinner, movie and I love you’s all around. But, at some point
through dinner we were struck with the idea that a woman in her late 60’s had
just gone through a rough divorce. She was left alone and hurting and this was
her first Valentine’s Day as a newly single woman. So my wife and I decided
that in the middle of our Valentine’s night that we would go to the store and
create a Valentine’s Day basket for this woman. So we headed off to the
ransacked isles of Valentine’s Day trinkets. After about an hour of rummaging
like it was a garage sale, we finalized our sale and left. In the car, my
amazing wife put together this package that made the odds and ends we picked
look like stars in the night sky (had to go cheesy its about valentines day).
So, we dropped the package and a dozen red roses off to her at 10pm that night.
Needless to say the outcome was tears and hugs.
I must be honest I hate
using stories of myself because I feel that it singles me out like I am
particularly better than everyone not doing this. Rather, if anything I am
worse. I’ve seen the fruit of that night bud into an amazing relationship and
opportunity after opportunity to encourage, support, and love on that woman.
And through that I have watched God touch and restore her. And yet I still find
myself selfishly going through my days looking to get my stuff done before I
give a second thought to living out the mission of what God has called us to
do, which is to reach the lost. I am writing this not as one who has by any
means perfected this but as one who has struggled and everyday learns more and
more that outreach is a lifestyle that yields relationships that yield
opportunities that yield change.
I honestly have been so
deeply impacted by this revelation in my own life it has absolutely changed my
heart and passion for ministry. As a minister my heart is to see peoples live
changed by a true encounter and relationship with Gods love. As a younger
minister I began cultivating outreach events and began pushing these events out
of my heart to see the lost saved. Now through the revelation that outreach is
a mindset and everyday mission, I know that my ministry itself has dramatically
changed, and grown. Rather than me being an evangelist and reaching out to
hundreds of people I know that if I raise up a generation of young people who
live daily missionary lives, and outreach than we stand to reach thousands if not
millions on a day to day scale rather than thousands once a quarter.
Inevitably I must
declare that the truest form of growth is in people not in numbers. You can do
the popular thing and find the people that will be attracted but are you doing
the things that truly disciple and change lives reproducing followers of Christ
who in turn are reproducing followers of Christ. This is truly the way we reach
people effectively. Events are great and play a roll in outreach but the truth
is an individual reaching out in a lifestyle that is purposefully impacting
those they encounter on a daily is where we find the greatest and truest form
of outreach, which in turn produces the greatest fruit.
So after reading this what do I hope? I hope you
finished the article and got this far. I hope that you were challenged to take
a second look at outreach. I hope you were provoked to re-evaluate your day to
day perspective. I hope this inspired some sort of great shift of thinking that
makes you want to jump up off the throne and go conqueror the world. Most of
all I hope that you are encouraged.
Josh Macciola serves as our area leader in the Lake Berryessa Section.
Josh Youth Pastors at Church on the Hill in Vallejo, CA
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