Are you going to give one of those to everyone?

Okay, I admit it. Sometimes, we don't plan meals all that well, and we end up going out for fast food for dinner. Last night, I took the boys to McDonald's after the Upward Basketball Evaluations at our church. When we got to the first window to pay for our food, I handed one of our Christmas Eve service invitations to the cashier. I told her that I wanted to invite her to the Christmas Eve services at our church. She thanked me as I began to pull forward. When we got to the second window and waited on our food, my sons had two different reactions. One son wanted to be the one to hand the next invitation to the person giving us our food. My other son said, "Dad, are you going to give one of those to everyone?" How do you respond to such a question? I am not literally going to invite everyone that I meet to KCC for Christmas Eve. I mean that would be some of that old school "speak before listening" evangelism. I am all about listening to people's stories and building a relationship with them and not assuming that the next step is to invite to Church for a service. However, in those drive thru situations where I may not ever see the person again, yes, I want to be prepared to invite them to a service. So, I said, "Son, I don't plan to invite everyone, but I do plan to invite a lot of people." How about you? I heard a speaker say recently that evangelism is the act of inviting someone to the greatest party ever held. Maybe we can give a few folks a preview during our worship services.

In Christ,
Kyle

Gone for too long...

Okay, okay, I know (because several of you have told me) that I have not updated my blog lately. I'm sorry. I have enjoyed inviting many people to KCC for a variety of functions. I have enjoyed using the series invite cards provided in the seatback pockets of the Celebration Center. I have particularly been inviting people to the newly designed Saturday night service that we are calling Saturdays at Six. The invitation cards look cool, and I just keep them in my coat pocket wherever I go. I have given them to servers at restaurants, cashiers, etc. The interesting thing for me is that I have not had anyone refuse to take an invitation to church. I had one server at Bob Evans tell me that she works every Saturday and Sunday and Wednesday morning (I even tried an invitation to Oasis), but she still took an invitation. I invited the mailman that delivers mail to KCC. It turned out that he is already a Christian and attends another church in town, but he still took an invitation card because he knew he might encounter someone that lived nearby KCC that might be interested in attending.

At the same time that I have been taking this journey, I led a group of men through an evangelism study called Share Jesus Without Fear by Bill Fay. During this study, these men learned some specific approaches to engaging people in spiritual conversations. This has been a good journey because these men are stepping out of their comfort zones and being intentional about talking to folks about Christ. I am hoping that the growing enthusiasm about intentional evangelistic conversations continues to spread throughout KCC. Good night.

My Day Off

Friday is my day off. Today, it began with a Donuts with Dad session at my son's school. Remember the woman that I ran into at Walgreens the other day? Well, today, I ran into her husband at Donuts with Dad. When I saw him, we exchanged greetings. Then I asked him if his wife told him that I want to see them soon at KCC. He was aware of our conversation. I reminded him that he is always invited. He seemed appreciative of my invitation. After leaving the school, I headed out to run a bunch of errands in my attempts to complete the "honey-do" list for my day off. One of my stops was at a company that shreds documents in bulk. The owner of the company happened to be the only person there today. Through our conversation, I asked him if he had ever approached our church about offering shredder services. He was not familiar with the church. We exchanged contact information, and I directed him to the appropriate person to contact on our staff. Before leaving though, I told him that he should come and visit our services at some point. Who knows if he will or not, but at least he has been invited to attend. After leaving the shredder location, I stopped at a gas station to fill up my car. While filling up, a car pulled in, and I recognized the driver as the cable guy from one of my earlier posts. He didn't remember right away where he knew me from, but when I greeted him by name and reminded him of my name, he immediately remembered. He offered some reasons why he had not yet been to church, but he said that he plans to come this weekend. I am hopeful that I will see him because it sounds like God has placed some encouraging folks in his life. Running into him reminded me that when we are intentional about reaching out to people through invitations and prayer, we are planting seeds that might not produce fruit until much later. We can provide one of what might be many touches that God uses to reach a person. I enjoyed my day off, and I enjoyed continuing the journey of inviting people to learn more about Christ.

