alpha conference 2008
April 17th, 2008
It was energizing to hear Nicky Gumbel again at the Alpha Conference 2008 last week. The last time I heard him was about 5 years ago during an earlier conference. He covered the same material but I was different; then, I was evaluating the tool; now, I was listening as a practitioner.
Two things struck me. One was the fact that in his local church in London the people who most attend the Alpha Course are those from 18 to 35. I wonder if churches and campus ministries here have done enough to reach Singapore’s young adults with the Alpha Course.
While he was speaking the Lord was also applying his message to me in a very specific and interesting way, bringing to my remembrance a dream I had in the early morning of the first day of the conference. I dreamt that my associate was having trouble introducing the guest speaker to the gathered church as though something had happened. The next thing I knew I was checking the chest of Billy Graham with a stethoscope. I also tried to get him to stand to speak but he had no strength and I had to lay him back to bed. All this was triggered when Nicky mentioned Billy Graham as an example. The light just flooded in and I knew and I knew that evangelism was bedridden in the church and I have to nurse it back to health.
I guess this sort of thing happens when pastors preach too. The hearers may drift off to some other totally irrelevant matter like where to go for lunch, or to something the Lord wants them to deal with, even if it was a tangent from the subject matter the pastor was preaching about. The latter is of course more fruitful than the former, but as much as we would like for our congregations to be entranced by our message, the fact is people occasionally drift in and out, engaged at times and lost in their own worlds at times. We pray though that more often than not, the Spirit takes them by their hair on a holy excursion, and like Ezekiel, put them on a mountain, speak to them or give them a vision.
Dear Kenny,
I can sympathize with you about the state of evangelism in many churches. In my church in KK evangelism was the hardest ministry to get members excited about. I had a deacon in charge of outreach and he often told me how disappointed he was when only 2 or 3 people turned up to help him. We only have it once a month on a Sunday afternoon where all members are encouraged to visit housing estates, do door to door evangelism or simply visit friends and share the gospel. We call it Operasi Yerusalem (Operation Jerusalem) but success was very limited because workers were so few.
Over in Singapore the best age group to reach out to are the young people. Some of the megachurches focus on reaching them and do a very good job at it. At the same time they also attract the young members of other churches.
Doing door to door evangelism is a method of yesteryear. People nowadays value their privacy and resent door to door attempts at sharing the Gospel. One way churches reach out is through blessing and doing acts of kindness door to door on different occasions of the year to serve and get to know people. The Living Sanctuary Church in Hougang does a great job at that but not many church have the stamina to do such ministry over the long haul.
Look forward to fellowship with you in July.
Pastors themselves need to get evangelism in their blood. This means that we start proclaiming the good news through simply talking about Jesus to anyone around .
I like your stories about how you do this whenever you take taxis. You are quite an inspiration in this respect. “Do the work of an evangelist” were to words of Paul to Timothy and I need to see people, and think and act like an evangelist.