Red Rover

Do you remember playing red rover as a kid?  I remember playing a few times in elementary school, along with red light-green light, tag, and hide 'n seek.  These were fun games.

Red rover was my favorite though, because it required teamwork.  For the "speed-challenged" kids, this was a way to be on a winning team.  Do you remember how it worked?

Two teams were formed and kids would stand hand-in-hand in lines facing each other.  One team would call out, "Red rover, red rover, send Susie right over!"  When they called out Susie's name, she had to run across from her team to the other and try to break through the line.  If the team could "catch" her, they could keep her.  If she broke through though, she got to take another person back over to her team.  Eventually, one side would keep everybody, and everybody got to be a winner.

Kind of like the church...

No, not the institution of the church, but the community of Christ followers, bound together by the Holy Spirit.  We stand, hand-in-hand (ideally) facing the rest of the world.  We call out a name, we share our faith, we serve others - and one by one, people run our way.  Our goal is to "catch" those people and make them a part of the Church (again, not the institution, but the community).

At Mt. Bethel, we're talking about evangelism.  Too often, in this game of red rover, we spend too much time enjoying holding hands to call people over.  Or even worse, we consume our time refusing to hold hands so we can call people over.  When we have our act together though, our purpose is to call people out of the world and invite them into a relationship with Christ.

Once we start calling people over, we learn that that is the easy part.  My question to you is, "once someone starts running your way, do you know how to catch them?"

Imagine a salesman.  He knows his product well and it's a great product.  He has a friendly face and people like to engage in conversation with him.  He has a weakness though.  He can't close the deal.  He is incapable of asking someone if they would like to buy his product.  How long do you think this salesman is going to have a job?  How much commission do you think he's going to take home with him?

See where I'm headed?

If we pray for opportunity to reach others for Christ and we do invite them, are we able to close the deal?  If an unchurched friend came to you today and asked about your faith and how to become a part of that faith, what would you tell them?  Would you be able to tell them about Jesus and the love of God?  Would you be able to lead them through claiming that for themselves?

Red rover is a losing game if you can't figure out how to catch those who run your way.  That's tragic when you consider that we're playing for the Kingdom of God.