In Christ,
Kyle

Trying to set a good example

If anyone should know about the dangers of pride, it should be me, a pastor. However, I did have a moment today when I felt a little bit prideful. Don't worry, I quickly repented. Here is what happened. I walked into Walgreen's to pick up a prescription for my youngest son who had two teeth pulled today. As I walked down the aisle with the ibuprofen and other stuff on the way to the pharmacy, I recognized a guy that I have seen before during some of our neighborhood outreach activities in one of the surrounding neighborhoods of our church. I said, "hey, didn't I meet you on Christie Street." You have to know that this guy is rough around the edges. His response was, "Who are you?" I told him my name, and then he remembered. We carried on a conversation. During our whole conversation, there was another gentleman in the aisle looking at some medication and kind of glancing our way every now and then. I continued my conversation with the guy. I asked him about his family, his life, etc. As he responded, he dropped some profanity every few words. He is one of those guys that couldn't care less that I am a pastor. He is going to say what he wants to say no matter who is around. We kept talking and eventually I asked him, "When are we going to see you over at the church?" He said, "Aww, I came to see you one day and they told me that you were in a meeting or something. I waited for over an hour, and then I left." I told him that I felt bad that he had to wait so long. I told him, "you know we want to see you come to one of the weekend services one day, Sunday mornings at 9:20 and 11:00 in the morning." He didn't commit one way or the other, and we parted ways. I passed by the gentleman that had been glancing our way and headed to the pharmacy counter. After paying for my items, I exited the store. In the parking lot, the gentleman that had been listening to our conversation said, "Hey, pastor, I enjoyed your sermon on Sunday. It was a good message..." Now, if you're reading this, you might think that this is the point that pride crept in, but it wasn't. I appreciated the encouragement, and was thankful that the Lord gave me the words to say during the sermon. The pride crept in a bit when I thought about the fact that a KCC congregant saw me, the Outreach Pastor, modeling extending an invitation to someone in the community. Like I said, I quickly repented. However, I do long for the day when every KCCer would feel the boldness and the courage to invite people like crazy. I hope that as I am out inviting people to KCC activities, there will be some timid KCCers that get greatly encouraged by my example. I hope for this not for my glory but so that many more people can be exposed to the truth of Christ through the ministries of KCC.

In Christ,
Kyle

Invitations Anywhere

Thanks to those of you that encourage me to update my blog. I appreciate your enthusiasm about this journey that I am on. I am finding that an invitation to church can be extended anytime, anywhere. I ran into one of my neighbors at Walgreens. We exchanged conversation and talked about the fact that she had just returned from her son's football game. I knew that she and her husband had been married earlier this year in a church, but I was also pretty sure that they were not regularly attending a church. I said, hey, have you two started going to a church yet? She said that they had not yet begun attending anywhere. I told her, you know, you are always welcome to visit KCC. She told me that they had been talking about it, but they had not yet made it a priority. It was as simple as that. She paid for her stuff. Then, I paid for mine. I will see her again in the neighborhood, but I am hoping I will see her sooner during the weekend services at KCC. I hope this encourages you that it is not hard to extend an invitation to church.

In Christ,
Kyle

Knock, knock....Cable Guy

Yesterday, I was sitting at the kitchen table helping my sons with their homework. My youngest son noticed someone walking up the walkway. Then we heard a knock at the door. When I answer the door for a stranger that I know might be trying to sell me something, I tend to step all the way outside. It creates less of a hassle trying to hold back my 85 pound black lab. So, I step out on the porch to meet the cable guy from AT&T. He wants to know if I have seen their trucks in the area because they are making some upgrades. He is also curious if we have cable and who we use for land line and internet services. I let him know that we don't have cable and we already use AT&T for phone and internet. So, before he left, I said, "So, how long have you been doing this?" He told me that he had been working at it for about a week. I asked him if he was from Grand Rapids. He told me that he was originally from Saginaw. I asked him if he lived in the community. It turns out that he lives in the apartments located right near our church. I told him that I was one of the pastors at the church near his apartment and that he should come and visit. He mentioned that he was just at our church this week seeking some financial assistance because he has received an eviction notice, his lights are out, and his car is broken down. However, he said that I was the third person that told him to come and visit KCC. He claimed to have a strong faith in God but was just not attending church regularly. I offered to pray with him, and I just asked God to bless him in a variety of ways and to give him a hunger to draw closer to God. He appreciated my prayers and said that he will likely visit KCC next weekend. When I went back inside, the boys asked me if I knew the guy or if I just met him. When I told them that I had just met him, they asked me why I prayed for him. I told them a few things about his situation. They didn't fully understand what it meant to have your lights turned out, but it was still a good teaching moment. Keep on inviting. That's where God is leading me.

In Christ,
Kyle

My inviting has not been as lax as my writing...

