Personal outreach takes time. Someone who is investigating a relationship with Christ often needs to develop trust, hear the truth in a variety of ways and see what belief entails in the lives of different Christians. This means we need to be patient as ambassadors of Jesus. In this article, we’ll address the importance of active patience as we create opportunities for the Holy Spirit to convict people of their need for Christ.

I will often have a spiritually-oriented conversation with someone and be disappointed that it didn’t go further. In those cases it’s easy to think “We’ll, that wasn’t very fruitful. I guess that person isn’t open to the gospel.”  But patience in matters of the heart means waiting for God to work, in his timing — and not giving up in the process. It also means looking for ways to build a bridge to the next opportunity with that same person. When we come to the end of a conversation with someone, we should be thinking about the bridge to the next opportunity.

That opportunity can come in many different forms. Maybe you’ve perceived that your friend is in need of special advice. Who can give that advice even better than you? Or your friend may have a hobby or interest that someone else you know has. Do what you can to gently bring those people together. Or maybe it’s a book, a website or an event that would help your friend understand the gospel better.

This also applies to how ministry leaders should think about outreach events. Right from the beginning of the planning process, think about the bridges that need to be built after it’s over. How will you follow up those who are interested? Who is gifted at long-term follow-up? Can you set aside a follow-up team who won’t be involved in the large event itself so they will have the energy to meet with seekers after the event is over?

Building bridges takes into consideration the fact that God works in people’s hearts in his own timing. Sometimes it may mean leaving the conversation about the gospel alone for months and praying for your friend. Come back to it later.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Reaching Out. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.