Lighting Up Our City Video 1: Relational EvangelismSample

Recently, I saw a video that made me really stop and think. I don’t know where it was filmed, but it had a profound effect on how I think about what it looks like to lead people to Jesus. Here’s the thing… too often, I think evangelism is about my words. Oh, my. So much is action, isn’t it?

In this video, a pastor was talking about the benches they had placed outside their church doors under a large porch area. Mostly, they were there for decoration. Very quickly, their security cameras picked up something happening every night. Men who had nowhere else to go would curl up on those benches each night to sleep in a place of relative safety away from the weather.

When church leaders saw these men on the security cameras, they went straight to the church to do something about it. But what they did isn’t what you think. They opened up the church doors, invited the men inside, and had breakfast with them. Every time they saw someone on their cameras, men from the church would show up and serve their visitors. Additional video shows them eating meals together, laughing and talking, and simply enjoying each other’s company.

It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. The men at that church didn’t storm up to “protect” what was “theirs.” They didn’t walk up, sit down on a bench, and start preaching. They looked at other men who had nowhere else to go and said, “How can I help you?”

Isn’t that the love of Christ? Shouldn’t it be this way? Ultimately, even if the men of that church never said a word, don’t you think their visitors walked away knowing a new kind of love, craving that new kind of love?

This is exactly how Jesus would have loved. I challenge us all to look around us and to see who we can serve today. How can you reach out and meet the needs of someone who might be overlooked? How can you love them with the love of Jesus?

By Jodie Bailey