Well, I did not give up on my blog or my new spiritual discipline. However, I did take some time off from writing. A friend of mine told me to go ahead and post something. She said that she enjoyed reading my blog recommended that I use shorter posts so that it would not feel so overwhelming to maintain it. I have had some interesting conversations in the past few weeks. From a unique individual in a nearby park to a neighbor child that just stopped over for dinner to a former gang member and drug dealer that walked into the church and wanted to speak with a pastor, I have enjoyed the folks that God has brought across my path. By the way, did I mention that the former gang member accepted Christ. What a blessing!! Now, we just need to get him plugged into some sort of a discipleship path. Guess what...that is it for now. I should probably get some sleep. More to come later.

Kyle

A Nearby Mission Field

Okay, maybe I am not as smart as I thought I was. For the two years that I have worked at Kentwood Community Church, I have seen lots of community service workers come and go. However, until engaging in this new spiritual discipline of extending daily invitations (see earlier post), I had not been intentional about pursuing meaningful spiritual conversations with these folks. Well, this evening, I met a 28 year old gentleman who is doing 24 hours of community service at our church. I was at the church at 8:00 PM because I had to teach a class on baptism. When I met this gentleman, honestly, I was thinking, "well, I haven't invited anyone to KCC yet today, so I should see if he has a church home." Do you see what I am saying? With any spiritual discipline, it is easy to begin to do things out of a sense of duty rather than out of a passionate pursuit of God. Well, this conversation was a good one. I asked the gentleman, "so, do you have a church that you call home?" He replied, "No." Then he said, "Well, I guess I should say, not anymore." I asked him where he used to attend and what caused him to leave. He told me the name of the church and said that he left 5 years ago because he felt like he was being brainwashed. He had been involved in one of those denominations that claimed it was the only true church and everyone else was wrong. I invited him to come and check out KCC, and I also invited him to the Alpha Course that starts this Thursday at KCC. The subject changed a bit because we began to joke around with our facilities person about whether he should do community service on Thursday night or participate in Alpha on Thursday night where he can get food and some good teaching. I told him that I hoped that I would see him either during a weekend service or at Alpha on Thursday, and I left the building. As I walked towards the car, the gentleman came out a few feet behind me. He was heading to his car to get a cigarette. In light of my earlier post regarding "opportunities", I decided to take the conversation further. I asked him a simple question. I said, "In all of your years attending church, did the topic of having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ ever come up?" He said, "no, not really." I said, "So, when I use that language about a personal relationship with Christ, does that make you want to say to me, what in the world are you talking about?" He said, "yes". I said, "Well, do you have any spiritual beliefs?" He said, "No, but I'm not an atheist. It would probably be easier for me to tell you all of the things that I am not rather than try to describe my beliefs." I said, "Well, to you, who is Jesus?" He thought for a while and said, "Wow, that is a tough question." He said, "I am on my way to get a cigarette, we can keep talking if you want to walk with me." Those of you who are familiar with the evangelist, Bill Fay, know that I was simply using Fay's five diagnostic questions. I needed to get home to my family though, so I did not have time to keep going with the rest of the questions. We talked for a few more minutes, and the conversation was very cool because he is searching. Anyway, I told him that I hope to see him on Thursday at Alpha, and maybe we could continue the conversation.

What did I learn today? There is a mission field right within the walls of our church building. I have always made the statement that it is difficult for me to find opportunities to interact with non-Christians because I work in a church with a bunch of Christians. God has been showing me over the past week that there is a mission field right here in KCC, and we need to be intentional about inviting the community service workers into Christ-centered community. I was also excited to walk through the door of a meaningful spiritual conversation with this gentleman instead of just stopping at the invitation to KCC. God is teaching me some cool things during this journey.

Tough Times

This evening, I had a conversation with a 19 year old gentleman that was at our church for what we call Good Neighbor Cafe. This is a gathering held every Monday evening where people from the community are invited to come and have a meal and experience some fellowship. This gentleman has found himself in a tough situation. He is supposed to be a sophomore in college, but over the summer he got arrested for drug possession, got behind on financial aid paperwork, spent some time in jail, and was unable to re-enroll for the Fall semester. Now, he is jobless, not in school, and essentially homeless. He has been staying with friends over the past few weeks, but he is wearing out his welcome. He asked me if there was any way that I could help him out with housing. I told him about two of the shelters that are in the city. He was not aware of those options, so I gave him some contact information. I asked him if he had ever made it to our weekend services. When he told me that he had not, I invited him to come and attend. He told me that he attends a church located in the city of Grand Rapids. My first response was to inquire why no one from his church was supporting him in his search for housing. It turns out the gentleman that he is staying with is a leader in his church. Before our conversation ended, I was able to pray with this gentleman regarding the current challenges that he is facing. He is going through some tough times, but with the help of the Lord, I believe that his life can get back on track.

