Get The Church Outside The Church

This past Sunday our church did something way out of the norm. We didn't "have church." Instead, we were the church. We intentionally shut down our typical Sunday schedule & programs in order to host a Memorial Day Weekend Block Party. We promoted it throughout our community. We encouraged & equipped our people to invite friends, neighbors, or co-workers through social media & old fashioned invitations. Our goal was to build bridges with our community & sow Gospel seeds in the hearts of our neighbors.

Needless to say, this was probably very uncomfortable for some of our members & attenders. After all, Sunday is when we go to church & worship. However, what we wanted to remind everyone of is the fact that on this Sunday we were going to worship through serving & evangelizing our community. If we say we want to be known for loving our community & being #ForToccoa, shouldn't that be reflected in our schedule, even our Sunday schedule?

This outreach event allowed us to connect with people who wouldn't come to a worship service at 10:45am. In fact, we were able to connect to one young man who literally would have never crossed our path were it not for this event. This young man recently took ownership of a local convenience store. As he drove by our property, he saw everything that was going on at the block party. He grabbed some donuts from his store & came by to drop them off for us as a nice gesture from a new business owner. However, as God would have it, he dropped by just as we were sharing the Gospel. He stayed & listened intently. He then responded to the message by sharing with me that he was raised Hindu but that he really wanted to learn more about who Jesus is & that he thought he needed to come to church to find out. That's where we were able to share with him that our next message series is called "I Am" & it's Jesus talking about Himself, telling us who He is. 

This young man would have most likely never set foot on our property or had a conversation with the pastor were it not for the church's willingness to get outside the church's building. He would have possibly never heard the Gospel & had it stir something in his soul. Churches are often worried about what it will cost to do something really different. Churches should be worried about what it will cost if they don't do something different. Are our comforts, traditions, & conveniences really worth withholding the Gospel from our neighbors? Today is a different day. Many non-believers will no longer just show up in our sanctuaries on Sunday. That means we need to get out of the sanctuary & hit the battlefield. There are souls to save, lives to change, & seeds to sow. 

How can you & your church get outside the church in order to advance the Gospel?