I
went to a meeting yesterday with a group of other pastors on the Island. We met at the Galveston Urban Ministries
building. They have really done a lot of
work bringing it up to a good condition so it can be used for things like this,
as well as for their community programming.
There were at least 30 people there to hear from an outfit known as
Christ Together. In a nutshell, their
purpose is to encourage local pastors to get together and develop strategies
for reaching people for Jesus. Gospel
saturation based on relational unity.
They
have a four step process that they encourage pastors to take. First, mobilize the people in their churches
to engage the city in spiritual conversations.
Basically, give them permission to talk about Jesus at the water cooler,
in the park, at their kids’ soccer games … wherever people are talking anyway. Your relationship with Jesus and with the
church is important to you, so why not talk about it? Second, pastors are to encourage their people
to mobilize for acts of service.
Identify at least one systemic problem in the city and work together to
solve that problem. The idea is that
when people see the people of God unified toward solving a real problem, it
will get their attention. Third, pastors
are encouraged to develop circles of accountability with each other. Meet together for coffee or lunch and get to
know one another. Then progress to
opening up with each other to share personal needs, hurts, and dreams, and pray
together for each other. Once that is
achieved, pastors can begin to introduce the idea to their congregations for
them to do the same. Finally, pastors
are encouraged to work together to start plant new churches in areas determined
to be missing a gospel presence.
The
best thing about this group is that they don’t have a set “program” they are
selling. It is just a group of pastors
who have been through the coming together in unity process and it worked for
them in their area. They don’t claim to
have all the answers. In fact they
insist that the only way to discover what is right for Galveston is for the
guys already committed to Galveston to draw their hearts together and figure it
out. I was encouraged by the
gathering. I look forward to getting
together again in a meeting setting, but also to touching base on occasion with
some of the other pastors who were there.
John
17:22-23 says, “The glory which You have
given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in
them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may
know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”
Father,
thank you for the call to unity at that meeting. Sounds eerily Scriptural to me. Amen.
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