EQUIPPED TO TAKE THE MESSAGE
Kevin Harney
If we are going to encourage everyone in our church to adopt an evangelistic lifestyle, training will be essential. We can’t assume that people know how to share their faith. To nurture an outreach culture in your church, you will need to offer consistent, practical, and diverse training opportunities.
The apostle Peter wrote, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). We should be ever ready to “give an answer” to people. Why? Because hope flows through our lives. As people with hope living in a hopeless world, we can give others an answer as to why we have such enduring hope, and we can do this with gentle and respectful hearts. God wants us to be ready to express in words what we believe. Every Christian needs to be ready to humbly tell the story of Jesus.
Many churches offer training for their nursery leaders and coordinators. Some require yearly training that covers infant CPR, choking, safety, and emergency care for all of their volunteers.
Why?
Because lives hang in the balance.
Just think about it. We provide hours of nursery safety training year after year, just in case a need arises. Some nursery helpers might go a whole year and not need the emergency skills they have developed. But if an emergency arises, they are ready. They are trained. They know their stuff.
If a church takes this much time to prepare nursery caregivers for a situation we hope will never arise, how much more should we prepare all of our members to share the life-giving message of salvation found in Jesus alone? This is something we hope they will do often and naturally.
Even Christians who read the Bible, love Jesus deeply, and care about lost people need regular training to share their faith. If we believe outreach is important, we will make every effort to equip all of the believers in our church for the ministry of evangelism, praying for opportunities for them to take the Gospel to people.
If there are people in our services who don’t know Jesus (and there always are), at least they will get a chance to hear the Gospel. There is nothing wrong with that!
I encourage leaders to create multiple options for training. We can do this in many ways:
Offer all-church learning opportunities through preaching in the main church services.
- Train through small group experiences.
- Include outreach training as part of the ongoing training of the various ministries in the church.
- Equip people through one-on-one mentoring.
- Offer special church-wide events.
- Hold an areawide outreach event, partnering with other congregations in the community.
- Take a team to a regional or national outreach event.
In the church, we emphasize anything we feel is truly important by taking it to the place where everyone gathers. For most congregations, this place is the main weekend worship service. I believe the best place to effectively train the majority of your people in outreach is during weekend services.
I have done this for several years at various churches. Some people worry that doing this will be offensive to visitors who are not believers in Jesus. I disagree. I suspect that most visitors know that we believe in Jesus and that we want the world to hear about who He is and how we can enter a relationship with Him.
For three weeks each year, I turn the attention of the entire church family to reaching out to our friends, neighbors, and community with the message of God’s love. If there are people in our services who don’t know Jesus (and there always are), at least they will get a chance to hear the Gospel. There is nothing wrong with that!
I pray that your church will begin engaging in outreach in new and powerful ways. God is ready to lead and inspire you. Be faithful. Be bold. Turn up the outreach temperature. Vector your ministries into your community. Train your entire congregation to share the Good News of Jesus.
Enjoy the adventure!
(This article is an excerpt from Organic Outreach for Churches by Kevin G. Harney, Zondervan).