Are you meeting behind closed doors?

 

Most days Jesus stepped outside the door of whatever house he happened to be staying in and asked himself, “Who has the Father already prepared for me to meet?”

When I read these reports I think to myself, we should all get out more. That’s what Jesus did.

This from Janet via the Following and Fishing forum:

With James and his mighty men Chip, Dmitri and Judah here training, instilling vision, and calling down the fire of the Holy Spirit, teamed with a few dozen fishers of men around Columbus, Ohio we went into several outlying mixed/ethnic neighborhoods, prayer-walking, knocking on doors or meeting people on the streets.

Two Ethiopian (Orthodox) women, a 15-year old and a 30-year old mother, invited teams in, their entire households listened to the gospel, and those 2 women received Christ. Another team engaged a group of Somali teens playing basketball.

In particular our team heard many say they want "community" (lonely) or they were Christians who are adrift. Others responded with interest in Discovery groups and will be followed up this week. A great start of a continuing outreach and we hope multiplying simple churches in homes of peace.

This from Peter

Thanks for your prayers for our prayerwalk yesterday morning.

We had 115 homes answer our knock at the door. 77% of them accepted our offer of a bad of breakfast tacos. 72% of them allowed us to pray for them, many sharing very specific needs.

Next step is to make return visits and share our story and Jesus' story. Please pray for our follow up of these people and for many houses of peace.

One reason we’re not making disciples might just be we’re gathered together behind locked doors in our missional community for megachurch, and we’re afraid. There is a solution. It involves the Risen Lord and the Holy Spirit plus a little obedience.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.

John 20:19-22