CASE 3: Kim felt that she just had to volunteer at the school. She had the skills, and she had the time. And she knew it was the right thing to do.  Her son also liked the idea that mom was a kind of teacher.  And Kim's friends thought it great that she helped those little ones with their reading. But in her heart she wanted to do her oil-paintings and considered school volunteering a poor substitute. But she could never tell that to anyone...

Peter was a good uncle, at least on the outside. But spending a lot of time on the floor crawling around with three little ones was not his thing. Howard was a counselor, but recently there were just too many cases and unsolvable problems. He started counting the months and days until he could retire... How can you help energize this duty-centered outreach to produce loving care?

  Is your outreach CARE-CENTERED or DUTY-CENTERED?

  Care-centered outreach is motivated by love and the unselfish help your client deserves and should receive. It includes going the second mile. Duty-centered outreach focuses on the outreacher and his duties that he or she must fulfill. It is true that many individuals feel it a duty to help those in need, but help that is given only out of a sense of duty is limited. Duty, at worst, just meets an unpleasant obligation. At best, it leads joyously to loving care.  The following parts deal with care-centered outreach.

The following quotation is from an ancient manuscripts and is also found in Isaiah 2:3 and Micah 4:2. Similar information is found in Matthews 28:18-20. The Ethiopian was returning from worship. He was reading Isaiah. Phillip taught and baptized him. Acts 8:26-39.

UPREACH: "Come, let us go UP into the mountain of the Lord..."
Kneel and pray. Worship, sing and share your testimony. Find your direction. To many worship consists of reading and hearing God's word, meeting on the Sabbath, prayer, singing and offerings to God.

CASES: After attending church one Sunday morning, a little boy knelt at his bedside that night and prayed, "Dear God, we had a good time at church today--but I wish you had been there!"

The citizens of Feldkirch, Austria, didn't know what to do. Napoleon's massive army was preparing to attack. Soldiers had been spotted on the heights above the little town, which was situated on the Austrian border. A council of citizens was hastily summoned to decide whether they should try to defend themselves or display the white flag of surrender. It happened to be Easter Sunday, and the people had gathered in the local church. The pastor rose and said, "Friends, we have been counting on our own strength, and apparently that has failed. As this is the day of our Lord's resurrection, let us just ring the bells, have our services as usual, and leave the matter in His hands. We know only our weakness, and not the power of God to defend us." The council accepted his plan and the church bells rang. The enemy, hearing the sudden peal, concluded that the Austrian army had arrived during the night to defend the town. Before the service ended, the enemy broke camp and left. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. If it were possible for a created soul fully to 'appreciate,' that is, to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme blessedness. To praise God fully we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God, drowned in, dissolved by that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression. Our joy is no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. C. S. Lewis

Scripture views the glorifying of God as a six-fold activity: praising God for all that he is and all his achievements; thanking him for his gifts and his goodness to us; asking him to meet our own and others' needs; offering him our gifts, our service, and ourselves; learning of him from his word, read and preached, and obeying his voice; telling others of his worth, both by public confession and testimony to what he has done for us. Thus we might say that the basic formulas of worship are these: "Lord, you are wonderful"; "Thank you, Lord"; "Please Lord"; "Take this, Lord"; "Yes, Lord"; "Listen everybody!"

The English word 'worship' is derived from the Anglo-Saxon 'weorthscripe', meaning to ascribe worth, to pay homage, to reverence or venerate. Interestingly, the Hebrew word most commonly translated 'worship' in the Old Testament is 'shachah' which literally means 'to prostrate oneself, bow down, fall down flat, do reverence.' The most commonly used Greek word  is 'proskuneo' which literally means  'to kiss the hand, to prostrate oneself'." DAVID C. STONE

"Praise and worship is a choice, not just a feeling! Praise and worship is a commitment of the heart, not just an emotion." KENT HENRY

"In the end, worship can never be a performance, something you're pretending or putting on. It's got to be an overflow of your heart…..Worship is about getting personal with God, drawing close to God." MATT REDMAN

"Our heart's desire should be to worship God; we have been designed by God for this purpose. If we don't worship God, we'll worship something or someone else." JOHN WIMBER

"True worship can only take place when we agree to God sitting not only on His throne in the center of the universe, but on the throne that stands in the center of our heart." ROBERT COLMAN

"God is not moved or impressed with our worship until our hearts are moved and impressed by Him." KELLY SPARKS

"Worship bestows beauty where there was once ugliness, joy where there was once sadness, and a garment of praise where there was once heaviness (Isaiah 61:1-3)." ARYL DAUGHTRY

INREACH: "He shall teach us His ways, and we shall walk IN His paths..."
Come and learn. Study your Bible. Select your strategies and resources.

