The question that could change someone's life in church

Have you ever spent ages looking for a bunch of keys that were in your pocket all along? Or frantically searched for a pair of glasses that were actually on your face?

I wonder if we do that with our evangelism sometimes. It’s absolutely right for us to be looking everywhere we go in life for chances to offer someone the good news of Jesus: Paul tells us, 'Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.' But how often do we miss a wonderful opportunity that’s sitting right beside us on a Sunday morning?

Are you sitting next to a Christian?

It’s easy to assume that if someone's in church, they’re a Christian. But obviously that’s not always true! God can draw people to church in all sorts of ways. My parent’s church recently had the joy of baptising a young woman about a year after she turned up out of the blue with her new baby, saying she wanted him to grow up with better values than she’d done. Maybe that person you’ve not seen before has just been listening to Jordan Peterson or Tom Holland, and is hungry for a sense of depth and meaning. Perhaps they were intrigued by a street evangelist, blessed by a foodbank, or just drawn in by the sound of your singing. Or - especially in the next month - they might be a student, and whether they’re trying church for the first time or they’ve been every Sunday since the womb, you can never be sure where they are with Christ. People could walk through the door of your church for all sorts of reasons.