A Five Letter Word for Reaching Families?
B-17, I-50, M-7.
No, these are not kinds of airplanes.
Looking across rows and down columns for these letter and number combinations are all part of a game. But, this game does more than connect a line for a win, it leads to connections with families in the community.
The game?
Bingo. Spelled B–I–N–G–O.
B-29!
Another combination is called.
And, an even a more important call to share the saving gospel message is being heard by volunteers and members who help organize and coordinate Living Savior’s Bingo night.
“And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.’” Mark 16:15.
Living Savior – like many other congregations – has spent time and effort on many outreach events. Some geared toward children, such as Christmas 4 Kids and Vacation Bible School, others aimed at adults, like Bible studies. Our congregation chose to also offer a new kind of event, an event for the entire family and for families from our community. Anyone, everyone is welcome!
Parents and children together? Entire families together outside of Sunday worship service?
Before the first Bingo event, I wasn’t sure what to expect. We had handed out hundreds of flyers two weeks prior during Blair’s Gateway to the West parade, but would we have any takers? I knew some of our member families would attend, but would anyone else?
From behind the scenes, an event like Bingo night might be considered pre-evangelism leading to evangelism. Pre-evangelism is simply meeting people, learning about them, and leveling obstacles that potentially stand in between good communication. The goal of pre-evangelism is to establish some sort of connection with another person, so that evangelism can happen. Evangelism, then, is the proclamation of the good news of Jesus as our Savior from sin. Evangelism happens when you show the real Jesus to an unbelieving person. Whether at your office, or with a neighbor at your annual block party, or with a new friend during Bingo night, Evangelism is sharing the good news of Christ!
The fact is that not all of our pre-evangelism attempts at Living Savior have been successful. Our Easter 4 Kids advertisements were something of a bust. Our city-wide Easter service postcard mailings had yielded no apparent outward fruits.
But, what’s better than a family playing Bingo?
This time the Lord blessed our efforts with visible, tangible opportunities to introduce ourselves to new people living in Blair! Within ten minutes of opening our doors we had to set up more tables to accommodate. We kicked off the evening with the first letter-number call.
No devotion
No presentation about our church.
Simply Bingo.
By nights end, we had set up all of our available tables. It was a full house with half the room filled by new visitors! Folks had fun. Members greeted new faces and enjoyed each other’s company. Near the end of the evening, I invited everyone to come again on Sunday for something even better.
Sunday worship.
We didn’t see any of these folks at worship – our timing is not always God’s timing – but, the warmth of Christ was shared on that special family Bingo night. Credibility and trust took root between member and stranger. The warmth of Christ was shared by the men, women and children of Living Savior as their lights shined brightly in love and joy. God-willing, as we continue to let our lights shine, those that visit may see our good deeds and glorify the Father in heaven together with us someday.
By: Rev. Daniel Johnston
Living Savior, Blair, Nebraska
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At Mt. Lebanon, Milwaukee, Wis., new funding will help with calling a second pastor, allowing Rev. Aaron Bublitz, the congregation’s current pastor, to focus on the pastoral needs of Mt. Lebanon’s elementary school students and their families. The school is part of Milwaukee’s School Choice program, and many of the students come from unchurched families in the neighborhood. Since 2011, 128 people have been baptized through the school, including students and their family members.
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For the next month or so, I continued to send out the daily prayer. One day, Ben’s wife, Kendra, emailed me back. She explained that she loved the daily prayers, that they spoke to her, and they were looking for a closer church home. Just before Christmas, Kendra attended a worship service to test it out. Shortly after that, she was consistently bringing both her 2-year-old son and her husband. They joined our Bible 101 class and began to dig into the truths of God’s word. We made it to the baptism lesson and I let Scripture explain how baptism is a gift from God. We explored how in baptism God makes us his child, and he offers us forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit. When we finished the lesson, Kendra exclaimed, “Baptism is awesome!”
The partnership took several forms. We did some special projects for them (the kind you can’t quite get to but wish would get done). We hosted a Teacher Appreciation Luncheon, which they enjoyed quite a bit, due largely to the fact that we served Chick-Fil-A. Another South Carolina congregation got involved (Beautiful Savior in Summerville) and collected 20+ backpacks filled with age-appropriate supplies for the students. We had an in-house school supply drive as well, which was “teacher focused,” meaning we gathered the kinds of things teachers end up purchasing throughout the year: Kleenex, hand-sanitizer, pencils (we spent one Sunday morning after worship just sharpening pencils!), paper towels, and wet wipes.
