MAIN IDEA: All Christians have been commissioned to reach out with the love and message of Jesus.
OBJECTIVES: hearers will be encouraged and inspired to keep an “arrows out” approach to life, always looking for and creating opportunities to share the love and message of Jesus with others.
Hearers will commit to doing something “arrows out” in the coming week.
INTRO:
Pop Quiz – (with candy treats for those who answer correctly)
1. Fill in the blank: Our mission is to create an authentic Christian community that effectively ___________ ______.
2. When we reach out to unchurched people, we reach out with what 3 things?
3. The end product our church is trying to produce is
a. busy church people
b. a large and beautiful church building
c. people living a purposeful life of discipleship
4. Name the 3 priorities of CTK church.
5. TRUE or FALSE. The most important meeting of the week is the worship service.
Our Mission
To create an authentic Christian community that effectively reaches out to unchurched people with love, acceptance and forgiveness so that they may experience the joy of salvation and a purposeful life of discipleship.
Our Vision
To see a prevailing, multi-location church emerge that will transform the spiritual landscape. This church will convene in hundreds of small groups, with worship centers strategically located in every community.
Our Priorities
• Worship: We are devoted to worshiping God as a lifestyle.
• Small Groups: We are determined to care for each other through small groups.
• Outreach: We are dedicated to reaching people who do not know Christ as their Savior.
Last week we talked about the importance of Small Groups as our Plan A for creating disciples. This week we’re going to review what it means to say that we are dedicated to the priority of OUTREACH.
We have the 2nd annual “Arrows Out Conference” coming up in 2 weeks. The term “arrows out” refers to a stance that we at CTK have chosen to take in relationship to those outside our church.
The typical church model is arrows in.
This can refer to two things:
1. The energy, money, and time of church members is spent cultivating relationships WITHIN the church.
2. The church expects people to COME IN to hear the good news and experience a purposeful life of discipleship.
Typically this type of mindset starts at the level of the individual, continues up into the smaller groups of the church, and continues all the way the organizational system of the church.
At CTK are trying to buck that trend – and be ARROWS OUT instead. Here’s what that means.
1. The people of CTK spend time cultivating relationships with people outside the church.
2. The people of CTK GO TO people outside the church instead of expecting them to come in.
But even this picture of what our church is supposed to be like is incomplete – we need to add one more feature to the diagram.
Our mission statement says we are striving to create an AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY that EFFECTIVELY REACHES OUT. So in small groups we develop authentic Christian community with other believers – but we then use those times as springboards to reach outside the circle and meet others where they are with the love, acceptance, and forgiveness of Christ.
This is in fact what we find when we study the life of Jesus with his 12 disciples. He had his “small group” of men who were his closest friends and followers of his teaching. He spent many hours with them teaching them his ways and showing them with his example what it meant to live in relationship with God the Father. But he didn’t just stay with them, or only teach inside Synagogues. He went OUTSIDE the circle of “church people” and continually tried to reach those still needed to hear his message of love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Take a look at Matthew 9 – which tells the story of Jesus meeting Matthew and then spending time at his home with Matthew’s friends…
Matt. 9:9 ¶ As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
Matt. 9:10 ¶ While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.
Matt. 9:11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
Matt. 9:12 ¶ On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
Matt. 9:13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Luke 19:1 ¶ Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.
Luke 19:2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
Luke 19:3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd.
Luke 19:4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
Luke 19:5 ¶ When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”
Luke 19:6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
Luke 19:7 ¶ All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”
Luke 19:8 ¶ But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
Luke 19:9 ¶ Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.
Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
If we claim to be Jesus’ disciples we must do no less.
We MUST become a people of OUTREACH – dedicated to reaching those who do not know Christ – and DOING something rather than talking about it.
Outreach comes in many forms. Sometimes it takes the form of sharing the gospel with someone. Sometimes it takes the form of simply demonstrating the love of Christ in your actions. But always, it involves a commitment to living your life in a state of readiness to be Christ’s ambassadors.
QUESTION: As you evaluate your life – would you say it is Arrows Out or Arrows In?
