By: Pastor Matt
Last week I announced that I will be starting a 6-week devotional series on how it is we can live missionally (that is on mission with God in his world to save those who are not yet Christians).
To Review
Living missionally is not the same thing as evangelizing.
To live missionally is the pre-work of evangelism. It’s living a life with specific rhythms that put you into genuine relationships with people who you will be able to evangelize with.
Evangelism is the specific work of sharing 1) the fallen state of humanity, 2) everyone’s need for a savior, 3) how Jesus’ death and resurrection secures our salvation IF we trust in him, 4) inviting them to repent of their sin and trust in Jesus.
Evangelism is not getting a response. This is good news for us as God is the only one who can cause the heart of someone to change and respond in faith.
But our work is to 1) live in such a way that we develop relationships with others who don’t know Jesus, and 2) evangelizing with them.
Missional living is part 1.
Over the course of this series, we’ll be looking at an acrostic that Michael Frost (his book is Surprise the World, Navpress 2016. We are not summarizing his book here, simply using the acrostic as a framework) came up with called B.E.L.L.S.
Today, we’ll take a brief look at the B in BELLS, which is Bless, and see how developing this regular rhythm in our lives helps us live missionally.
But First A Story
A large group of European pastors came to one of D. L. Moody’s (a famous evangelist and pastor) Northfield Bible Conferences in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. Following the European custom of the time, each guest put his shoes outside his room to be cleaned by the hall servants overnight. But of course this was America and there were no hall servants.
Walking the dormitory halls that night, Moody saw the shoes and determined not to embarrass his brothers. He mentioned the need to some ministerial students who were there, but met with only silence or pious excuses. Moody returned to the dorm, gathered up the shoes, and, alone in his room, the world’s only famous evangelist began to clean and polish the shoes. Only the unexpected arrival of a friend in the midst of the work revealed the secret.
When the foreign visitors opened their doors the next morning, their shoes were shined. They never know by whom. Moody told no one, but his friend told a few people, and during the rest of the conference, different men volunteered to shine the shoes in secret.
The reason why I share that story with you is to show you what it means to “Bless.”
D.L. Moody intentionally looked for ways he could bless his brothers at this conference, and upon finding a way to do so, followed through.
To “bless” someone in the context of missional living is to intentionally listen or to seek opportunities to serve them.
We can easily see this demonstrated by the Philippian church when they saw Paul’s need in his ministry.
“Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again.” – Phil. 4:14-16
The Philippians were intentionally looking for ways to bless Paul and to serve him. In Paul’s case this meant a financial gift to help him in the ministry God gave him.
What This Can Look Like
But thankfully, blessing our neighbors doesn’t always have to look like giving financially, however it could look that way.
I heard recently of one woman in our congregation who has been getting to know her neighbors. Upon hearing that her next-door neighbor had recently had a baby, and that another neighbor wasn’t going to have their regular caretaker present, proceeded to make dinner for a total of 12 people.
The result of that act of kindness was that her neighbors tangibly had an example of her love for them and that she really did care about them.
So food is always a great option, and thankfully, in the day of Corona Virus, if the food is cooked in an oven, you’ll be set.
Another great option is putting out chalk for kids in your neighborhood to draw on the sidewalk. Placing a sign that says, “Free Chalk! Draw a fun picture on the sidewalk!” can be an easy way to bless the kids in your neighborhood.
Furthermore, another thing you can do, is listen for important personal dates. Anniversaries (happy and sad), birthdays, graduations, etc. and write them a card on one or more of those occasions. Even writing a short card saying, “It was great to meet you the other day, here’s my contact information if you ever need anything,” is a great way to connect with others.
Lastly, an easy thing you could do in our COVID-19 world is to slip a note under your neighbors’ doors asking if they need anything. Provide your name and cell phone number.
What If I Don’t Know My Neighbors?
Now, what is hard for many of us is that we don’t have relationships with our neighbors where we are regularly interacting with them in such a way where we have ample opportunities to hear about different ways we can serve them or bless them.
So we’ll need to do some preliminary work to do that. And thankfully, you can bless them as you do!
To introduce yourself to your neighbors, you can simply make a small plate of cookies and leave them at the front door (in a zip lock back with a note, too).
It’s All About Relationships
Blessing our neighbors isn’t just about looking out for a way in which we can serve them or demonstrate kindness towards them. Blessing our neighbors is about opening a doorway for further genuine relationship. The Christian life and, in particular, living missionally, is all about living a life that is very open to, and prayerful for, developing relationships with others.
Remember, ordinarily, unless we have a real and authentic relationship with someone, they typically will be resistant to hearing the gospel message. Missional living is the way in which we are invited to speak into other’s lives by blessing them without strings attached.
Homework
So this week, what I’d like you to do is to bless three people – and at least one of those people has to be not associated with your church.
Begin first by thinking of the different rhythms of your life where you come into contact you’re your neighbors or rhythms where you can beginning coming into contact with your neighbors.
Then listen – listen for different ways you can tangibly bless your neighbors and listen to the Spirit through prayer for different ideas God might be illuminating to you.
Lastly, plan a date and set up a plan to follow through with your idea. Ideas are just that, ideas. They need a plan with a date if they are going to become real.
And then follow through on your plan. Pray to God that he would give you the follow through and commitment needed to do this. Faith is demonstrated in action, so let us be encouraged to live out our faith with actions this week!
See you all next week!