In Christ,
Kyle

There's Always an Opportunity

Well, today, the Lord began to nudge me that maybe the invitation discipline is setting the bar too low. Hear me out, I am not saying that I am giving up my new spiritual discipline of inviting at least one person per day to Kentwood Community Church. However, I am discovering that as I have been more intentional about identifying people to invite to KCC, some of these people might be open to meaningful spiritual conversations. Let me give you an example. Today, I was at KCC because 23 people were participating in an Evangelism 101 training session. I was not facilitating the session, but I was there to support and encourage the facilitator and the participants. During the class, I left to go and refill a couple of water pitchers. As I walked the halls, I knew that either a bridal shower or baby shower was being held in one of the classrooms. I noticed that the party was wrapping up and a gentleman was hanging around in the hallway. On my way to get the water, I thought, hmmm...I wonder if the guy is the groom-to-be or the father-to-be. On the way back, I decided to talk to him. So, I approached him, found out his name, found out that the party was a bridal shower, and found out that the couple is being married at a church building in town that houses a non-Christ-centered congregation. I found out that he and his bride-to-be live out of state but were just in town this weekend for the bridal shower. Well, here was my dilemma. I knew that because they live out of state, an invitation to KCC would not have made sense. However, I wanted to know more about the spiritual beliefs of this man. So, I'm standing there with an evangelistic opportunity that I did not pursue because I felt like I needed to get back to an Evangelism Training class. Ha!!! How ironic. I wish that I could tell you that I stuck around and made the spiritual conversation a priority. But, I didn't. I went back to the class to help equip others to have these sorts of conversations. That's when I began to feel a bit of a conviction to go deeper than just extending invitations.

Later in the evening, after the class had ended, there were four community service workers working with our facilities person to tear down and clean up the classroom. After meeting one of the gentleman, I asked him if he had ever visited this church where he was doing community service. He has never been to KCC for a worship service. As I told him that he should come and check it out, I could tell that he was kind of shrugging his shoulders as if to say, "I'm really not into church. It is not a priority for me." I simply told him, "Hey, consider yourself invited. We would love to see you involved here in some other ways besides doing community service." He responded that he might come and visit the church. We were able to extend our conversation because my ten year old son was with me, and I asked the guy if he had any words of wisdom for my son. He said, "Yeah, stay in school, homie, and get involved in some sports or something." We were able to talk briefly about his crime, the number of hours that he has to do, and the sports that he used to play. I will admit though that once I extended the invitation to KCC, I wasn't paying as close attention to the open door for more meaningful spiritual conversation. Again, how ironic that I just completed a class designed to equip people to engage in meaningful spiritual conversations, yet I missed this open door for a meaningful spiritual conversation. I didn't want to cut into his community service time with a conversation because I didn't think that it would be fair to our facilities person or to the three other community service workers. Because this gentleman has to do 50 hours of community service, I am hopeful that I will see him again during this coming week and probe a bit more regarding his spiritual background. Please pray for more opportunities for me in the days to come.

What did I learn today? There are opportunities all around, and often if our antenna are up to search for opportunities to extend invitations, we can go deeper in the conversation if we pay attention. I pray that God will continue to give me and others many opportunities to share the good news of Christ with people who need to hear about him.

In Christ,
Kyle

The Journey Continues

Well, I started this blog earlier this week as I felt the Lord encouraging me to pursue a new spiritual discipline of inviting at least one person a day to Kentwood Community Church. It has been an interesting few days. Today, I performed a wedding ceremony, and at the reception, a woman basically invited herself to KCC before I could extend the invitation. The way that the conversation went was with me asking her if she attended church anywhere. She told me where she used to go but then how she stopped going. I affirmed many things about the church that she used to attend. Usually, at this stage of the conversation, I am just trying to encourage a person to get plugged back into church, even if it is not KCC, especially if it is a church that I trust. In this case, as I was affirming her old church, she said, "I should come visit your church. What are your service times." I said, "Well, you are certainly invited. We have services at 9:20 and 11 AM on Sunday and a Saturday night service at 6 PM." She is a co-worker with the bride who is a KCC attender. Hopefully, she will visit soon and get reconnected into Christian community.

