Have you noticed? “Doing good” is in style. It may be called “paying it forward” or community service. Businesses encourage employees to do it. Fundraisers, marathons and events support worthy causes. “Good deeds” may be trending, but doing good in Jesus’ name is ongoing. For Christians, there’s nothing “random” about acts of kindness.
Christians are called to do good with a purpose: to point others to Jesus and ultimately to share him with those who don’t know him. “[W]e are Christ’s ambassadors…. God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’” (2 Corinthians 5:20 NLT).
Summertime is a great time for your church or small group to get missional with the intention of sharing Jesus. Try some of these fresh ideas:
- Add monthly, quarterly, or ongoing mission projects to your small group or Sunday School class. Our class “adopted” a low-income nursing home to send pen pal notes and do occasional hands-on projects.
- Add hands-on ministry to your women’s group meetings. We added an hour to the weekday classes and mission groups for ministry teams to serve our community. Attendance mushroomed.
- Plan a summer outreach project. (There’s still time!) For example, Olive Baptist in Pensacola, Fla., has a plan to knock on every door within a few blocks of the church to personally invite neighbors to worship.
So our “pay it forward” becomes “pay it upward” and our “random acts of kindness” are never random. They’re purposeful. A lost world outside our church doors needs to see and hear God’s plan for their lives. We must continually keep Christ as our goal in missions—for all people to know him and call him Lord.
Diana Davis is online at www.dianadavis.org. Her newest book, “Across the Street and Around the World” co-written with her daughter Autumn Wall (New Hope Publishers), is a resource for missions ideas for churches, small groups, and individuals.