CASES: In  1985, some 100 guests and 100 lifeguards celebrated at the New Orleans City Pool because that season nobody had drowned. That night, they found Jerome Moody, 31, fully dressed in the deep end of the pool. He had drowned, surrounded by lifeguards.

How we learn: 1% through taste, 1.5% through touch, 3.5% through smell, 11% through hearing, 83% through sight.

Tell me; I'll forget. Show me; I may remember. But involve me and I'll understand. Chinese proverb

I study my Bible like I gather apples. First, I shake the whole tree that the ripest may fall. Then I shake each limb, and when I have shaken each limb, I shake each branch and every twig. Then I look under every leaf. I search the Bible as a whole like shaking the whole tree. Then I shake every limb--study book after book. Then I shake every branch, giving attention to the chapters. Then I shake every twig, or a careful study of the paragraphs and sentences and words and their meanings. M. Luther

A circuit riding preacher entered one church building with his young son, and dropped a coin into the offering box in the back. Not many came that Sunday, and those who did didn't seem too excited about what was said. After the service, the preacher and son walked to the back, and he emptied the box. Out fell one coin. The young boy said, "Dad, if you'd have put more in, you'd have gotten more out!"

According to James Hamilton, there are two kinds of Bible readers--those who skim the surface and those who dig deep. He describes them by comparing them to two common insects.  The one died last October. The other is warm in his hive, amidst the fragrant stores he has gathered." Which type of Bible reader are you? Butterfly or bee?

As man heard Dr. G. Campbell Morgan preach. He asked him how he understood Scripture so well. "If I told you, you wouldn't do it?" . "Just try me," the man insisted. "Before I study a book, I read it fifty times," Morgan explained.

Born to be battered...the loving phone call book. Underline it, circle things, write in the margins, turn down page corners, the more you use it, the more valuable it gets to be. Ad in South Central Bell Telephone Company Yellow Pages.

An old lady waited on the preacher thank him for the help she received from his sermons. "You do throw such wonderful light on the Bible, doctor," she said. "Do you know that until this morning, I had always thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were man and wife?"

Think of the Scriptures as an absolutely accurate map. A map tells you how to get to a certain destination. But just looking at a map won't automatically transport you to Arizona or England or Peru. Getting to those places means you have to make the effort...pay the cost...take the time for travel...stay at it until you arrive. In a word, persevere. So it is in the Christian life. God's map is reliable and available. It is also clear and direct. But there is no hocus-pocus in its pages that automatically sends its reader by way of a magic carpet.  Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back by Charles Swindoll, 1980

Noted Bible teacher E. Schuyler English told of Michael Billester, a Bible distributor who visited a small hamlet in Poland shortly before World War II. Billester gave a Bible to a villager, who was converted by reading it. The new believer then passed the Book on to others. The cycle of conversions and sharing continued until 200 people had become believers through that one Bible. When Billeser returned in 1940, this group of Christians met together for a worship service in which he was to preach the Word. He normally asked for testimonies, but this time he suggested that several in the audience recite verses of Scripture. One man stood and said, "Perhaps we have misunderstood. Did you mean verses or chapters?" These villagers had not memorized a few select verses of the Bible but whole chapters and books. Thirteen people knew Matthew, Luke, and half of Genesis. Another person had committed to memory the Psalms. That single copy of the Bible given by Billester had done its work. Transformed lives bore witness to the power of the Word.

 OUTREACH: "For OUT of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
Go and serve. Help others find God's presence. Encourage them. Enter into action.

CASES: A starving boy suggests: "Let's use this grain to make flour, so we can eat." Father answers: "That is next year's seed." When the rains came,  Father, weeping, threw the seed away. He scattered it in the dirt. Why? Because he believed in the harvest. Psalms 126: 5,6

On a dangerous seacoast, there was a little primitive life-saving station. Many lives were saved and it became famous. Many people joined and gave their time, talents and money. They build a series of plush stations. But they no longer saved lives.

The Order of the Mustard Seed founded by Count Zinzendorf had three guiding principles, namely:
1. Be kind to all people. 2. Seek their welfare. 3. Win them to Christ.

The young salesman was disappointed about losing a big sale, and as he talked with his sales manager he lamented, "I guess it just proves you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." The manager replied, "Son, take my advice: your job is not to make him drink. Your job is to make him thirsty." So it is with evangelism. Our lives should be so filled with Christ that they create a thirst for the Gospel. November-December 1985 Preaching

Good Real Estate agents make at least 6 contacts over the period of a year to make friends. Then, when asking for a listing, they get 80% of them. People like to relate to people they know. That takes time and effort. 

Nineteen out of every twenty who become Christians do so before they reach the age of 24. After 25, only one in 10,000. After 35, only one in 40,000. After 45, only one in 200,000. After 55, only one in 300,000. After 65, only one in 500,000. After 74, only one in 700,000.

