Equipping the Saints

I handed the tract to a middle-aged man. “What’s this about?” he asked, seriously studying the back page. I had already told him it was about Jesus, so I began to explain how that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and he stopped me, explaining that he already knew Christ. He wanted to know what church I was representing and why I was out on the street passing out tracts that did not have the name of a church printed at the end of the message. We run into this all the time.

After some lengthy conversation, in which he showed good grasp of the Scriptures, he made it pretty clear that we ought to be ought serving a particular church and inviting people to it, not preaching the gospel and leaving them on their own. I said that I cannot recommend a particular church because I’m not sectarian. He said that he had felt the same way until God had showed him that he must submit under authority to a church (of our choice, of course), no matter what. I asked him what was the point? He said that this is how God equips the saints to do the Lord’s work. I asked him if his church was equipping him for his ministry. He said it was, sort of. I asked him what his present ministry was (obviously, he wasn’t downtown at 10:00 p.m. doing any evangelizing). His reply: “I mow the yards at the church."

- Chris Simonson

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