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Paul Prayed For Opportunities To Minister To Them
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?” 1 Thessalonians 3:10[/perfectpullquote]There is a word that I’ve been encountering a lot recently. It seems to be a bit of a buzz word especially as the entire world went digital during the pandemic. The word is “engagement”. When I think about the word engagement I can’t help but picture my wife and I sitting on the couch watching some sort of sports. One of us is sitting on the edge of their seat, eyes glued to the TV perhaps even instructing the players as to what they should do. The other is sitting back casually looking at their phone or perhaps even napping. That is because one of us cares about sports and the other doesn’t. I recently was able to attend an on-line training where I heard people talking about engagement in a digital context and the goal of making it so people know that they are seen.
There is a fundamental desire within all people to know that they matter, belong, and have a connecting point. I think that is the reason most of us are struggling with being away from church. Our connecting point is missing or at the very least has to function differently for a period of time. In the book, “It’s Personal” by Reggie Joiner, Virginia Ward and Kristen Ivy, they give 5 questions to answer about a person in order to make an impact in their life. “Do you know my name?”, “Do you know what matters to me?”, “Do you know where I live?”, Do you Know what I’ve done?”, Do you know what I can do?”. This is a great illustration of relational engagement, leaning into the life of someone else to get to know the answers to these questions.
When we engage people we will be able to do what Paul desires in our verse today which is to impact their lives with the Good News of Jesus Christ. The word “faith” used here means conviction of truth. Paul engaged people so he could help them believe the truth about who God and Jesus are. He knew that it was not enough to write letters, but that he needed to sit down face to face with individuals and dive into their life if he was going to make any headway for God.
Think about your own faith journey. I would imagine it was a person, not a lesson, that had the greatest impact. Sermons, lessons, and books, provide great learning tools, but it’s the people that engage us by walking side by side with us through life that have the greatest impact on our faith journey.
The events of COVID-19 have made face to face interactions difficult. Yes, we have ways to video chat, and we have platforms to post our thoughts and feelings. There here are no shortage of ways for people to stay in contact. But, if this season has taught us anything its that these things are just a placeholder for the real thing. They may keep us in touch with each other, but they do not lend themselves to engaging each other.
One of my prayers during this season is that the Church will emerge from this with a renewed sense of purpose for engaging in personal relationship with each other so that Good News of Jesus Christ can impact them in a deep and intimate way. That we would realize the way to impact others is not to introduce them to more content but to engage in life with them.
That we would be passionate about finding people that we can dive into life with and learn to answer key questions about who they are and what matters to them so that we may be able to firm up their conviction of who Christ is and what he has done for them.
-Adam Deering
