Last week I was interested to hear responses to the pastor’s corner. After all a comment like “the Church that does not seek the lost is ‘lost” itself,” would not go unnoticed. A few people spoke to me asking “what can I do to help with witnessing?” Some people took another look at the Seven Components of Our church mission – “Tell the World” published in the Newsletter and even pointed out an editing error: the Spiritual Growth was lost in text, was not highlighted!
We’ve appreciated last week 20 people who volunteer their time to lead various aspects of church ministry. Leaders will also thank those that worked with them. Yet the question remains: are we really witnessing? Each ministry, even if its purpose is to minister within – to the church members – we must it consider as witnessing, for those who may visit. Everything we do is witnessing.
Wednesday night I attended a book release/signing event hosted by Dianne Haskett, former mayor of London, currently a publisher/owner of Believe Books (www.believebooks.com). Two London brothers, Harvey & Howard Katz released their books on personal witnessing and Spiritual life development.
I’ve seen Harvey’s book “Becoming a God’s magnet” already at one of our church family homes. It is an excellent teaching guide for personal Witnessing. Harvey shares his life story of coming to Jesus from an Orthodox Jewish background, and living a life of active witnessing in every social, business and individual interaction. I strongly recommend you to invest in getting this book as an object lesson of how one can witness in our secular environment, right here in our own London.
His brother Howard, the founding pastor of Open Door Christian Fellowship on Quebec & Dundas, has shared his life story illustrating the seven Biblical steps in developing Relationships with God. He is structuring this on the sevens steps of a process by which ancient potters fashioned vessels.
These two brothers are Jewish Christians with heart for witnessing. As I sat and listened to their testimonies and then chatted with them after I thought of a comment made by E.E.Cleveland when our church first got concerned about wavering attitude of laity for evangelism. He introduced MISSION-72 with these words: “when sacred flame sweeps the congregation, we will be less conscious of many things that rendered us so coldly formal, and our fear of being mistaken for pentecostals will be matched by our aversion to formalism.” For 35 years our chief denominational priority is involving every member in witnessing, especially the youth. We cannot go with business as usual. The world cries out for demonstration of our Christian concern.
I hear concerns expressed about our youth – something must be done. Ask yourself: have we shown to our youth what the church is all about? Have our youth seen from elders and “seasoned” members what the purpose of our existence is? Remember, that the Witnessing, the Personal Testimony is the Second Ingredient of Overcoming, invoked by the Saving Blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 12:11)
No comments:
Post a Comment