Lay Liberation – Doubling Our Influence

For nearly 20 years Living Word has gone to the mission field, conducted street witnessing and organized servant evangelism and community outreach. Recently the Holy Spirit has impressed me with the fact that we aren’t tapping our full potential. The vision for outreach has been limited by what the Outreach Department can organize, lead, fund and staff.

In order to grow our influence we need to decentralize ministry. The church needs to experience what I call a ‘lay liberation movement’. In order to do that our staff must recruit, train, equip and motivate outreachers to function on their own.

Each summer homemaker Mary Nelson reaches out to her neighborhood and multiplies the influence of the gospel by hosting a backyard bible club. "I invite the kids up and down street, prepare the treats and act as host" she said. Childrens lives are changed when they hear about Jesus.

"Pastor Mac (Hammond) encourages us to bring one other person into committed fellowship annually", Mary explained. "In a matter of just a few years our whole community would be saved and growing in the knowledge of God".

The power to reach our world rests in multiplying our effort by a factor of two. When one of us reaches out like Mary, we double our influence. The Lord is asking is for each of us to simply multiply ourselves in one other person.