By the way, thanks for all of your encouraging comments. I really appreciate your posts. I learned some obvious lessons this week since my last post. For example, on Thursday, I learned that it is pretty difficult to invite anyone to church if you are cooped up in the office all day. That day, I had an evening meeting with my Outreach leaders. So, I was in the office during the day catching up on the never-ending emails and paperwork, and I did not get out and interact with any unchurched folks. Then, between the regular working hours and the evening meeting, I came home to spend a little bit of time with Petra and the boys. Thursday was a Quizno's for dinner day. I thought that my stop at Quizno's might at least provide an opportunity to invite someone to KCC. However, I ran into a KCC attender who knows me but I was meeting him for the first time. He is an attender, but because of his work schedule, he is not connected at KCC. After inquiring about some of his interests, I encouraged him to check out our Fall sports leagues. Hopefully, he follows up, but I plan to send him a note of encouragement soon. Since my next stop was a meeting at KCC, and then I turned Thursday into a late working evening, I did not have any encounters with unchurched folks all day. The obvious lesson: you can't regularly invite people to a local church if you do not rub shoulders with unchurched people.

Well, the journey continues. I appreciate your prayers for open doors of opportunity and the right perspective in my life. This is just one aspect of my journey with the Lord. I am filled with gratitude for how he is moving in all of the areas of my life. Thanks for your support.

In Christ,
Kyle

A New Spiritual Discipline

Why am I starting a blog? Well, this is a risky move for me because I have started a blog before but did not maintain it. I love the idea of capturing stories from my life, but I rarely have time to write them down. The thing that prompted me to start this blog is that I was in a staff meeting yesterday, and the following question was presented: What is one spiritual discipline that you engage in or one spiritual insight that you have had recently? As I sat there, I thought, "As the Outreach Pastor of Kentwood Community Church, what would it look like if I engaged in the discipline of inviting at least one person per day to KCC?" That would be at least 365 invitations per year. Then I thought about what it would be like if others in KCC joined me on the journey. As a starting point, I decided that I would use this blog to write about my own experience on the journey.

Yesterday, after that staff meeting, I prayed that God would open the door for me to extend some invitations to people to come to KCC. Well, it was very interesting to me when I got home yesterday that a gentleman and his wife had run out of gas in my driveway. As I drove the husband of the couple, Ernesto, to the gas station to fill up a gas container, I began to ask a few questions about his background. While we pumped the gas, I asked him if he attended church anywhere. I was pleased to hear that Ernesto and his family attend a local church near our church. It was interesting though that he was so appreciative for the gas that he mentioned the possibility of trying to get his college aged children to visit KCC. It was a great conversation, and I am glad that God allowed me to meet this family. Also, I met another gentleman, Alberto, that came over our home to give us a drywall estimate for our basement. After lots of conversation and measurement and planning and pricing, I asked him, "Have you ever visited Kentwood Community Church?" He said, "actually, I am Catholic." I asked about where he attended services, and he told me of a local Catholic church that he attends. Another simple conversation with an intentional question produced a similar result as the earlier conversation. I wasn't about to get into any kind of doctrinal or theological debate with Alberto. I simply wanted to know if he was in fellowship in any sort of Christian community. Later that evening, I was outside in the backyard and my neighbor, Liz, walked over. As she described it, she came "bearing junk food". She was bringing us a box of Chocolate Chunk Chex Mix bars. This was an unexpected blessing. In the midst of our conversation, which covered a variety of topics, the subject of church came up. She and her husband used to attend a large church in the area but are no longer regular attenders. I asked her if she had ever visited KCC. She said that her family had never visited KCC, but she has a cousin who attends. I said to her, "Well, consider yourself officially invited." I told her that she and her husband might enjoy the upcoming Alpha Course or the upcoming sermon series on Religion and Politics. Also, I know that her children would enjoy the JAM children's ministry at KCC. At the end of day 1 of this new spiritual discipline, I found it so interesting that God had orchestrated these three conversations where I had to be a good listener but was also intentional about inviting. What a day. I am praying that Liz and her family will come and visit.

On today, day 2 of this discipline, I had a lunch appointment with a gentleman that I had never met before from a local university. The discussion was great and timely for some of the ministry issues that I am examining at KCC right now. During the conversation, knowing that he and his wife are Christ followers, I asked him if they attended church anywhere right now. He replied, "No." He described how they had relocated to Michigan within the past few years and had visited lots of churches but had not settled on one. I asked him if they had visited KCC. They had not yet visited. I told him, "Well, consider yourself officially invited." I had brought one of the invitation cards with me to lunch to invite him to the upcoming sermon series. He received it, and I am hopeful that he and his family come to visit.

Will this daily discipline continue? I hope so because I am excited at the doors of conversation that God has already opened. Keep me accountable. Send me some comments. Pray for me. Please know that I realize that it is not about getting people to come to KCC. It is about getting people to know Jesus. However, I am very confident that as people visit KCC, they will regularly hear the truth about Christ proclaimed and they will regularly be presented with an opportunity to receive Him. This is why it is so important to regularly invite people to our local church. Talk to you soon.

In Christ,
Kyle