Some of us are naturally “Arrows In” by personality and others are naturally “Arrows Out”. Case in point…
ILLUS: Playing tennis last weekend with Ann we arrived at the court and started warming up, when the young couple from the court next to us asked if we’d be interested in playing doubles with them. Now, because I’m such a spiritually mature person I answered, “Thanks but I think we’ll just play singles.” Great huh? Well about 30 seconds later I started to get it together and realized – here is an opportunity to be Arrows Out. Here are some strangers asking me if I’ll do something with them. Maybe this is a divine appointment! So I ended up changing my mind and we got to meet this couple and invite them to get involved at CTK. I haven’t seen them yet, but we hope to see them again sometime soon!
Maybe you can relate with me – sometimes an opportunity to develop a relationship with someone new comes along, and your ‘default’ response is “I don’t have time.” Or “that’s not on my agenda for today”. If so let me share with you an encouraging incident from Jesus’ life that indicates how he lived in an “Arrows Out” way.
Luke 7:11 ¶ Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him.
Luke 7:12 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out — the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her.
Luke 7:13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
Luke 7:14 ¶ Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!”
Luke 7:15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
Scripture does not tell us what was on Jesus’ agenda that day, or why he was planning on spending time in the town of Nain. I’ll bet it was because someone had urged him to come and teach, or perhaps to have dinner at someone’s home that night. But “as he approached the town gate” a distraction from his agenda came upon him. I say distraction because this could not have been part of his plan for the day. But while he was walking up to the town gate he sees this woman and the procession carrying her son out to be entombed – and because of the compassion in his heart Jesus stops everything to help this poor woman.
“His heart went out to her” is how it is put. I think it means his arrows were out.
And because of his willingness to let God interrupt his schedule, the Kingdom of God went forward. God was glorified. Joy replaced sorrow.
TRANS: Because we are dedicated to a life of outreach, we have a couple of tools to help you in your ministry in your neighborhood and in your daily life.
First we have this OUTREACH CARD available at the info table today. The purpose of this card is to use when you do something in the name of Jesus for someone who isn’t even asking for it. Paying for a stranger’s McDonald’s bill. Giving money to help pay for gas. Purchasing diapers for that rundown mother in Walmart. Giving away drinks to kids at the skate park. Taking dinner to a neighbor “just because”. Helping clean up yard debris for a neighbor after a storm.
I am challenging every small group to do some sort of outreach project this fall – similar to a couple of projects undertaken last year – one small group went to a low-income housing area and took a dump run. One small group went door to door and offered free 9-volt batteries for smoke detectors. These cards are a good way to simply help people remember what was done
Second we have this “Welcome to the Neighborhood” packet. This is meant to help you reach out to that new neighbor who has just moved into your neighborhood. Make a batch of cookies and bring it over with this. It has a brief note from me, a “what type of church is this” brochure, and a coupon for $1 off a drink at Solid Ground. The hope is it will open up a conversation with that new neighbor in their time of transition.
Third we have this “Steps to Peace With God” tract that can help you explain what it means to become a Christian. These are especially helpful after you’ve spent some time developing a relationship with someone and they are open to hearing about how Christ has made a difference in your life.
CONCLUSION: Living our lives with OUTREACH as a priority is something that can add a bit of excitement to every day. Even if you feel it’s just another day at school or at work – when you realize that God has sent you and wants you to be his ambassador it can change your perspective. Sometime today you’ll get a chance to reach out to someone. If you have committed yourself ahead of time to living a life of OUTREACH, you’ll be more ready to use the opportunity, and you’ll be more motivated to CREATE opportunities.
At the bottom of the outline in your program there is a spot for you to write down 3 ways you want to make OUTREACH a priority in your life. I encourage you to write down 3 names or 3 projects you and your family or your small group might be able to do this week or this month. And then DO IT!
Someone, somewhere reached out to you. They shared the love, acceptance, and forgiveness of Christ with you. Now it’s your turn to return the favor to others who need to discover the joy of salvation and a purposeful life of discipleship.
