Jump directly to the Content

Serving Is Believing

Rallying Christians and non-Christians around community needs may invigorate your outreach.

What's the relationship between service and the verbal proclamation of the gospel? Are words enough? Are loving actions enough by themselves? Most Christians generally agree on one thing—the people we hope to evangelize are the ones we seek to serve. But some churches are now challenging this conventional thinking.

In Simply Strategic Volunteers: Empowering People for Ministry (Group, 2005), pastors Tony Morgan and Tim Stevens suggest that serving alongside non-Christians to meet a common need offers a congregation the opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with its neighbors and non-believers to participate in Christian community before making a personal commitment to Christ themselves. "When you serve at the homeless shelter," they write, "what better way to show others the love of Christ than by asking them to serve alongside you?"

Viewing cooperative service as an evangelism opportunity provides the church with a larger audience for the gospel. Not only will those being ...

March
Support Our Work

Subscribe to CT for less than $4.25/month

Homepage Subscription Panel

Read These Next

Related
If I Were a Pastor Again
If I Were a Pastor Again
Five things I would do differently.
From the Magazine
Should the Bible Sound Like the Language in the Streets?
Should the Bible Sound Like the Language in the Streets?
Controversy over Bibles in Jamaica, the Philippines, and Germany reveal the divide between the sacred and the relatable.
Editor's Pick
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
Understanding God and our world needs more than bare reason and experience.
close