Invest and Invite

[Captain Kirk]

Are you saved? Have you forgotten how that happened? Think about it. Did someone preach hellfire and brimstone to you, or did someone show you they loved you? Did they hand you a Bible and send you on your way, or did they spend some time with you? Did their example make you want to run or make you want what they had?

Are you that person for someone else?

This week I asked a good friend of ours, Pastor Dan Stallbaum, from East Coast Christian Center, to come and share his outreach message with us. Because we forget that we have what the world needs. We get focused on ourselves, our busy lives, and just doing church - we forget what we’re here for. So, let me share some of Dan’s message.

There are three things the church is called to do. First, we’re called to reach up to Christ. Our life should be a life of worship, and a life of service. We were made to glorify God. If we don’t put Christ first, we will never have anything to reach in or to reach out with. We need to know Him. We need to be impacted.

The second thing the church is called to do is reach in – connect. This is where we get involved with one other in the church. This is where we get built up, charged up, and revved up to go out into the lost and dying world and make a difference.

The third thing we are called to do is reach out with the love of God.

Those are the only three jobs that the church has. Those are the three jobs we always have to come back to. Everything we do should fall under one of those three things.

Dan operates his church that way. Now, his church is a little bit different. It’s in an unusual place. It’s on Merritt Island in Florida. It’s surrounded by beautiful, waterfront properties…and the largest low-income housing project on the island. He has police officers there almost all the time. They have cars broken into and graffiti on a regular basis. His building went from being the cinema in town, to a twin cinema, to a budget cinema, to a 50-cent movie theatre, to a XXX theatre before it was a church.

It was challenging for Dan and his team to build a church in that atmosphere, but it all changed with a really simple idea.

Look at Matthew 28:18. It’s not anything you haven’t heard before. Jesus is talking to His disciples. He had spent three and a half years investing in their lives and He had something important to say.

He told them to go make disciples of all the nations. He told them to reach out.

But we’re uncomfortable. We’re not evangelists. Evangelists scare us. Studies tell us that only 2-3% of the body of Christ are evangelists. In fact, the Bible only mentions it twice. So, most of us aren’t evangelists. But there is a difference between a gift and a role. The gift of an evangelist is a gift from God where you’re anointed to be and do something, but we’re all called to fulfill the role of evangelism.

So how do we do it? How do we avoid all the uncomfortable, awkward moments?

We invest and we invite. Invest your time in people. Spend time with them. Then invite them to do something. Invite them to come to church. Invite them to come to a LifeGroup. Invite them to come to Fire and Ice, or the Fixing the Family Thing Conference, or New Year’s Eve Now.

That’s what Jesus did. He invested time in the woman at the well. And, that’s what Dan did. They put up basketball courts at their church. They started basketball tournaments. The kids came. Now he knows them by name. Now if there is graffiti out there they take care of it. His problem was actually his harvest. When they reached out to those troubled kids even their grandmas started coming. Now, one of those drug abusing, hurt kids is his son-in-law.

In fact, Dan’s whole life is about investing. While he was here, he shared the stories of three men he met – how he played golf for two and a half years with a local bartender, fished with and spent time for four years with the former head baseball coach of UCLA, and fished for two years with a New York state judge whose daughter went to his church – and all three of them ended up saved.

Dan invested.

Every one of you has someone like that in your life. It takes intentionality and effort. We’ve got to invest some time in people’s lives. Cold turkey evangelism works some of the time, but what works all of the time is when people find genuine love and concern.

Think about it. What would happen if we began to invest in those relationships that we already have? The ones that are positive and uplifting? If we started to really pay attention to the people where we live, shop, play, and eat?

When was the last time you invited someone to church? When was the last time you sat down with someone that doesn’t go to church and had a coffee and mentioned God? Do you even know anyone who doesn’t go to church? I mean, some of you actually start to sweat when I start to talk about this.

We have to show people that they matter. We have to show people that we’re normal. We’re here building families, having babies, and overcoming struggles by the grace of God. They need to see this stuff. Because they think we’re weird. Seriously. Most people out there in the world think that we’re nuts. They think we don’t have any answers. There is one quack out there at their school, or at their job, or in their family. Somebody that’s crazy, that doesn’t honor God, or love people and that’s the only example they’ve seen. The world needs to see Jesus.

The woman at the well knew this. After she talked to Jesus, she went back to the city and told the men to come see the man who told her everything she ever did. She told the guys and they headed to see Jesus. At the same time, the disciples were talking to Jesus. He told the disciples to lift up their eyes and look because the harvest was white right now. He wanted them to stop waiting. Right then, a flood of men were coming out of the city with white turbans on their heads. They were coming to see Jesus. They were the harvest.

But they were Samaritans – they didn’t get along with the Jews. The disciples saw them as problems just like Dan saw those kids on Merritt Island. See, we can’t see our harvest half of the time. That’s why Jesus said lift up your eyes.

Don’t live that way. Lift up your eyes.

Who is your overlooked, underappreciated, hurting, rejected person? Invest and invite.

Doug Kirk

Chaplain

MCEA, HoM,VN.I corps Marines,Allmilitary,AllMarinecorps

[TazMatt]

Doug once again my friend you have posted an inspiring message.May the Good Lord continue to watch over you and your family and may you continue to be a light unto the world.Semper Fi my Brother.

[hbharrison]

Thankyou Doug, Thankyou and God Bless

[Mongoose]

Its always a pleasure Doug. Thanks for your words and devotion to other Marines. S/F

[Captain Kirk]

Thank God for his Great Comission!

[Sgt Jim]

Amen.

[SGT DDS]

Time to anti up again and invest again, and again, and again, until all have heard the Gospel of the Good News of a Risen Savior once, before others get to hear it twice......

Good Job Chaplain Doug
SGT DDS "76-79" USMC
Child of the King "9-3-78"- "Eternity...."

[sdk87to91]

I got saved in Marine Corps Boot camp. No invitation rather a direction.
Choose Catholic service, Protestant service or more of the same we'd had all week.

No brainer there.
I thank God they sent us to Church. I believe that is one of the things that sets the Marine Corps above other organizations.

I understand boots dont have to go to church anymore if they dont want to. That is too bad.