I Love the Gospel!

I love the Gospel!  I borrowed an idea from another Pastor friend about preaching the Gospel once a month and encouraging the church to invite family and friends to that special service.  We call that day “Discover Grace Sunday.”  Of course this is a play on words since our church name is Grace Baptist.  In no way do we believe that this specific outreach substitutes for the daily responsibility of the church to be disciple-making every where they are going.  Our schedule is generally to have the music and readings notably about God’s grace.  The message I preach is distinctively evangelistic and mostly defining and describing salvation by grace.  We then invite everyone to stay for a lunch after the service so we can get to know the visitors.  The lunch is also for fellowship of church members, but we make a special announcement that the lunch is honor of our guests and that we have prepared extra food for them.  The desire is for our members to intersperse themselves among the visitors and show them warmth and grace.  We also record the service that Sunday and put it on CDs for the church to hand out as an evangelistic tool. 

I have learned something about myself in light of these “Discover Grace Sundays;” I really love preaching the Gospel.  I determined from the beginning that the message would be evangelistic and gospel in nature regardless of who came. We have had Sunday’s when only our church members came and times when visitors have come.  But I just greatly enjoy preaching the story of Jesus Christ who was crucified, buried, rose again, and ascended to the Father where he intercedes for us.  I also believe that preaching the Gospel to Christians can have a greater effect on the church’s evangelism than preaching about the responsibility to evangelize.  The clear proclamation of the Gospel excites us and ignites us with a greater burden to proclaim the Gospel of Grace.  Glorying in and meditating on the Gospel of Jesus Christ causes us to naturally reach out with the Gospel.  I believe these “Discover Grace Sundays”  will have a profound effect on our church with our without visitors in attendance-and because of this, I love the Gospel!