Friendly Gospel
By Ps Philip Devadas
Jesus said “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”(Mark 16:15). We cannot ignore the fact that we are to get out of our traditional methods of inviting people into our settings with its walls and buildings. A paradigm shift is necessary, going out of our comfort zone and into the world.
An obvious place for the world outside the church setting is our work place, residential neighborhood, recreational facilities and not forgetting sports arena. People are not interested to go to church these days. There are too many things to do outside. Entertainment outside of the church seem to get the upper hand in the lives of people. So, to put a signboard at the entrance of the church “all are welcome” doesn’t seem to do the trick in bringing people.
Take a ball to a playground full of children and toss it out and in no time at all you’ll see a whole bunch of kids running after it and kicking about. No invitation is needed. Greeting our neighbors “Mr Chong, good morning” or “En Ali, how do you do,” exchanging plants with “Mr Gopal” your next door neighbor or just going for a “teh tarik” with a friend is not a hard thing to do. The amazing thing is that, it is in this setting that we have the greatest opportunity to share the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I took my son out to play football at the neighborhood field 5 years ago and now I’m involved in the work of community transformation through sports. We need to pray and keep a lookout for opportunities wherever we are. Start by building relationship and friendship with people around you and live a life of example unto the Lord and He will open the doors eventually to share His love. The person God will use, is you who are available.
