What Does Outreach Look Like?

This past week I spent time at General Council of the C&MA. This is a meeting that takes place every two years where pastors, elders, and other lay leaders from the Alliance all come together for a time of preaching, worship, and ministry strategy. One of the speakers present during the week was Scott Slocum. A pastor and speaker, Scott Slocum has spent the last nineteen years serving at Essex Alliance Church in Essex Junction, Vt. Recognized as one of the fastest growing congregations in New England, Essex Alliance Church has defied the odds in a region of the country known as the “graveyard” of preachers. Passionate about reaching lost people, especially those who are anti-church and anti-Christian, Scott and his wife, Diane, focus their ministry on demonstrating how the Church and Christianity are applicable to life today. “If the Bible is relevant,” says Scott, “and it is—and if God is relevant, and He is—then the Church had better be relevant (and it isn’t always)!” During his time speaking Scott posed and interesting question. I want to repeat it here.

Where can someone who is left-wing liberal, who believes in abortion, has a gay son or daughter, and marches to the beat of a different drum go to church in our town and be loved and accepted for who they are and where they are at, and not be judged and rejected. This is a complicated question, which has a very complex answer, but I want to make it as simple as possible. Is Crossroads Fellowship a place where people whose lives reflect that come? Will we as a church reach out to people who may not look quite like we look? Will we be the arms, legs, hands, and feet of Jesus to a lost and dying world? Or will we be like the church that Scott one time asked that same question to and someone stood up and said, "Not this church, not ever!" I hope that we are the first church, the one who meets people where they are at and brings them the good news of a savior, and the message that we can have life enternal with him through repentance and faith. What are your thoughts on this?