Reaching People with the Gospel

In Luke 14:23 Jesus spoke of a servant who was sent into the "highways and hedges" to compel people to come to a wedding feast. That story underscores the importance of reaching out to people rather than expecting people to show up just because we have an event scheduled. The mentality of most church folks seems to be that of, "we've built it now they can come". Jesus never commanded us to build, but to go, compel, preach and share. Reaching people with the Gospel, then, supposes that a Christian engages people where they are. Here are some thoughts on how to do that....

What would it be like if instead of starting a new Sunday School Class, we advertised a bible study at Shoney's on Thursday nights for anyone interested?

What would it be like if instead of participating in a church softball league with a bunch of other Christians, we got together a team of Christian men and sponsored a team in the industrial league?

What would it be like if instead of starting our own little leagues, we trained men and women how to lead little league football, soccer, baseball and basketball teams with an eye toward sharing the Gospel and being salt and light?

What would it be like if instead of spending millions of dollars on a family life center to gather the church together, again, the church bought every family a membership at the YMCA?

How 'bout this? Instead of spending all that money on brotherhood meals and women's groups meals, what if we took that money and paid the entry fee for a few trained evangelists into hunting clubs, country clubs, quilting clubs and the like?

Here's the point - We spend a lot of money talking about evangelism and not doing evangelism. Why not spend that money to strategically place Christian people in places where non-christian people hang out so that the Gospel might be shared and souls saved?