Jesus said, “The fields
are white for harvest, but the laborers are few.” He instructed us to
pray to the Lord of the Harvest that He would send out worker into the vineyard.
We
have made this our prayer in worship at St. Mark over the past month. We have also added a phrase to our prayer taken from
the book of Isaiah which may seem a little scary to some, namely,
“Here I am Lord, send me.” As I shared
with you earlier, our Church council recently passed a resolution to make this a “Year
of Evangelism” at St. Mark.
We’re calling it the “Jesus knows your Worth” campaign.
The results of this decision are still being worked out, but one of the greatest, most ambitious goals to come out of this
Evangelism emphasis so far is the decision to knock on every door in the village of Worth.
1.
To invite their prayer concerns for which we will pray as a congregation the following Sunday, 2. To leave them a color brochure and a copy of a DVD about a church.3.To invite them to one of the ministries of St Mark,
eg: VBS, Sunday School, Discipleship, Youth Group for their kids, a community healing service on 9/11, the pet blessing,
the Open Air Market, etc. etc. depending upon their needs Not everyone in our church will be part of the visitation team,
but we do need every member to participate in this outreach. There are many ways to be part of this outreach.
· We need people to pray for the people of Worth, and to pray for the callers
for boldness and perseverance.
· People are needed to go door to door and invite prayer concerns.
· We need people to volunteer to make visits (like the one I just described to the people living around them )If
all 400 members agreed to contact just 3 or 4 of their neighbors it would make the task of the callers so much more doable.
It would also be much more effective than having a stranger come to their door. These neighborhood visits could be for every
member even if you don’t live in Worth. More will be said about this in church.
· We need people to wear the soon to be distributed, “Jesus knows your Worth buttons” which will definitely be a conversation starter.
· We need everyone to be welcoming and friendly to visitors who come to our worship or other events as a result of
being invited.
· People are needed to walk in the parade and staff the
St Mark table at Worth days.
This is an exciting time in the life of our church. I believe it is an important priority, and perhaps even a do
or die issue for the life and future of the St Mark that we all love. I hope and pray
that you will become an active part of this evangelism ministry in whatever way you can, as you seek to
serve the Lord of the Harvest and His call.
***********************************************************
I want to take this opportunity
to thank Garth Smith for wonderful job he did working with our youth these past couple years. He was a
great gift to our youth program and our church and he will be greatly missed.
Your brother in Christ,
Pastor
Jay
