There are many ways we could share our faith, but not all are appropriate. Firstly, the “gospel salesman”, where the main objective is to convince people of Jesus, and once that is done they move on to the next person. Problem with this there is no genuine relationship with that person and this is not helpful for that person to grow in faith. Next would be there “fire and brimstone preacher”. These type of preacher’s only focus on God punishment and not His everlasting love for us. Even when Jesus was on earth, the main focus on His ministry was to preach about His Father in heaven and His love for us and not God’s punishment. Usually the main focus of these “fire and brimstone preachers” is to get a ticket out of hell and not build a relationship with the Father. This can also leave people with unpleasant experiences as the focus is only on God’s punishment and not His love. Another way not to do it would be to organize something to get people into the church. This will not be effective because it creates an environment where non-Christians will have to come to us. For most of this events on Christians would be present and this won’t be effective in reaching out to non-Christians. The main problems with these 3 styles have is that they often have a lot of cold calls because it often includes going up to strangers, someone with no relationship to us. This leads to cold interaction because there’s little or no relationship, and it usually ends up being awkward, confrontational or offensive and also because there’s usually a hidden agenda, we tend not to be real and honest with the other person, giving them a false sense of faith. And ultimately this leads to cold cases where there is no follow-up, lots of emphasis on the method to reach out, but no plan for if what if it fails, or if the person refuses. In most cases its drop it and move on. A few things to consider when reaching out to people, when it’s not done out of love it would be futile. Secondly, we should always be there to meet their need and not shove the gospel down their throats or give them a false sense of faith. Thirdly we must be sensitive to opportunities to reach out to people and not just stay in our comfort zones in CF or in church.
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And before we forget here are the new comms for 2011/12.....YAY!!!:D
(From top left: Alvin Lim, Colin Pal, Victor Kee, Philip Phua, Clarence Cheong, Stephen Goh, Rakesh Joshua, Caryn Liew, Vivian Tan, Tinna Monica, Tze Phei, David Yee, Vinod Solomon)
(From top left: Alvin Lim, Colin Pal, Victor Kee, Philip Phua, Clarence Cheong, Stephen Goh, Rakesh Joshua, Caryn Liew, Vivian Tan, Tinna Monica, Tze Phei, David Yee, Vinod Solomon)