Evangelism and the Lord’s Supper

2007-09-10

It often takes me a long time to learn things. Over the past week or so, a group of us has been preparing to begin this year’s ministry to the homeless shelter. Since last year many of us felt downhearted about the ministry, but there has been much encouragement by many people. Since the homeless shelter has a high turnover rate (maybe only one encounter with someone), it only makes sense that chronological Bible teaching and massive amounts of decisions for Christ will be unlikely. For years, I looked at passages such as Acts 2, and the thousands saved at Pentecost was always my expectation in any ministry. I had felt let down for years. The reality is that people need more than two hours to hear and understand the Gospel**. The worldview of the average American is not conducive to the Gospel message, and their preconceived notions of who Christ is and what it means to be His disciple need to be entirely undone. This does not mean that we cannot plant seeds, or even see some people come to Christ, but my expectations have been changed when realizing that Acts 2 is an exception to what normally happens in preaching the Gospel.

The other thing I thought about was the Lord’s Supper, for I had puzzled for years about the significance of this. “This do in remembrance of me” was the reasoning of Jesus’ command. Since renewal of the person begins in the mind, what better way to remember what the Lord has done than by a visual and hands-on ceremony! And what did Jesus do for us? He has taken away the penalty of our sin, and He sees us in Christ. This is an amazing thing, and praise God for appealing to us in every way so that we can remember who we are in Jesus Christ. It was well said this morning by a friend of mine speaking to the entire student body. There are two religions in this world: Do and Done. How amazing it is to be a part of the latter; that Jesus Christ has completed the work of salvation at Calvary.

** NOTE: Since then, I decided that I do not necessarily believe this anymore. There are still many people in American culture that know enough about the Bible from being churched in some way.