MIDLAND—At First Baptist Church in Midland, children and youth are helping the church share gospel presentations with every home in the area.

During February, 12 Midland-area churches began delivering compact discs that include gospel presentations and Scripture downloads in more than 200 languages. The initiative was part of Texas Hope 2010, an effort to share the hope of Christ by praying for the lost, caring for the hurting and hungry, and sharing the gospel with all Texans.

During a Disciple Now weekend, youth from First Baptist Church in Midland spent Saturday afternoon working with adult church members to deliver Texas Hope 2010 gospel CDs to apartment complexes in their city.

First Baptist Church helped organize the citywide effort. As First Baptist started training and organizing church members to deliver CDs, children’s minister Sarah Arram-bide saw the potential to involve children.

“When the kids see their parents and other adults are doing something in the church, I want the kids to have an opportunity to help, too, and to have the opportunity to share with someone in their classroom,” Arrambide said. “We have to show our kids that it is important to share the gospel early in life.”

Arrambide met with all the children during Arena, the children’s worship time at the beginning of Sunday school, to introduce the CD. She sought to help them understand ways they could use it to share the love of Jesus with people they know and with classmates at school.

“Children are very bold in sharing their faith, and that is why it is important to help them get started as early as possible,” Arrambide said. “We had a mini-training before we handed the CDs out, and I sent a letter attached to the CD so the parents would know why the child came home with the CD.”

A few parents commented that their children immediately knew to whom they wanted to give the CD. Some children planned to give the CD to a teacher; others wanted to give the CD to a student in their class at school.

A third grader got so excited about getting involved, he asked for 19 more CDs to give to each student in his class.

“My hope is that they have a contact with someone they will end up bringing to church with them,” Arrambide said. “My greatest hope is that someone will come to know the Lord through this. I want to see our kids becoming more and more courageous when it comes to sharing the Lord with someone.”

During the church’s Disciple Now weekend in February, the youth spent Saturday afternoon working with adult church members to deliver CDs to apartment complexes in the city.

In addition, Paul Byrom, education minister at the church, said more than 400 individuals completed the churchwide training and then spent a Sunday afternoon delivering more than 3,000 CDs, meeting their neighbors and prayer-walking as they went.  

The church took a month to pray through the Texas Hope 2010 prayer guide and to enroll and assign members to deliver CDs to their neighborhoods.

During the training event, many families brought their children, planning to make the outreach a family affair. Members were encouraged to go out in pairs to visit homes in their neighborhoods, providing an opportunity for each to meet their neighbors.

“We assigned them to their own neighborhoods, and then we have people on special visitation teams to areas where we are not represented as a church,” Byrom said. “Most of the special teams didn’t meet Sunday but will in the coming month.”

For Edith Hardy, a longtime member of the church, delivering the CD to families on her street allowed her to make new connections or strengthen older ones with her neighbors, allowing for future interaction and ministry with them.

“I think that this is a good idea,” Hardy said. “In the past, my husband and I have been involved in other outreaches with the church, but I think (the CD distribution) is a good thing because it helps you connect with your own neighbors.”

In the process of delivering the CDs, Hardy and her husband found two young couples who were interested in a finding a church. Hardy was able to give their names to the church so that the young adult ministry can follow up on the visit.

Another one of her neighbors was a Christian but became very excited about taking the CD and then using it to minister to one of her friends who doesn’t live in Midland and who isn’t a Christian.

“We have had good reports. One that is common is that they have gotten to know new people in their neighborhood,” Byrom said.

“They have connected with their neighborhood in a better way. Several shared prayer re-quests, and we were able to pray at the door or at another time for them.”

Many members who haven’t been involved with outreach in the past are coming forward and helping with the project because it is allowing them to grow in their faith while connecting with people around them in the city, he noted.

“We just had a great response of people stepping out of their comfort zones and sharing the gospel,” Byrom said. “Those are such precious experiences. They have seen God really lead from our prayer effort.”

As the churches in Midland deliver the CDs, Byrom hopes Christians will be able to connect with community needs and also be pulled more and more into a lifestyle of living on mission, living with a constant desire the share the hope of Christ with others.

“Our first hope is that people in the community would receive the gospel message, that they would see that and receive it,” Byrom said.

“The secondary goal is that we would be an encouragement to our city in offering the only thing that is unique to us. As the gospel message goes out, we can offer prayer for the people of our city.

“And the third is that our people will be active in being on mission.”

First Baptist Church is planning two more delivery days to help distribute additional CDs.

Other churches involved in delivering the gospel CDs to the Midland area are Alamo Baptist Church, Crestview Baptist Church, Hillcrest Baptist Church, Greater Ideal Baptist Church, Iglesia Bautista Betel, Iglesia Bautista Monte Sinai, Iglesia Bautista Emmanuel, Iglesia Bautista La Gracia, West Kentucky Baptist Church, True Lite Christian Fellowship and Teen F.L.O.W.

Through the churches’ cooperative efforts, they hope to deliver CDs to all 43,000 households in Midland by Easter Sunday.

---

No comments for this article yet...

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Comments