IN the world

Today we made some evangelism calls. It was fun! Greg has started the New Neighbor Outreach program that the Lutheran Hour Ministries puts out. He has been getting names of the new people that have moved into the area...then they send out a postcard, wait two weeks and send out another postcard. Two weeks after that we go visit the families and bring them a small gift, welcome them to the community, ask if we can be of any help, tell them about Mount Calvary and then go on our way. We had a list of 9 homes to stop at and talked to four people. It was fun to say hi and welcome these people to the area. I know what it was like when we moved in and it's nice to see a smiling face at the door.

We caught one woman who was about to go for a jog and talked to her for about 10 minutes. She was very interested in Missions at her old church and seemed like she may want to check it out. Now, we have no idea what kind of results we're going to have from doing this but you know the saying, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take". I really think the same is true of evangelism. There are so many people out there who are ready and willing to join you in the mission of the church but maybe they don't know where to go. If we're out there just letting them know that we're here if they need us, at least we've taken a shot. We're not sitting at church and wondering why no one new is coming. We're actually hitting the pavement, wearing out our shoes (one week at a time) and telling people that we're there for them. So, here's to many more weeks of meeting new neighbors and telling them about our church so that if they need us they know where to find us. Getting out into the world is fun...but remember we're IN the world but not OF the world.