Evangelizing Our Community

As we begin a new year I customarily preach one or two messages that help to give us direction for the coming months. This year will be no different.

Last year God began to sharpen our focus on evangelism and we ended the year in a big way—

By the grace of God we began to lay the foundations for our mentoring ministry to single moms. By the way, we are calling this ministry, New Beginnings Life Skills Ministry.

In December, through our Birthday Party for Jesus, we shared the love of Jesus and gave the Gospel to some 70 children and their parents and guardians who were not members of our church.

The church, the body of Christ, has been commissioned to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28). This is the last thing that our Lord Jesus told us to do before He ascended and returned back to His Father in heaven.

We ended the year strong and it is my desire that we keep the momentum going. In order to keep this momentum going, we need to be as intentional as we were last year, perhaps even more.

This week as I returned to the office from my New York trip, my voicemail was full with messages.

We placed a community service announcement in the PennySaver about our New Beginnings Life Skills Ministry and got calls from some single moms wanting to know more about the ministry.

Because of a funeral the week before and my New York trip last week, I was swamped with work.

When I arrived in the office Thursday, I began to return phone calls and talked with one woman who was very interested in New Beginnings. She went on and on telling me about her family and situation.

Just then the thought occurred to me that this ministry is right on target. Many complain about the crime rate in the city that has exploded, making Baltimore the 2nd most dangerous city in the nation. Illegal drug activity and gang warfare continues to be a problem and studies show that much of it is connected to the dysfunction that occurs in the family.

I then talked with another woman who had four children, all boys, who needed a place to stay. I could tell from the way she talked that she was hurting. It was at this time that I thought that this ministry has to be more than a social service agency where you have women coming to the office and saying to them “Sign in and take a seat.” “Here’s your voucher.”

We are going to have to take the time to show them the love of Jesus not just to give them a handout.

Remember the adage, “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day; Teach him to fish and feed him for life.”? We cannot limit ourselves to just giving a fish; we are going to have to teach them how to fish.

But we cannot stop there. We have to not only teach them to fish but how to discriminate between good and bad deals when buying fish, how to clean the fish, season the fish, cook and serve it too! This is called, “ministry evangelism.”

Ministry evangelism is simply caring for persons in the name of Jesus Christ. It is meeting persons at the point of their need and ministering to them physically and spiritually. Ministry evangelism is sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people as we meet them at the point of their need. Their point of need can be often a physical need. When their physical need is addressed, their heart is often open to the Gospel.

Many times the Lord uses a crisis in one's life to bring them to a point where they come to realize their need for God. With this in mind I would like to take you through a passage of Scripture where we find a woman in crisis.

We are going to look at the intentionality of ministry evangelism, the impartiality of ministry evangelism, the revelation of ministry evangelism, the results of ministry evangelism and the priority of ministry evangelism.

1.) The Intentionality of Ministry Evangelism

John 4:1 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John

John 4:2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples),

John 4:3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.

Jesus is leaving the area and going into Galilee but something happens on His way from Judea to Galilee.

John 4:4 But He needed to go through Samaria.

Jesus has an intense need to pass through Samaria. To many, this was a strange move for Jesus. His disciples probably looked at Him like He was crazy.

The Jewish people had a deep-seated hatred for the Samaritans. The Samaritans were descendants of the people whom the Assyrian kings colonized in Palestine after the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C.