Image

Engaging Your Community

// SUBMITTED BY PASTOR RANDY NELSON

Several years ago, I accepted to call to a small congregation that had three other AFLC churches in the same zip code. It was a rural community on the collar of the Chicagoland area. We had cornfields surrounding us but we were only 20 minutes away from Joliet, IL, a city of over 100,000, and less than an hour from downtown Chicago. The village we lived in, though, was only about 250 people. The predicament was, “How do we reach unchurched people in this small community where so many were connected to our sister AFLC churches?” 

Henry Blackaby’s Principles of Experiencing God were invaluable to me as we prayed about what to do. The first principle is God is always at work in the world around you. The key is to recognize what that looks like. Luther’s explanation to the Third Article of The Apostle’s Creed says, “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, and enlightened me with His gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in the true faith…”

Blackaby’s third principle is that God invites you to become involved with Him in His Work. He then describes how to recognize that invitation. He says that only God can draw people to Himself, cause people to seek after Him, reveal spiritual truth, convict the world of guilt regarding sin, righteousness and judgement, as found in John 14 and confirmed by Luther’s explanation. The key is to prayerfully look where we see people are drawn to God, are seeking after God, are wrestling with spiritual truths, or are convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgement. So how might I see those things in my community among the lost?

Over the next 10 years, God opened up opportunities for me to engage with people by becoming a volunteer police chaplain, firefighter, and EMT in our community. In each of those roles, I had many, many opportunities to engage with unchurched people who were often facing a personal crisis. I was able to help them in real, tangible ways, which led to relationships that in time, opened the door to minister to them as God was working in their lives, as only He could. Some of those individuals were patients or people we helped, but surprisingly, even more were firefighters, EMTs, police officers, and their families. This led to the congregation growing, not only numerically, but also in its concern for the needs of others in our community. 

These types of ministry experiences have led me to believe that it is vitally important for congregations to be looking for opportunities to engage their local community in physical and tangible ways as a means to opening the door to sharing the good news of the Gospel with those outside our churches.

C:\Users\liz.mccarlson.AFLC\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Outlook\G4YIP7IB\Jeremiah 29.6.jpg

Loading posts....
Image

Rekindle the Fire 2023

Watch the videos from Rekindle the Fire 2023!
Image

Rekindle The Fire 2022

Hear the audio recordings of the Rekindle the Fire conference 2022
Image

The Lutheran Ambassador

The Lutheran Ambassador is a free magazine, published monthly by the AFLC. It exists to educate its readers about the AFLC, to encourage the local congregation, to equip Christians...
Image

Share Your Faith Workshop

I was invited to participate in this one day seminar at Atonement Free Lutheran Church in Arlington, WA and was wonderfully impressed by the simplicity, clarity, and effectiveness of this training program and the "Hand" tool that...
Image

Faultlines

This book addresses the "faultlines" that are being created within families, communities, churches, and the world, in the wake of the revived Social Justice Movement. Pastor Baucham provides extensive research and examples of how Critical Race...
Image

We Will Not Be Silenced

This is an excellent resource that tackles current day issues (Racism, Sexuality/Gender, Government Overreach, etc.) and how the church should respond, based on the truths of God's Word. This book is a call to the church to...
Image

Global Discipleship Initiative

The purpose of Global Discipleship Initiative is found in our motto: You Know Why, We Know HOW. It is an astonishing reality that though most pastors and church leaders could identity Jesus' Great Commission as...
Image

Discipleship for Women

Discipleship for Women is a ministry for women who want to trust and follow Jesus. Discipleship may sound like an “old school” word, a word your grandma used that one time. Just don’t let that hold you back from...
Image

Discipleship.org

Discipleship.org is a collaborative community of men and women committed to the discipleship lifestyle — being disciples of Jesus and making disciples of Jesus.
Image

Exponential

What is missing from many of our efforts and strategies? Doing it Together! We are all very familiar with the Great Commission and the challenge to "Go." There has been much taught on the Great...

Page