The Never-Ending To-Do List
We'll all know church leaders who are so busy, under such pressure, that they're close to burnout.
You may be reading this as one yourself. With so many demands, evangelism can easily feel like just another thing on the never-ending to do list.
'Where would I find time to do that... on top of preparing to preach, meeting with the couple whose marriage is breaking down, answering that email from the neighbour who saw rats in the church carpark...?'
Sharing the Load
As a team, our core staff includes a church pastor, a pastor's son, a church elder, plus someone married to one. It means we're passionate about supporting church leaders and helping churches share the load of evangelism.
And it’s why we want to share a story from Jacksonville Presbyterian Church in Oregon, US.
‘Like wildfire’
In 2019 Bill, a church member, first heard about The Word One to One at a conference in the UK. Despite being a Christian since he was a child, Bill freely admits, ‘I never knew how to share my faith in any way that was meaningful.’
But there was something about The Word One to One that clicked, and he took it back home to southern Oregon and started meeting up to read John’s Gospel with a friend from work.
The big shift for Jacksonville Presbyterian came when Bill introduced Scott, one of the church pastors, to the resource a few years ago. Scott quickly saw how it could benefit the whole church, and started simple Word One to One training sessions.
‘It caught on like wildfire’, he says, and soon a number of people in the church family were meeting with friends, family and work colleagues, both those totally new to the Christian faith and new believers.
One of those who became a Christian, Gabe, is now in seminary and planning to plant a Spanish-speaking church.
Ready to Share
This story from Jacksonville Presbyterian is also one of the reasons we're building Ready to Share.
The aim is to help churches and other missional communities—Christian student movements, workplace ministries, whoever—make it a normal part of life to open up the Bible with those who are new to it.
Time and again, we find that as Christians start growing in confidence to do this, the core of the church gets stronger: Christians become more deeply rooted in the gospel, reaching out to people around them.
If we want to share the load, that’s what we need.