As a Christian church, we have been commanded to take our message and preach it to the world. In my title I called it taking our message to the streets, and this is certainly one way that we could do it. However, I am not saying that we should go out onto a corner and preach to people. This just turns people off of Christianity. Rather, we should consider our high schools and places of employment as the spiritual streets. We have been given this amazing oppurtunity to share the message of salvation, and we can do so freely. In many countries, doing this would result in jail or worse, but here we are free to express our own religious beliefs.
The school that I went to had a group call Inter-School Christian Fellowship (ISCF). This group was a great way for us to minister to those in the school who had yet to find God. We could do this through fun games, our times of worship, or the World Vision 30 Hour Famine which we hosted each year. Often people would come to faith in Christ after one our events, because they had seen the love we had for them. This group was definately an integral part of the spiritual community at my high school, which was a public school.
This is one of the ways that we can follow that command in a public way. However, it is often in a private, one-to-one conversation that a connection is made. I know missionaries who speak of instances where they would share their message in a large group and no one would respond, yet when they shared the same message one-on-one, they would have a large response. Why is this? It could be because we are scared of others who choose not to respond to the message of Christ. In 1 Corinthians apostle Paul writes:
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18 [NIV])
This verse is basically right to the point. Those who have not accepted this message will only see our faith as foolishness, but when God gets through to someone, they can see what the message truly is – a message of salvation through the grace and power of God.
In the places that we work, we need to be more careful about how we phrase things. By simply stating that you believe in God and that Jesus alone is the way to heaven. you could potentially be placed on report or fired. Although this is not right, it happens far too often. Employers want to work in a secular environment, where they do not hear about church. “You are free to have your own views, but don’t bring them up at work” is the attitude which they have. This makes it more complicated to share the Gospel but not impossible. Often we develop friendships with those whom we work with. Meet with them after work and talk about Christianity. Outside of the workplace, your boss can not control what you talk about.
Now some of us, myself included, are not comfortable just walking up to someone and asking if they believe in God. So how do we share what God has placed on our hearts? For me, I do so by writing articles for spoken-for. However, I don’t do this anywhere nearly enough, and I am committing to try and write more faithfully. Whenever I feel the urge to write, then I shall. However, not all of us are called to be writers. So what do we do? We could just display Christ through the way that we live our lives. If we do this, people will notice and will begin to ask questions. The chorus from a song sums up this. This chorus is as follows:
“And they’ll know we are Christians By our love, by our love Yes they’ll know we are Christians By our love”
It’s pretty straighforward, but this is something that people notice. In a world where people only care about themselves, showing you care for someone else goes a long way.
So this is just a few ways that we can take the Gospel to the streets. If you feel the call, you could become a missionary and take it to streets where it has yet to be heard. This is in no way easy work. We are stepping onto the frontlines of a battlefield and Satan will do everything in his power to thwart our efforts. We need to fully rely on God to get us through the tough times and we will prevail. Remember, Jesus said that on this rock (earth) He would build His church and that the gales of hell would not be able to overcome it. Let’s step up, take the message to the streets and win some battles!