A little over ten years ago, God began to give me passions for His service. One of those passions was evangelism. I never thought I would be a pastor because I always felt God was calling me to travel as an evangelist. Therefore, I decided to become a Methodist pastor because I would be traveling every few years anyway! When Aaron arrived at our church, I thought he was a bit crazy to say the least. He would go visit people door to door and invite them to church. Aaron is not the most tactful person when it comes to his evangelism style, but it works for him, so who am I to criticize. When I heard Aaron was starting an evangelism team my eyes lit up. I knew that God wanted me to be involved. When we were meeting together as a group there is one fact that I will never forget, it takes roughly 21 invitations to a person before they receive Christ. What does that mean? We cannot give up when it comes to our personal evangelism. Even though I may receive a rejection, I could be number one or two on the list. You maybe number 20 or 21. People’s receptivity levels are different based upon their circumstances in life. Listen to what the Apostle Paul states in 1 Corinthians 3:6-7:
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.”
A Major League Baseball player as hitter is considered successful if he hits over a .300 batting average, which is only 30% of the time that they reach base, which means the other 70% he fails to get a base hit! The difference for us is when someone receives Christ it does not matter all the previously “failed” attempts because they were not failures but merely planted seeds.
I am learning it may take many invitations before an individual comes to our community dinner and maybe many more before they receive Christ. The good news is that God is long at work in the hearts of His people before we ever interact with them. God is at work in a person’s life whether they know it or not. Our mission is simply to be vessels in delivering this Good News!
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.”
A Major League Baseball player as hitter is considered successful if he hits over a .300 batting average, which is only 30% of the time that they reach base, which means the other 70% he fails to get a base hit! The difference for us is when someone receives Christ it does not matter all the previously “failed” attempts because they were not failures but merely planted seeds.
I am learning it may take many invitations before an individual comes to our community dinner and maybe many more before they receive Christ. The good news is that God is long at work in the hearts of His people before we ever interact with them. God is at work in a person’s life whether they know it or not. Our mission is simply to be vessels in delivering this Good News!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment