We talked about two different kinds of outreach: attractional and missional (we didn’t use those words, but that’s what they are).

Attractional outreach is when we try to bring people into our facility to minister to them and share the Gospel with them.  Missional outreach is when we leave our facility and go out to where people are, to minister to them and share the Gospel with them.

There were some great ideas for both types of outreach.  Since we’re wanting to start with something simple, so we can do it soon and involve as many people as possible, we decided to put some of the best ideas on hold–though not for too long.  In the end, we decided to move forward with two outreach events, one attractional and one missional.

For one of them (I’ll let you figure out which is which) we’ve set aside 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 20th to go somewhere and give away something to someone.  Pretty specific, huh?  In the time we had last night we didn’t settle the details–I’ll work them out over the next few days, shouldn’t be too hard.  But we know we’ll meet here at 11:00 that morning and get out of the building to go meet some people and give ‘em stuff.

The other event, for which we haven’t set a date, is a night of free childcare for the families involved with our preschool (what some churches call “Parents Night Out”).  That one will require more planning and preparation, so we’ll continue working on that one over the next couple weeks or so.

We compiled three lists: a list of missional outreaches, a list of attractional outreaches, and a list of where people are (simple and obvious, but absolutely crucial).  Here they are:

Missional Outreaches:

• bonfire on the beach
• Diakonia (a local shelter) visitation
• AA outreach (they meet in our building)
• gutter cleaning, leaf raking, etc.
• free oil changes
• ministry to bless school teachers (pick a different school each month)
• nursing home visitation
• ministry to Senior Center
• rides to church
• giveaways
• dollar drop (dropping dollars in public places, with a note attached explaining the who-what-when-where-why)
• serving Diakonia at Thanksgiving

Attractional Outreaches:

• movie night
• dinner for Training Station parents–with free childcare
•  Parents Night Out for Training Station families
• babysitting during Christmas shopping
• “Daddy & Me” event
• breakfast for hunters on opening day of season
• Monday Night Football
• free donuts/baked goods
• Station Break (activities for Training Station parents)–ex. Christmas cookie baking
• fair
• Grand Reopening events

Where People Are:

• Stephen Decatur High School
• Wal-Mart
• Boardwalk
• Racetrack
• Hospital
• Nursing Home
• Ocean Pines
• Internet
• Starbucks
• Local Events
• Harley-Davidson

As we continue with CrossWay On Purpose on the first Sunday afternoon of each month, we’ll have the opportunity to follow up on all these ideas.

Looking back over the past three and a half months since we began this study, I can see how far we’ve come.  So far everything we’ve done has been on the level of praying, studying, thinking, and talking–but that’s where it has to start in order to be strategic and effective.  But now we’ve gotten to where we can move into action, and I think we’re all excited about that!

Most of our time was spent talking about how we can prepare ourselves so we’ll be ready when we reach out to others. We considered a hypothetical situation: Suppose a hundred first-time guests showed up this Sunday–what would we do? How can we be prepared to welcome the new people we connect with, and help them to have a positive experience? The ideas flowed, and included the following:

• We need to have a servant mentality and attitude. This means we need to be attentive to people’s needs, be flexible, and be ready and willing to help in any way we can.
• We need to have our facilities ready. This would include having enough chairs to seat everyone in the sanctuary, having parking lot attendants to guide traffic, having clear signs in place to guide people where they need to go… and even (if not especially!) tending to details such as having an ample supply of toilet paper.
• We need to have equipped greeters posted outside and inside at both doors. Greeters need to be friendly, greet people with a smile, and offer helpful information such as where the kids ministry is located.
• We need to have worship bulletins that are attractive, easy to read, informative, and interesting. And we need to make sure we have plenty to go around!
• We need ushers who are ready to set up extra chairs and provide for other practical needs that might arise.
• We need to have space and workers for a nursery and for kids ministries.
• We need to be organized so that we can work as a team, each person knowing and doing his or her part.
• A nice touch would be to have gifts for all our guests. We could easily do something simple and economical yet nice, such as give away CrossWay mugs filled with candy, a pen, a flier, etc.
• It would be helpful to have something like coloring/activity books for kids whose parents choose to keep them in the worship service.
• We need a follow up plan. This could include things like a follow up letter with a self-addressed, stamped First Impressions card inviting our guests to offer feedback on their experience.
• We need people to clean up the facility after everyone has cleared out.
• We need to be flexible and expect the unexpected.

After this discussion, we tossed around some ideas for how we can reach people in practical ways. This conversation will be continued next week, our last Wednesday night session of CrossWay On Purpose, when we plan our first church wide outreach event. We closed with a time of prayer.

We started out by looking at a picture of the Rosetta Stone.  I felt kind of guilty because the previous week I’d dumped a ton of information on everyone, but didn’t really give them the key to sort out and understand all the data.  So in this session I gave them the Rosetta Stone, the key to making sense of the giant lists we’d compiled over two or three months.

This “Rosetta Stone” was a much simplified list, with key phrases in bold red.  They were put in order to progress logically.  There were five lists, each pertaining to one of the purposes of the church that we found through our survey of Scripture.  On large sheets of chart paper, I made an even shorter list of key words that were drawn from the key phrases.  I know this sounds confusing, but the idea was to condense all the information and whittle away at it until a clear picture began to emerge.

And it happened!

This is what we came up with:

(1) One of God’s purposes for CrossWay Church is to come together to experience worship of Jesus. Key words: experience, come to, worship, together, love, respond, seek.

(2) One of God’s purposes for CrossWay Church is to have true authentic connection in a community.  Key words: unity, belong, pray, edify, community, connected, fellowship, accountability, authenticity.

(3) One of God’s purposes for CrossWay Church is to show our love by using our gifts to minister to others.  Key words: love, works, pray, serve, use gifts, minister.

(4) One of God’s purposes for CrossWay Church is to go and spread the Word.  Key words: go, evangelism, spread the Word, declare, witness, missional.

(5) One of God’s purposes for CrossWay Church is to learn, love, and live God’s Word while we strive to be like Jesus.  Key words: learn & love & live God’s Word, be like Jesus, Christlikeness, growth, know, joy.

It’s starting to come together!

We also reached a decision about the direction of CrossWay On Purpose.  We’re going to meet for two more Wednesday nights.  This Wednesday, we’re going to talk about practical ways we can love God & love people.  It will take time to develop our vision and strategy, but in the meantime, we can’t sit around doing nothing.  We know without a doubt that it’s God’s will for us to love Him and love people, so that’s what we’re going to do.

The following Wednesday, we’ll discuss some ideas for outreach events.  We’ll nail down a plan for our first event, and get all the details worked out before we leave that night.

To continue with the mission of CrossWay On Purpose beyond our Wednesday night meetings, we’ll start getting together after church on the first Sunday of every month, beginning in November.  This will actually be a leadership meeting, where we’ll have lunch, further discuss and plan what we started in CrossWay On Purpose, address other issues and needs, assign tasks for carrying out plans, and pray.  Everyone who wants to come will be welcome at this monthly gathering.

Since we won’t be meeting on Wednesday nights after next week, we’ll be able to start up some fellowship groups.  Our mens group and womens group both took a break to participate in CrossWay On Purpose.  Now that we’re moving to one Sunday afternoon a month, hopefully those groups–and other kinds of small groups–will get going during the week.

Before we met I sorted the list into several groups, and we looked them over to try to categorize them.  We spent some time with it, but didn’t get far enough to really report on the progress with any kind of certainty.  But I’ll keep the updates coming with as much detail as I can give during this phase of CrossWay On Purpose.

So instead the 10 of us who were there did something different.  In the middle of all the planning and strategizing and organizing that we have ahead of us, it could be easy to lose sight of a basic essential: people.  Relationships.  So we used Session 10 as an opportunity to get to know each other a little better.

What we did was sit around some tables and pass around a mug containing slips of paper.  Each slip had a question on it.  The person who drew the paper would answer the question, then we’d go around the group and everyone would answer the question.  Some of the questions we had included:

• If Jesus were to follow you around all day, is there anything you would do differently?
• If you could choose to live in any time period, which one would you choose and why?
• If Jesus came back as a man today, what do you think He would look like?
• What do you think is the main reason that some people don’t believe in God?
• Do you think you have become more spiritual or less spiritual over the last year, and why?

These questions prompted some great discussion, brought out some profound insights, and accomplished the purpose: we all got to step a little further into each other’s minds.  It was pretty interesting!  And it also turned into a time of encouragement and support for one another, which was really cool.

Next week we’ll begin sifting and applying the info we gathered over several weeks of Bible study… and maybe we’ll start by passing around the mug again once or twice!

By the way, I’d love to hear your responses to the questions above.  Please feel free to share your answers in the Comments section below this post!

In studying the last three of the seven churches which Jesus addresses in the opening chapters of Revelation, we completed our ever-growing list.  We examined Revelation 3:1-6; 7-13; 14-22.  We saw that we:

• are to do God’s work
• are to complete God’s work
• are to be alive-and stay alive!
• are to do the right thing for the right reason
• are to fan the flames
• are to strengthen & encourage the remnant
• are to go back to our first love
• are to repent
• are to wake up!
• are to hold fast to what we once had
• are to be real
• are to be authentic
• will be rewarded if we are faithful
• have promises from God
• serve the God who opens doors
• are to be faithful even when we’re weak
• are to be humble, not proud
• are to keep God’s Word
• are not to deny Jesus’ name
• are to endure patiently
• will be rescued from the hour of trial
• will be pillars in the temple of God-He will write on us the names of God, the City of God, and Jesus’ new name
• will never leave God’s temple-we will never be separated from Him
• will spend eternity with God
• are not to be lukewarm
• are to be genuine
• are to have substance
• are not to be complacent
• are not to be self-sufficient
• are to be earnest
• are to repent
• are loved by Jesus
• are rebuked & disciplined by Jesus
• are to open the door and let Jesus in
• are to listen for God’s voice
• are to have fellowship/communion with Jesus
• will sit with Jesus on His throne

I hope to see you there next Wednesday as God begins to clarify CrossWay’s vision!

• do good works
• work hard
• repent from sin
• persevere
• discern between true teachers & false teachers
• hear what the Spirit says to the church and do what He says
• not tolerate false prophets
• keep love for Jesus #1
• endure hardships for Jesus
• not grow weary
• not lose focus on basics
• be spiritually rich
• not be materialistic
• not be afraid
• be faithful
• be disciples
• not fear suffering
• we will be tested
• help save others
• go out in the world without becoming worldly
• stay true to our faith
• not be enticed by immorality
• hold each other accountable
• not tolerate false teaching
• avoid sexual immorality
• avoid idolatry
• hold fast until Jesus comes
• be victorious
• do God’s will to the end
• continue doing good deeds
• love
• exercise faith
• engage in service
• grow & increase in good works
• repent of immorality
• keep our hearts & minds pure
• know who we are & Whose we are

We closed with a time of prayer. Next week we’ll look at three more churches in Revelation, then we’ll move on to the next phase of the study.

(1) Like the other Scriptures we’ve studied, it contains wisdom about who God wants our church to be and what He wants us to do.

(2) It presents an absolutely amazing picture of Jesus Christ.

(3) It sets up the next two chapters, which we’ll begin studying next week.

Here are some direct applications for CrossWay that we gleaned from this rich chapter–we found that we are:

• to testify to what we’ve seen & experienced
• blessed when we read, hear, and take to heart the prophecy
• to teach what Jesus has revealed will happen in the future
• God’s servants
• loved by Jesus
• freed from our sins by the blood of Jesus
• a kingdom of priests
• to be anticipating Jesus’ return
• to comfort each other
• to be in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day
• to be in a state of worship
• to revere Jesus

This passage reminds me a great quote from the ever-controversial Mark Driscoll, a Seattle pastor who is one of my favorite preachers.  In typical Driscoll fashion, he comments on this description (among others) of Jesus in Revelation:

“There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types want to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity.”

That’s definitely a quote from a Calvinist and not a Mennonite, but there’s a lot of truth in it!

We spent the last few minutes of our time together talking about various things, deciding to wait until next week to dive into Revelation 2-3.

We examined 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 5:11; 5:16-18; Hebrews 10:24-25; 13:7,17; 1 Peter 2:9-10; 1 John 1:5-7; 4:7-21.  Here’s what we found in these passages about the church–who we are to be and what we are to do:

• produce works by faith
• do labor prompted by love
• endure
• be inspired by hope in Christ
• be patient with hope in our Lord Jesus Christ
• stick with it in hard times
• be in prayer constantly
• we are always in the sight of God our Father
• encourage each other
• build each other up
• comfort and edify each other
• give thanks in all circumstances
• be joyful always
• pray, pray, pray
• consider (think prayerfully) how to provoke one another to love and good deeds
• love
• do good deeds
• meet together-and not give up
• assemble ourselves together purposefully
• encourage and exhort each other
• think about each other
• pray for our leaders
• imitate the faith and way of life of our leaders
• obey and submit to our leaders
• we are a chosen people
• we are a royal priesthood
• we are a royal nation
• we are God’s special possession
• we are a peculiar people (KJV)
• we are called
• we are to praise God
• we are the people of God
• we have received mercy
• we should freely give mercy
• we are redeemed
• we belong to a family
• we are to show & tell people that they are special because God loves them
• we are to declare God’s message that God is light
• we are to walk in the light
• we have fellowship with Jesus
• we are cleansed from all sin by the blood of Jesus
• we are to love one another
• we are born of God
• we know God
• we believe Jesus is the Son of God
• our response to God is love because He first loved us
• Jesus is the propitiation for our sins
• we live through Jesus
• we ought to love one another
• we are loved by God
• God have given us His Spirit
• we live in Him
• He lives in us
• testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world
• God dwells in us, and we in God
• we know God’s love
• we rely on God’s love
• we believe God loves us
• we are like Jesus
• we are to have no fear
• we love because He loves us
• we must love others

After the study we talked for another 45 minutes, covering everything from how to strategically connect with different groups of people to the best way to follow up with guests.  We closed with one of our participants leading us in prayer.

We’re taking some down time for a couple weeks, during which we will not be meeting on Wednesday nights.  But we’ll be back on August 15 at 6:30 p.m.  We’re down to just a couple passages in Revelation, but they’re lengthy passages which may take another two or three weeks.  Then we’ll start digesting all these Scriptures we’ve been feeding on, and start exercising!!!

The fact that everyone stuck around so long says a lot.  Actually, they didn’t just stick around–they were very much into what was being discussed!  What also says a lot is what was being said.  We talked about various things that we need to do in order to be more effective at connecting with people.

One of the really neat things was that so many people really took initiative in the conversation, which revealed what was on their heart.  Some shared ideas about evangelistic efforts, while others shared thoughts about connecting with visitors, and others contributed suggestions for ministering to those whose paths we cross.  It was so neat to see people getting excited about the work that lies ahead of us!  And it was also exciting to hear some of the insights people had about who we are and who our community is.

I’ll share more about this later on when I post the summary of last night’s study.