Does kindness have a power?

You may think that today’s blog title is a little unusual. Well, I hope that you will get what I mean in a moment. The whole point of these short blogs is to both challenge and motivate believers to obey the commands of Jesus. A fundamental scripture says: "If you love me, you will obey what I command” John 14: 15. My hope is that you will feel motivated to step out in faith, believing that God will back you up. You will be amazed at what will happen when you do.

 

 

Gospel One To One is built around a very important scripture. Our soon to be launched website makes it very clear. “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation” Mark 15: 16. The all important word being “Go”, or as I heard one preacher say many years ago using old fashioned language when He shouted from the pulpit “Go Ye”.

 

 

Something I have discovered over recent years is that acts of kindness very often open the doors to people’s hearts for the Gospel. My wife and I recently met a young pastor from Tennessee that had rapidly grown his church from 60 to 1600. The great thing was that the increased numbers attending was predominately new souls, and was not from transferred growth from other fellowships in the area. In my experience, growth like that doesn’t happen by accident. It is clear that something had taken place that was significant. I wondered what had in fact taken place. Had the Holy Spirit been poured out in power on the church? Or had a revival started in the town. Whatever had been going on, I certainly felt that I wanted to find out about it.

This young man had challenged his church to do exactly what the scripture says, to “go” into the community and in effect minister to people through the method of service or servant evangelism. The teams did many things including, mowing lawns, filling cars up with petrol as well as giving motorists $10 towards the cost of it. Packing and carrying shopping from supermarkets, cutting hair in old people’s homes.  Some even paid for groceries at the checkouts for single parent families. All of this had a dramatic effect on the area. People were asking questions like, “Why do you want to mow my lawn”. Many were astonished as teams knocked doors explaining that they were from the local church and were helping people locally. These acts of kindness meant that people asked questions about the church which in turn led to many conversations about the Lord. The important point is that 49 people came to Christ and were added to the work in one week. It was all done because they had simply obeyed Jesus command to “Go”.

Small things done with great love will impact both people and communities.

Showing the love of God in simple and practical ways is extremely effective. Servant evangelism does something that is very different, as it actually opens the heart before it confronts the mind. A small act of kindness pushes a person towards God, very often in a profound way because it breaks down a person’s normal self defence barriers.

When a Christ-follower is willing to hand a stranger a refreshing cold drink on a hot day, or gives a hot dog to someone on the street the typical reaction is. "Oh, thank you!" "You are very kind!" "I can't believe this is for free. Tell me why are you doing this?"

Kindness does something special because it very quickly builds a bridge for the person to receive a touch of love from God. It's very simple, extremely practical, proven in its effectiveness, and importantly in today’s economic climate, inexpensive.

Sometimes we need to stop trying to get our communities into our church, and take our churches into the community.

As we reach out to people in our areas we need to become ‘plate spinners’. You know, like the people who amaze us by spinning great numbers of plates on those wobbly sticks. They move quickly back and forth building up a massive display. If churches tried spinning more ‘evangelistic plates’ it is likely that more people will talk to us about the Lord as we change, add to and modify our approach. I know of some churches that use just a small number of methods to reach their communities, and there is nothing wrong with that. My point is, to keep on with those activities, but also try using different ideas if they are able to. One definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing expecting the results to improve.

My questions are; what do you think would happen if a team from your locality did service evangelism in your area for a week, or perhaps for a few Saturdays? Through acts of kindness how many people would consider coming to an Alpha type course, or come to a coffee morning? Or dare I say it, yes, come to church or an outreach event and hear the Gospel being preached.

Our motive must always be one thing, and that is love. “I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward” Mark 9:41.

Most Sunday morning sermons are usually forgotten by dinner time to be honest. But on the other hand, simple selfless acts of servanthood done with the love of Jesus will stay in people’s hearts and memories for years. The scripture that comes rapidly to mind is, “If you want to be great in God's Kingdom, then you must learn to be a servant to all here on earth” 1 Peter 5: 5. It says it all really. Let’s “Go” together.