A Moment With Pastor Fred

Our strategic plan emphasizes outreach. Part of the rationale for our series in Acts has been to remind us of our mission – not just globally but here in the greater Lansing area. Reach-ing out looks nice on paper but it’s time we flesh it out. One way will be an outreach event on Sunday night September 8. Our missions team has been very busy preparing for this event. Next week we’ll hear more about it in the service dur-ing Missions Moment.

We’re encouraging you to invite friends and/or family who don’t know Christ to this event. There will be food, games, music, etc. Lord willing we’ll host this event out on the Au-burn property. One of the purposes of this evening is to encourage contacts who would be willing to attend a Bible study called Christianity Explored to be conducted in the fall. About 10-12 years ago we invited Cliff Buttermore from Berean Baptist in Livonia to explain this evangelistic study. BBC had used it and saw a number of folks profess faith. It is a study based on the Gospel of Mark – again, with an evangelistic emphasis. There’s a video and a time of discus-sion. The series lasts 7 weeks. It is recommended we host this on Tuesday nights. In times past we’ve had ladies and men’s Bible studies on this night – but for the sake of out-reach this fall we’re setting those aside.

You need to begin to pray about September 8 and begin thinking about who you can invite. We’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating. You don’t have to sacrifice going deep with God with reaching out for Christ. We believe in global missions – and we invest in it heavily (and we should). And yet missions involves reaching out in our backyard as well.