Often the church has wanted to dictate the terms of getting the gospel out, and the world is saying, “That’s not going to fly.” I think the church has tried to get the gospel out by getting people in the church building without ever building relationships. For some reason we believe that just because we’ve built beautiful buildings and have well landscaped campuses that people will flock to us and want Jesus. Some people will come because of location or the building is easy to navigate or the bathrooms are clean or the nursery is safe or the chairs are comfortable or whatever… However, if that is our strategy for getting the gospel out then we are doomed to die a slow but certain death. I just don’t see that practice in the Bible.

The key to getting the gospel out is intentional missional living. Simply put that means that we are going to live our lives as missionaries wherever we are. It may sound odd to say that we are missionaries because we often think of missionaries as people who move far away from home, eat bugs and monkey heads, and live in mud huts, but that is not the case. Being a missionary locally means that we are going to look at every person God puts across our path as someone who needs Jesus. This means that we are going to want to build relationships with all kinds of people so we can eventually tell them about Jesus.

Let me remind you that getting the gospel out is a matter of loving, listening, speaking and living missionally. Loving people is what gets us out into their world. Listening to a person’s story is important for us to understand what they believe about Jesus. Speaking is looking for God to open a door to have a gospel conversation to tell them about Jesus. And living the gospel out is showing people who Jesus is through our lives. This all takes times and we must be patient and willing. Saving people is not up to us, that’s God’s job and He’s really good at it; sharing the gospel with people is our job – how good are we at it?

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

Grace & Peace,