A few days ago Steph and I were watching our favorite series of missions videos called Dispatches From the Front when something really caught my attention. The host Tim Keesee was traveling around the country of Albania looking at how the gospel is advancing in a big way – praise God! He mentioned how one of the pastors used a simple strategy to reach people for Christ. Here’s how it goes:

1. Pray
2. Meet people
3. Tell them about Jesus

As I pondered this, I was struck by the simplicity of it all. Pastors and church leaders today are bombarded by “how-to” methods and strategies to plant churches, evangelize, disciple, and grow existing churches. We have more books and more information on how to “do church” than ever before, but most would agree that the church is weak and anemic and in need of revival.

A few questions come to mind: Are we complicating the biblical mandate to go and reach the lost, preaching the gospel of grace? Are we relying more on strategies and fads than trusting the power of prayer? Have we shied way from developing new relationships with people and fostering already existing friendships? And have we become tongue-tied when it comes to telling people the glorious gospel of Christ? I fear the answer to these questions is probably “yes” for most of us including myself.

I trust this will give us all a little food for thought. “Knowing Christ” (Philippians 3:8) is far and away the greatest thing in the world and we are not meant to keep the good news to ourselves. May we be like the two blind men Jesus healed in Matthew 9:31: “They went away and spread his fame through all that district.”  Amen!