Staying at the well

Recently I spent some time with the True Team talking with them about their experiences in sharing the Gospel here.  A comment by one of the team members stuck in my mind and God has continued to remind me of some truths from it.

“If you go out to share with people, it’s neat to see how God brings people who will start talking about spiritual things.”

The statement reminded me particularly of Jesus’ experience with the woman who came to the well outside the Samaritan town of Sychar documented in John 4.  The Bible says that Jesus and His disciples were traveling from Judea to Galilee and had to go through Samaria.  Along the way they came upon this town and Jesus was worn out from the walking and stopped to sit down at Jacob’s Well as His disciples went into town to buy some food.  It’s what happens next however that is the most critical.  A woman from town comes to draw water and Jesus engages her in conversation – – and through that conversation overcomes the multiple barriers she throws at Him, leading her to place her faith and trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord.  Regardless of what might have prompted Jesus to travel through Samaria, regardless of the factors that caused Jesus to sit down at the well, He remained intentional in the mission He had proclaimed from the start, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matt 4:17).

It’s this same intentionality that stood out to me from the True Team’s comments above.  “If you go out to share with people . . . .”  It’s when we are prepared, when we are actively seeking to share with people, when we take the step of faith to open our mouths and begin recounting our testimony then we find those people whom God has already opened their hearts.  This is not to say that everyone we share with is ready to believe.  Not even everyone we share with is interested in talking about spiritual things at all.  But finding the ones that are, usually requires that we start the conversation.

This ‘staying at the well’ approach is essentially where we begin when asked to provide training to a group of existing Believers or church.  Recently the Rushmore* church asked if we would come to train them.  This small, young church has a desire to have a greater impact on the lives of the people around them.  We spent a day with them reviewing together the Great Commission and God’s call to us to bear fruit in the lives of others.  We went beyond simply motivating them to obey the Great Commission by giving focus to training on being prepared (knowing how to tell your testimony) and being intentional (having a plan for sharing the Gospel with others).  Together everyone practiced the sharing of their salvation testimony with others in the room.

Since that training the Rushmore church has been active in putting into practice what they have learned.  Some have reported sharing the Gospel with a lost person for the first time in their life.  Others have remarked on how much more comfortable they are sharing now that they have a plan.  They have ‘stayed at the well’ by sharing out in their community where they meet people, at the market, on the street, when invited to a friends house for dinner ….  In the next couple of weeks we will have another training with the Rushmore church as we continue to seek to encourage them and equip them to grow and multiply as disciples and start more churches.

Please pray with us for the Rushmore church:

–Pray that God be glorified through the Rushmore church as they strive to be the Body of Christ in their setting.

–Pray for continued faithfulness in sharing the Gospel boldly with their family, friends and everyone they meet.

–Pray for boldness and peace as they face the inevitable persecution that will result from advancing more deliberately against Satan’s strongholds.

–Pray for the next training with them that it will meet their needs and questions enabling them to grow and increase their effectiveness as they serve.