WINDSOR, ONTARIO – As our small church began to take form, and God began to save sinners by His grace, we ran into a problem. These new believers wanted to share their faith, but didn’t know how. They were excited about their new life, they were glowing with the light of Christ, but they were unsure how to share this good news, and frankly, I didn’t know how to help them. The temptation can be to hold back sharing the Gospel until we “know enough.” But I knew there had to be a simple, reproducible and faithful way that a newly baptized believer, still dripping with baptismal water, can faithfully begin sharing the Gospel, but how?
The Gospel is not a religious doctrine, as much as it is good news. It’s easy to baptize the Gospel in religious rhetoric and forget that its ACTUAL news. The Gospel is history, it’s flesh and bone! The Gospel is front page current events news.
Then it hit me, “That’s it! It’s news!” In that moment God saturated my mind with ideas. It was as if a flood gate opened and I couldn’t stop the creative energy of the Holy Spirit from consuming me. The world is sharing their “gospel” everyday through every means and medium possible. The Church needs to do the same.
God led me to create a ministry called, “Good News for Windsor.” The goal of this ministry was to start a grassroots movement that would embolden Christians to live as domestic missionaries. We created simple, clear, and easy to present resurrection pamphlets so that even new believers could open them up and share with anyone. We created drop cards that pointed people to our website, where they would see a professionally produced proclamation of the Good News as well as other resources for those wishing to dig deeper. We made T-Shirts that said, “Ask Me for Some Good News” in order to prompt people to begin conversations with us! It’s always nerve wracking to start a Gospel conversation, but it’s much easier when someone else ASKS YOU for the Gospel!
The results have been nothing short of miraculous. We were able to share the Gospel with over 50 people, face to face, at a local festival last summer using the materials we created. But more importantly, our congregation is reporting an increase of Gospel conversations with their family, friends and even strangers! I was able to personally share the Gospel with a Muslim woman at the grocery store and give her a resurrection pamphlet. However, in the providence of God, the next week at the gym she saw me, and I was able to witness to her again at the gym. We chatted for 20 minutes about the resurrection and eternal life, and this time her Muslim friend got to hear the Good News as well. All because I wore a shirt that said, “Ask Me for Some Good News!”
If we truly believe that God came in the flesh, died on a cross to cleanse us from all our sins, and rose from the dead to grant us eternal life, then we ought to go to extreme measures to share this news. We are strongly encouraging the Saints in our fellowship to become living, breathing, Gospel billboards. After all, isn’t that what Church Planting is all about? Bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to every living soul on this beautiful planet?
Charles Spurgeon said, “Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.” Every believer on mission is normative Christianity. Pew warming and consumer Christianity needs to become the oddity among us, not the norm. So think, how can I begin to clearly and simply share the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth? And then GO and DO IT! Don’t wait for permission, don’t look to see what others are doing, GO! This news is too wonderful to wait!!!!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alin Patularu is the founder and Lead Teaching Pastor of Life-Giver Church in Windsor, Ontario. Alin has been married to his wife Shelly for 7 years and they are expecting twin baby boys.