
6 minute read
Embracing evangelism
I was that guy! You know, the parent who drops their child off at Sunday school and then heads home for the hour. With just enough time to stick the frying pan on for a nice cooked Sunday morning breakfast before going back to collect the little one from church.
That was me. Why? The combination of being made to go to church when I was younger and the loss of my father had left me angry with God. “If God is real and is meant to love me why would he allow this to happen to me?” This was the question that would regularly echo through my mind into my early 30s.
I didn’t doubt that God was real but because of the hurt I kept him at a safe distance, or so I thought. Dropping my daughter off at Sunday school soon became a problem though because she was enjoying it! Other children attended the first part of the service with their parents before leaving for Sunday school and I didn’t want my daughter to be left out. Her enthusiasm and my guilt at not participating with her finally meant we began to go to church as a family.

Ross Munro
That church was Carnmoney Presbyterian and from walking in as strangers we became like family. When we eventually left, I had become someone equipped and supported to step into God’s work full time. Their example of demonstrating Christianity in action, for which I am eternally grateful, has given me a vision for how I want to continue to evangelise to those around me and has shaped my outlook for my job at Lowe.
Lowe has a motto: “A church in the community and a community church”, which it seeks to fulfil through various ministries, aiming to bring the church to people wherever their starting point may be.
One of the ways we do this is through the purpose-built café area called ‘the hub’ which was developed to bless the parents who leave their children off to youth activities during the week. Parents can stay and avail of free coffee, WiFi and company, which gives us an opportunity to engage with people who otherwise wouldn’t attend a service. Along with a dedicated team of volunteers, part of my role is to feed into this ministry and to be part of the culture here where every member can see themselves as a witness. I love this part of my job as it reminds me of the place I started from; the challenge is to engage with those parents who come to the door but who aren’t ready to come through it.

There are of course those who aren’t coming to the church at all in any capacity and evangelism by definition is to spread the gospel by public proclamation and personal witness. I have found that the twists and turns of life and negative experiences of church have left many with little interest in religion or its organisations. They feel they can fill the Christ-shaped hole within them with material items or in the sense of community found in sporting organisations or nights out in the pub. Therefore, I aim to continue to build bridges between people and church and to show them the love of God and the relevance of him for their lives.
In line with our vision to reach the whole community for Christ, Lowe has used the Alpha course to introduce people to a better knowledge of the Christian faith. Those who come to Alpha do so through various pathways and it is often a follow-on from some of our other outreach programmes, such as our Christians Against Poverty (CAP) resources run from the church. I work hard to ensure more people are reached through personal and social media invitation. We put a great emphasis on prayer, hospitality and the equipping of our team, enabling them to answer those difficult questions around sin and suffering.

Another ministry I am involved in is the CAP resource Fresh Start. This has been operating through Lowe with great success and as South Belfast Presbytery had already agreed to fund this, I serve in this ministry with a presbytery-wide perspective. Our CAP boundary takes in most of south Belfast and stretches into west Belfast, so we see all sides of our community using this resource. Fresh Start is an eight-week course for people struggling with a life controlling habit or dependency. This course has been such a blessing, not only personally, but also for the church as a whole, even though many of the situations have been challenging, heartbreaking and shocking. Many clients are caught up in difficult circumstances, tangled in lies, deep into drugs or gripped in a struggle with alcohol. The triple alliance of evil, the world and the flesh suffocate the life out of people and families.

Then God just steps in; he just steps into the darkness, into the mess and calms the storm. Many course participants have become regulars within our church. Once they were captive in the kingdom of darkness and now they walk in God’s glorious light. As you can imagine, a lot of pastoral care is needed with these clients, but it’s wonderful to see the transformation in their lives. Many of our clients’ walks with God resemble a roller coaster ride, yet one recently shared, “I felt I was a nobody but now know I have a daddy and I’m loved.”
For many, especially those with addictions, walking into a church can feel as though there is a sense of being judged, perhaps the mere thought of it makes them uneasy. To point those people to Jesus is our ultimate goal, but to achieve this goal we must reveal to them the outworking of our faith, the outworking of God’s love. We must earn the right to tell them the gospel.

Building rapport with people and sharing with them is also something we do in the areas surrounding our church, when we take God’s love to the streets. This door-to-door approach may be what some of you would associate with oldschool evangelism, but we have been well received in our local area. We ask people two questions which allow us to listen first, followed by an invitation of prayer and an explanation of the gospel message. I want the people living near our church to feel the benefit of its presence and for it to be a blessing to their lives and a beacon of light in their street.
As well as reaching beyond the church, I also work within our own congregation to help them be more evangelistic in their thinking. My appointment has allowed Lowe to bridge other gaps that had been identified, such as a men’s group, which is a chance for members to meet in a less formal gathering. This is the perfect opportunity to invite friends along who, for whatever reason, aren’t comfortable with the traditional concept they have of church on a Sunday morning. This meeting continues to fulfil our church’s value of every member ministering through faith and it embodies the concept of us all being salt and light within the church and into the community.
To answer my own question at the beginning of this piece, “If God is real and is meant to love me, why would he allow this to happen to me?”
For me, I found my answer in the local church; I witnessed it in people’s damaged lives being lived out as faithful followers of Jesus. People need to see Christianity in action, being lived out faithfully through the local church. If our evangelism is full of grace and truth, as Jesus modelled it ( John 1:14), people will see our churches for what they really should be: a shelter for the damaged in our society, a refuge for the wounded and a launch pad for the healed.