Ways to Make the AskAs a culture, we've become wary of making the ask. We're afraid of offending someone or pushing too hard, but often the response is, "I would have done it sooner, but no one asked me." Below are some ideas to help you make the ask to call people into life with God. Ways You Personally Can Practice Reaping
Ways to Reap as a Small Group Pick an activity that everyone in the group enjoys. This could include:
 Consider who to invite to your small group reaping party. (Open Your Eyes to people around you.) The evening of the activity, Open Your Ears. Listen to hear where people are coming from. Take care of the people who come. Open Your Hands.
Reaping as a Large Group There are, of course, many ways you can use large group events to pull people in and help them experience the love of God. Here is one example, what we called the Anybody Thirsty? Worship Gathering. Below, I've laid out a sample schedule for the gathering. 6:00–6:30 p.m. Meet & Greet Time Gathering room with seeker friendly environment. This could include:
Whenever you're in reaping mode, asking someone to respond to what God is up to, there are a few things to keep in mind. Be tactful, but not timid. It is true that when Jesus interacted with people, He carefully controlled the volume of truth He shared in portions that matched the individual’s capacity to receive. Most people tend to err on the side of being overly cautious about just the right timing and delivery. So, don’t be overly concerned about tactfulness. Be bold in proclaiming the Good News about Jesus. Spend less time talking about evangelism and more time actually sharing Good News. Jesus knew that talking and training versus action could be the tendency of His followers. So he gave his disciples opportunities to share what they had seen and experienced. “Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and . . . they went out and preached that people should repent.” Mark 6:7, 12 If we are faithful in proclaiming, God will be faithful to draw people to himself.. “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” 2 Corinthians 9:6 Just ask.
Reaping Whats, Whys, and Hows In the last two blog posts, we covered cultivation and planting. Next comes reaping. Simply put, reaping takes place when you challenge friends to respond to the truth of God's Word. It is the natural result of cultivating and planting. If we cultivate in love and plant in God's truth, the result will be the challenge and joy of the harvest. (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2, 2 Corinthians 9:6, Galatians 6:9) Reaping a response to God’s truth involves an understanding of the difference between our job and God’s job in the reaping process. Our job in the reaping process of evangelism is to:
 This partnership with God calls for bold proclamation with prayerful dependence. Skills That Need to Be Developed to Do Our Job To fulfill our part of the reaping process there are two skills that can be developed to enhance our effectiveness.
Enhancing Our Reaping Skills—Presenting the Gospel One of the hindrances to reaping is best expressed by this statement: “I would love to tell my peers about Christ but I don’t know how to share the essential elements of a Gospel presentation.” I suggest starting by memorizing Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Do you believe it? Then, live it! Enhancing Our Reaping Skills—Calling for a Response Jesus was a master communicator when it came to getting individuals to respond to spiritual truths. He would often paint a word picture and then ask people questions that caused them to evaluate their spiritual condition. He always made space for their response. Calling for a Response in Practice You can use the same two steps to call for a response. First, paint a word picture, like this:  Then, ask these questions:
In my next blog post, I'll show you a variety of ways reaping might look.
|
Archives
February 2023
Categories
All
|
