With prayer and planning a church can get a good number of people to hear the gospel
From June 23-30, Cowplain Evangelical Church in Hampshire held a week of mission.
Over 1,500 guests came along to listen to the stories of faith of well known people and to hear the gospel powerfully presented by Roger Carswell. The week was entitled ‘Real Lives’.
It began on Sunday evening with Paul Jones (ex-Manfred Mann lead vocalist) and his wife Fiona Hendley. They told their story of how they moved from atheism to finding Christ, all through the witness and invitation to hear Luis Palau.
On Monday Fiona Castle spoke powerfully about how God helped her through the loss of her husband Roy. Many found this very moving. Tuesday saw Henry Olonga, the Zimbabwean cricketer, come and tell of how he had to flee Zimbabwe after making a stand against Prime Minister Mugabe by wearing a black armband at a major cricket match in which he was playing as part of the national team. Wednesday’s interviewee was a ‘local’! Linvoy Primus, the ex-Portsmouth footballer (Portsmouth FC being the ‘local’ team in Cowplain), told of how living life in the top flight of football with all that it entails wasn’t enough. Suffering from lack of self-confidence he went searching for more. He eventually came to see that he needed Jesus.
Terrorism, stardom and comedy
On Thursday evening people listened intently as John Mosey spoke of how he lost his daughter Helga in the Lockerbie disaster. It was both powerful and moving to listen to how he has dealt with the loss, as well as some of the ways he has been fighting to have the truth uncovered.
Friday took the audience back to the 1990s as Yazz, the singer songwriter, came and talked about how fame as a pop star (she sang the song ‘The only way is up’) is not what people think it is. She told of how her quite hedonistic lifestyle was really masking her longing for something else. After looking to many different religions, she found Jesus by bumping into an old friend who had recently become a Christian. Through her friend’s changed life, Yazz was led to make a commitment to Jesus. Yazz also shared in a Special Sunday guest service. Saturday finished with a flourish! Cannon and Ball were excellent. Through much laughter and comedy, they went on to share their faith stories. Many commented on how much they were challenged by what they heard that evening.
Each evening was split, with some excellent food offered free during the interval, followed by Roger Carswell preaching a gospel message. Roger is an exceptional and gifted evangelist and communicator. Each evening he powerfully explained the gospel, challenging people to accept Jesus. God was certainly at work as you could hear a pin drop as people listened to what Roger was saying. Afterwards an appeal was made and we had a number of people respond. We also believe there will be others in the following weeks. Phil Brown, pastor of Cowplain Evangelical Church, said that there are several things to learn about how to run an outreach like this. Here are his points.
1. Prepare well
A mission like this takes months of planning. Over the years, as a church, we have done a number of events and more low-key weeks of outreach in connecting the church to the community. All this helped, as people in our community know what type of church we are and what type of quality events are run.
2. Train in personal outreach
In the lead-up to the mission Roger Carswell came to do a weekend of training, as well as giving the church the opportunity of hearing him. This helped the church and built confidence in evangelism and the mission week. We also had all our small groups study the Passion for life DVD course on personal evangelism.
3. Use lots of publicity
We had thousands of flyers printed which were distributed in local schools and the town, and delivered to houses by church people. We also had articles in the local newspaper and an interview on local BBC radio. We had posters up in all the major areas where people go.
4. Have the right guests
All the people we invited to give their faith story had a good and interesting story to tell. It was the hook to get people to come and gave our church people confidence to invite their non-Christian friends along. Having Roger Carswell bringing a gospel talk was key. We were very clear on our advertising that people were coming to hear how someone’s life had been changed by the gospel and then hear a message about how they can experience it too. Instead of that putting people off, we found that the numbers attending grew as the week went on.
5. Teamwork is crucial
It was great to see how many of our church people got involved. There was a wonderful sense of teamwork and camaraderie and deeper friendships as people worked together. It was hard but rewarding work. We also encouraged many other churches to join in with the mission week. This was great as smaller churches, who couldn’t put on a mission like this, were able to come and be a part of it. Many commented on how much they appreciated being included.
6. Follow-up is essential
There is a danger in running a week like this that all the effort goes into the week and that the follow-up isn’t thought through or is a last-minute thing. Follow-up is just as important as the actual week. There were a number of things we did during and after the week.
First, we asked people to fill in a connection card and as a thank you for doing that we gave them a free Christian book. That was important as we were able to mail them that week thanking them for coming and invite them to other things.
Second, we invited people to the next events. They were: the special Sunday guest service, a new message series looking at who Jesus is on the following Sunday, or Christianity Explored.
Third, we decided to run Christianity Explored and plug it hard during and after the week. We now have a good number of people coming to the course as well as now coming to church.
Fourth, we realised that it is very important to keep in touch with people via address, emails and personal contact.
7. Pray hard and expectantly
It goes without saying that prayer is crucial to a week of mission. We encouraged our church people to be much in prayer for the week through special prayer meetings, prayer cards, prayer teams, praying regularly for the mission in the Sunday services and small groups. We encouraged people to pray and expect God to answer our prayers. This built a level of expectation and deeper trust in the God who works.
8. Expect results
We live in a time where it’s hard to see results from mission. There is a danger that we can lose sight of the fact that God does save and change lives. Therefore it’s important to go into a mission week with the expectation that God is going to work. This challenges us to have faith.
What we found is that over the week, our people grew in confidence in the gospel. We have no doubt that they believe the gospel and that it is the power to save people. But as they saw lives being changed, it gave them a renewed confidence and energy for the gospel. We now have a church that expects to see life change every week as the gospel and Bible teaching goes out. And that brings glory to God.
