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Coalition Calls Church Out... 'Love Your Neighbor'

Coalition Issues Call to the Church for a New Depth of “Loving Your Neighbor”
by Susan Brill, Director of Communications, Mission America Coalition

Two Joint Gatherings of Evangelism Leaders Held in Birmingham



Palm Desert, Calif., March 9 -- The Mission America Coalition issued a call to churches and Christians across America last week for a “prayer-care-share approach” to “loving their neighbors to Christ.”

“We need a new surge of evangelism and discipleship in America,” Dr. Paul Cedar, chairman of the Coalition, said in an interview at the group’s annual gathering in Birmingham, Ala. last week. “The average evangelical Christian in America has such a resistance to being involved in evangelism. I’m convinced that fear, not wrong motive, is the major factor. They are just afraid.”

Cedar addressed the group of 300 who gathered for two joint meetings in Birmingham - “Convergence,” the National City Impact Roundtable, and “Accelerate 2010,” the MAC annual gathering. He emphasized that evangelism is not work that we do, but the work of the Holy Spirit. “There is this mysterious wooing and drawing and convicting of the Holy Spirit,” he said, “And we just need to make ourselves available.”

The method Cedar put forth for “making ourselves available,” is the prayer-care-share lifestyle. MAC wants to “blow the trumpet” to call and encourage churches and ministries to adopt a “prayer-care-share lifestyle,” Cedar says. This natural method of outreach can alleviate some of the fear believers have about sharing their faith, he advocates, because it relies on the Holy Spirit, not on the believer, to come up with the best way to minister or reach out to someone. The method begins with prayer alone.

“If you can get Christians to really start praying for even a small list of three to five people,” Cedar explained, “then as they pray, that gives opportunity for the Holy Spirit to get them to the next step. Then they are prepared to begin to love them and to care for them.”

The third facet of this lifestyle is “share” - sharing the gospel. While “the gospel always comes down to a verbal message” Cedar says, it doesn’t mean that those who are praying for and caring about someone will share the gospel one on one. The “share” part of this lifestyle could mean inviting someone to a church service or an evangelistic event where they can hear the gospel message, or sharing a book or movie that present the gospel, or many other means. The point is for the one praying to look for opportunities the Holy Spirit opens up, Cedar says.

Cedar said he and his wife Jeannie are amazed at the “mature” Christians they meet who have not caught the vision for beginning to pray for lost people. “That is the key,” Cedar said. “The right place to put the oar in the water...is to get them to start praying for lost people.”

In his plenary session delivered on Wednesday, Cedar issued a call for a new emphasis on loving one’s neighbors to Christ to the 300 gathered. He presented a working paper for feedback and response. The group responded positively, Rev. Phil Miglioratti, MAC’s COO, reported, “Everybody - 100 percent of the people there - resonated with the need to call the Church to love our neighbor at an even more authentic level than we are doing it now. At no point was there disagreement for the Church to seek God for a ‘Compassion Revolution’” he said, using the term some had begun to call the movement during the discussions.

According to Miglioratti, “Researchers Dave Olson (America Church Research Project) and David Kinnaman (Barna Group) gave compelling evidence that the Church is struggling yet filled with signs of hope. Nothing less than a compassion revolution of Christians loving their neighbors and neighborhoods will accelerate the Great Commission in this next decade.”

Held in conjunction with Accelerate 2010, was Convergence, the National City Impact Roundtable. The two events shared several sessions. Convergence addressed four streams of cityreaching - Christians collaborating in evangelism and discipleship to reach their city/community for Christ. George Otis, of The Sentinel Group, addressed “presence-based cityreaching” in Monday’s opening session. “Transforming revival is a pleasant byproduct of believers who are passionately seeking God’s intimate company for it’s own sake,” Otis offered.

The marketplace stream of cityreaching was represented by a panel of four leaders in marketplace ministry who shared what God is doing in each of their ministries and fielded questions from the audience.

“We don’t need more faith and evangelistic efforts...in the workplace,” posed panelist Steve Capper of Mission Houston, “The saints need to be equipped for their works of service in every place they live, work and play….the Church in and through the workplace, connected and functioning in obedience to the Lord.” Other panelists included Brad Fieldhouse (The Barnabas Group), Kent Humphreys (Christian Companies for Christ, Int.), and Bob Varney (Campus Crusade for Christ).

Dr. John Perkins spoke to the community development stream of cityreaching and also gave the opening plenary for Accelerate 2010, when the two gatherings joined together. Perkins said the only remedy to the problems of our culture is God and His Church. “We are sitting at an opportune moment of greatness. And greatness has to do with people seeing the pain and the agony and entering into that pain and agony,” he said. He challenged participants to go where they see the most hurt in their communities to expand their compassion.

Melisa Pearson from Idaho welcomed that challenge. She said she is looking forward to going back to Boise, gathering statistics about the hurting needs in her community, and praying over where God would have her start working. “I want to be able to step into where that pain is and be willing to be vulnerable to allow Christ to flow through me to love them and meet them in their need,” she said.

The fourth stream of cityreaching - evangelism - was held in conjunction with MAC’s session with Dr. Paul Cedar speaking on the prayer-care-share lifestyle, and the closing NCIR session addressed the convergence of these streams.

Jarvis Ward, of the NCIR lead team and a national facilitator for MAC repeated one of the group’s analogies about convergence: “When two rivers collide, the nutrients come to the surface...and you’ve got some of your best fishing ever,” he explained. “That is what we’re about - as we converge, that we would see in our cities the best fishing ever for the souls of young and old.”

“We hope we will see an increased number of cityreaching movements around the country as a result of this,” Ward said. “Our vision is to try to have a cityreaching movement in every city of 10,000 or more - that’s about 2,500 cities in the United States.”

Participants engaged in frequent roundtable discussions during speaker presentations, and a number of cityreaching groups took the stage throughout the event to talk about the work going on in their cities and share best practices.

“A lot of times cityreaching people get so focused on their local area, they get discouraged because they don’t see things progressing,” said participant Kathy Pipal from Boise, Idaho. “It really helps to see what God is doing in other places....Just networking with the people here is well worth it because you get so many ideas.”

Alaina Brake from Akron Ohio agreed. “It’s a great way to network and to build partnerships with other people, especially for the young folks,” she offered. “So I can bring home to Akron Ohio...that even though we’re young, we can do big things.”

Both groups held a reception together for Dr. Perkins Tuesday evening honoring his 80th birthday and his 50 years of ministry pioneering Christian community development. MAC presented Dr. Perkins with a plaque and a collection of letters from participants thanking him for his work for the Kingdom of God.

For information about promoting a prayer-care-share lifestyle in your church or ministry, go to http://www.missionamerica.org. For more information about City Impact Roundtables, go to http://www.cityreaching.com.

The Mission America Coalition is a network of national church leaders, representing denominations, ministries, and other key Christian leaders with a shared vision to collaborate in prayer, evangelism, and revival. Since its inception, leaders from 81 denominations, over 400 ministries and dozens of ministry networks have been involved in the Coalition. Mrs. Vonette Bright (Campus Crusade for Christ), Dr. Billy Graham (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association), and Dr. John Perkins (Christian Community Development Association) serve as honorary co-chairs.

City Impact Roundtables (CIRs) are interactive gatherings of cityreachers held regionally and nationally to build relationships among cityreachers, share Kingdom-sized vision for holistic evangelism and revival, and pray together for united ministry throughout the Body of Christ.

Visit CityReaching.com

posted by IndyChristian @ 7:51 AM