What makes people hesitate to share their faith? Here are some of the fears that have been mentioned to me:- "I am afraid I might do more harm than good."- "I don't know what to say."- "I may not be able to give snappy answers to tricky questions."- "I may seem bigoted."- "I may invade someone's privacy."- "I am afraid I might fail."- "I am afraid I might be a hypocrite."

"What is your greatest hindrance to witnessing?" Nine percent said they were too busy to remember to do it. Twenty-eight percent felt the lack of real information to share. None said they didn't really care. Twelve percent said their own lives were not speaking as they should. But by far the largest group were the 51 percent whose biggest problem was the fear of how the other person would react! None of us likes to be rejected, ridiculed, or regarded as an oddball. Good News is for Sharing, Lieghton Ford, 1977.

We reach up. God reaches into us and teaches us. God reaches out through us.
In Romans 10:14, there are three questions: "How shall they call on Him, whom they have not BELIEVED? And how shall they believe of whom they have not HEARD? And how shall they hear without a  PREACHER?"
You are either a believer or an unbeliever, a learner or a drop-out, a messenger or a couch potato.
God is a fire. He sets us on fire. He uses us to set others on fire. Fire that does not spread goes out.
The believer submits to the Lord. The learner submits to the Lord's teaching. The messenger helps others to submit to the Lord and His teaching.
First trust. Then obey. Then share.
God empowers you. He heals you. He uses you as His instrument of empowerment.
I am first a Believer. Then I become a Disciple, a Learner. Filled with His spirit, I become His Messenger of what He taught me and what I learned.
I become His follower. God trains me as His disciple. God uses me to make disciples.
There are Traders of fish. And Keepers of aquariums. And there are Fishermen.
At least One-a-Day: A prayer a day, a text a day, an outreach contact a day.
We reach UP. God reaches IN to us and teaches us. God reaches OUT through us.
Many people serve God mainly on their knees. Some serve God only in advisory capacity on committees. Others serve Him where people need help.

  Duty-centered outreach follows a prescribed program that the outreacher feels obliged to implement. It often focuses on publications, mass media and computer technology. All these may also be supportive of care-centered outreach, but there they are only resources, not the center of the outreach focus. Why is much of our outreach  duty-centered?

CASE 4: Paul had been helping the people on his street for a long time. He was always blowing their drive-ways, shoveling their snow, speaking to them when they were outside. He was nice and smart, and his neighbors respected him. But somehow he was too nice. His neighbors would talk of Paul as a do-gooder, a person who lived a good life, but they were not interested in of his religion. They were somewhat repelled by what looked to them as snobbishness. That puzzled Paul...

Many people helped their neighbors just as they worked for others on their job. Ruth helped in the Food Closet, giving bread to the hungry. Sam gave out Christian literature to those in sin. Adam, a nurse,  volunteered in a free health clinic for the poor. Ralph had never smoked, and now he was working  among teen-agers, helping them not to smoke. All of them were about 10% effective. What did they do wrong?

What shows most in your outreach, your ATTITUDE or your BEHAVIOR?

Your attitude shows. A positive attitude may minimize your importance and maximize the welfare of your client. A negative attitude may maximize your importance and minimize the importance of your client. People can read you and many of your motives. It shows when you have your own immovable agenda and  are not sensitive to the needs of others. It also shows when you care for the other person.   You first try to connect with your client on a personal level and try to understand where he or she comes from. You attitude needs to be one of care, openness and humility.

My behavior may convey my positive or negative attitude. My behavior may demonstrate my superior skills and  knowledge and scare my client. It can also give the impression that I have it all, and that my client has nothing.

First, what qualifies you to serve in outreach?

1. Is it that you behave better than others?
2. Or is it that you know more than others?
3. Or is it that your humility and thankfulness will move others to ask "How can I have what you have?"
Generally, the first two alone just repulse and hinder outreach, the third one attracts. "If my people...will humble themselves..."(found in 2nd Chronicles 7:14).

In serving the community, what are the functions of these five components?

1. Service personnel. Who serves, and how do they serve? (individual, small group or mass outreach)
2. Service area borders. Who is served and where?
3. Time lines and follow-up. How long are the clients served?
4. Cost effectiveness. At what costs and efforts are these services provided?
5. Program evaluation. In light of the objectives, how effective is/was the outreach?

What types of help fit best the needs of the community?

Services that meet spiritual needs are spiritual training, Bible study classes and other faith group meetings.

Services that meet developmental needs are seminars, workshops and support groups, publications,  distance education, computers: materials, like food, clothing, mobile clinics or centers, referrals to other or related services.

Services that meet outreach needs are personal contacts,  work, helping and volunteering.

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