Church Goes Into Community For Worship Service

For more than ten years I have had a crazy dream of taking people who are followers of Christ outside of the four walls of the church to engage their community. This past week that dream was fulfilled. At Central Montcalm Community Church we have three identical worship services on Sunday at 9:30am, 11:00am and Wednesday 7:00pm. For each of our three worship services we sang some worship songs, prayed and then I preached a short 15 minute message. The message was on Jesus' parable of the talents in Matthew 24 which is really a focus on God's expectation for believers to reproduce themselves. The message was the fifth in a series of messages focused on how God has called us not just to be 'believers' but actual disciples who in turn make more disciples. In the passage Jesus said that the man who was given the one talent buried it because he was afraid. I believe the truth is that most of us who are followers of Christ would love to share our faith, but neglect to do so because of various types of fear.
It was then announced that we would give people an opportunity to face their fears by breaking up into groups and doing a short outreach to our community. From all three worship services more than 300 people walked through the streets of Sheridan to canvass the community and invite people to church! While it was definately a very stretching experience for many, the reports we received back were extremely positive. I am grateful for a church that is filled with followers of Christ who want to be stretched and used to make a difference in our world and for the Kingdom of God.