What sort of outreach ministries should a church have?

However, every Assembly should have a stated Gospel Meeting and Sunday School for the work of evangelization of young and old. We firmly believe that the Scriptures would teach us that every Assembly should be a thoroughly evangelistic Assembly, warm hearted in the Gospel and energetic in seeking to reach the unsaved with the word of life. Paul could write to the Thessalonian Assembly: "For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad" (I Thess. 1: 8). The Assembly should be a real base of supply from which the Gospel goes forth into a dark world and from which evangelists and workers launch out into the streets and highways with the glad tidings of salvation, encouraged by the refreshing fellowship and prayers of those in the Assembly.

A servant of the Lord much used in conversions was about to preach the Gospel. A band of young Christians, brothers and sisters, spent two or three hours from door to door, earnestly inviting the people to attend. What a link such might prove to be between a soul, blessed at the service, and the Lord.

There are some real opportunities right on your doorstep. The Lord has opened the door for mass migration into many richer, nominally Christian countries. Many immigrants know precious little of the host language: the need for so many is to learn English – could you not start a free class in the meeting room? Use for example Luke’s gospel as a base textbook to start with … and with a little kindness your efforts will soon be rewarded. Invite the students to the meeting, invite them home for a meal. Perhaps there are single parent families in the area – could not a work with the children bring contacts and souls for your hire? Perhaps you have a room or two to spare, could these be made available for some energetic and faithful younger brothers and sisters to stay for a week or two in order to engage in street evangelism – tract distribution among the neighbourhood or in the town centre: 60,000 homes can be reached within 6 weeks of steady work by a team of ten. The scope and possibilities are endless. But who will go, who will give their spare time and resources for this good work? Will you give up a gap year to serve the Lord?

If they make a practice of giving out gospel tracts, or of speaking to others of Christ when an occasion arises, this may lead to an opportunity of having a Bible study in a home along gospel lines, with people who may have never before had a real knowledge of the gospel of grace. Then if the Lord should give the deep joy of leading someone to Himself, this may work in giving a better understanding of the need of such people after they are saved.

"And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by the river-side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake to the women which resorted thither." They had not much light, but they were anxious clearly, to get the gospel, and God's messengers very wisely sat down, and spake to the women. I sometimes say, I think the gospel got into Europe in the character of an after-meeting. I mean, in what should be the character of an after-meeting. There was no preaching. I do not find that either Paul, or Luke, or Silas preached. They "sat down and spake to the women." Do you know, if you Christian young men were to go in a little more for that conversational evangelising, you would be amazed at what would be the outcome. I was talking to a young man coming to the meeting tonight. He has only been converted six weeks, and he said to me, "Doctor, I think we who are turned to the Lord, ought to be showing our light" "Yes, certainly," I replied. "And do you not think we should try to turn others about?" "Most surely," I answered. "Well," he said, "it strikes me that Christians do not do that very much." I replied: "You are quite right. We should bear testimony to other people, but I am afraid we are too much inclined to relegate our testimony to other people, — people called preachers, — and think that it is their duty alone to do so." But that is not so; if you know Christ and love Him, you will tell anybody you know about Him. That is the way to spread the gospel, and it is wonderful how it will spread.

Through the mercy of God, you and I are not bound to anyone with a coupling-chain, but we are daily brought into contact with many. We go to school, or to the shop, or office, we do our shopping, the baker calls or the postman: I wonder is it manifest to each that we belong to Christ? Are these daily contacts for the furtherance of the Glad Tidings? Were Paul in our place, they surely would be. God may use even a child for this work. I recall a boy of 12 or 14 who was used to lead a man to Christ, by giving him a tract each time he left his films to be developed: at first the man laughed at him, but he told me himself, that child was really the means of winning him to Christ: and after he was won, he used to open his shop in the evenings for Gospel meetings, and who knows how many others were won?

But some one will say, probably, 'What can I do? I cannot preach. I do not feel qualified for the work.' Perhaps not. Still there is much work to be done besides preaching the gospel. We can seek to bring our friends and neighbours to the gospel services, for instance, so that they may hear the words of life. It would be well also if we cultivated a more implicit faith in the power of the word alone to reach the hearts of sinners. Again, a tract may be given by the way, or a word spoken to some weary heart, which may result in eternal blessing for the soul, and bring glory to the name of the Lord Jesus. Thus every Christian may be used in some way, if not in the same way, in proclaiming the message of salvation to all, through Christ.

It is not for us to say when and how our brethren should carry this message to the thirsty whosoevers, but we know no better time than from 6:00 to 8:00 on a Sunday evening. At this time will be found in the crowded residential parts of the towns and villages thousands who never enter a building to hear the Word, and who would not even go to the market-place to hear it. Tired and disappointed women whose lives are a drudgery, and who have no hope for the future. We have seen them at this hour sit at their open doors or windows listening eagerly to the rest-giving message of the Saviour's care for them. And we feel sure that more can be reached in an hour in this way, than in a year by the ordinary method of indoor preaching.

What boundless opportunities there are for the young believer today, whether in preaching the Gospel, in ministry to the saints, for gathering children under the sound of the Word, for visiting the needy, for tract distribution. Not only are there vast districts abroad not yet evangelised, but at our very doors there are multitudes unevangelised. We are told that hardly ten per cent of the population attend any place of worship, so what must be the spiritual condition of the remaining ninety per cent? Moreover, when we read our Bibles we cannot but be struck by how often God used a young man in His work. In the Old Testament, Joseph, David, Daniel, come at once to our mind. In the New Testament the men called to be His apostles were evidently young. In our own time too the same thing has been seen.

To what then must be attributed such impressions as those of Mr. T. and many more? To two causes particularly: the narrowness of those outside, who, because of the earnest pressure of the divine word as a whole on all saints, inferred indifference to perishing sinners; and, again, the still more culpable onesidedness of individuals within, who really were and are under the error of slighting evangelistic zeal, and of restricting themselves, and all subject to their influence, to the testimony of Christian and ecclesiastical truth. Now it is not and never was possible to hinder such aberrations; and wise men in our midst have not only reproved shallow and mischievous pettiness of this kind, but felt, spoken, written, and laboured with all largeness of heart as well in the gospel as in the church. I do not doubt, however, that (whether in the English establishment or in dissent) evangelical preoccupation with the work of awakening souls is the most fertile source of this reproach; for it is jealous of any advance in scriptural intelligence beyond the barest elements. Even a full gospel is apt to be regarded with suspicion by such as think it the sole worthy aim to arrest the godless and win the careless to Christ. Many years ago I remember hearing of a little meeting in a small town in Wilts, where were about a dozen brothers, all of whom used, after the Lord's supper on each Lord's day, to disperse themselves over the neighbouring villages, freely and earnestly preaching the glad tidings; yet even there and then people used to say, Brethren never preach the gospel to the unconverted! Could infatuation be more complete? Is it of any use to reason with minds closed to the force of facts so patent?