"The Churches Outreach"

Victory Can Be Yours!

Article # 31 – “The Churches Outreach”

            It is impossible to discuss the role of the church without focusing on outreach.  The church must be involved outside of the body.  We, as brothers and sisters in Christ, must not only love one another, but all men.  “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.  If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners love those who love them.” (Luke 6:31, 32)  The church, like the individual, can be self-centered.  If the church is concerned primarily with its own existence, welfare, and programs, it cannot be effective as God intended.  God has chosen the church to reach out to the lost, and to have love and compassion for all who are in need, to show His attributes to the lost world.  The church is to exalt God in everything that it does.  “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?  For even the sinners do the same.” (Luke 6:33)  The Bible teaches we are to have love for our neighbor, love for our brethren, love for our enemy, and love for all men.  If we as individuals or the church as a whole are self-centered this cannot be possible.

            We must not lose sight of the fact that the individual and the church are inseparable.  What is commanded by God to the individual Christian is also a command to the church.  Corporately, the church can be more influential in the world than a few individual evangelists.

            The aim of the church should be to train Christians who will, in their daily life-style, commend Christianity to the outsider by their behavior.  As a tree is known by its fruits, the church is known by the kind of people of the church.

            The church does not only work on Sunday.  Sunday is a day of worship and rest in preparation for the rest of the week.  The work of the church begins on Monday and continues until church takes up again on the following Sunday.  The work of the church takes place outside of the physical church building.  We hear a sermon on Sunday morning, but we are a sermon the rest of the week in the way we conduct our lives.  What kind of message do you share with all those you come in contact with?

            Several years ago, my duties at work included purchasing millions of dollars in materials to build our product.  There were dozens of salesmen calling on me to buy their goods.  I always conveyed to them that they must first show me a reason or an advantage as to why I should make a change to their brand or product.  The unbeliever is no different; we must through our changed life-style, show them why they should change, a change to believing that Jesus Christ is the only answer to life.

            You, too, can have victory in Jesus!  More to follow.

Lowell Parrish