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LONNIE: Hello up there in Vancouver, WA, Ron
Gladden. Welcome to the Voice of Prophecy.
RON: Thank you, Lonnie. It's great to be here on the broadcast today.
LONNIE: Ron there's a buzzword out there, and I'm
familiar with it because it's happening in my own community. I talk to
ministers of other faiths on the way to the airport. It's called church
planting, and you're the director of the church planting center. What
does that mean?
RON: Well, our objective is to start churches in
each community that show the love of God to the community.
LONNIE: Well don't they all? Is there a paradigm
shift here?
RON: Well there is a paradigm shift that we need. A
lot of Americans consider the church in their neighborhood to be
irrelevant, and we need to get back into the community. Our paradigm
change is that, sometimes Christians have forgotten what Jesus has told
us to do in the gospel commission. Jesus told us to go, and some
Christians think that the gospel commission said to come. So that the
lost will come to us, but we're suppose to go to them.
LONNIE: What are some of the creative ways that
church planting builds those kind of bridges to people? What are you
doing that's maybe different, or novel? People up there today could say,
hey those are neat ideas maybe we should try those.
RON: Well, one is the door to door surveys, simple
four-question survey…well here's a few questions. If you could ask God
any question what would you ask? Very non threatening, and we had a
gentleman pause, take a deep breath and say, I would ask God why am I
dying of cancer, and occasionally someone's heart will show an interest
in a deeper contact with God. The last question in the survey is I'm
starting a new church, what advice do you have for me? We get all kinds
of good advice.
LONNIE: Alright, you've got all kinds of new things
that I got excited about when I talked to you Ron, because actually I
have the privilege of sitting on your board now. The Voice of Prophecy
is very interested in church planting. Talk to us about some of the
creative ways to build bridges as Jesus built bridges into our lives and
into our world. How do you do that from the church into the home?
RON: a lot of our churches are doing what we call
servant evangelism, here are some examples. We will do a car wash that's
totally free, and we will not accept any donations and people will say,
well nothing's free, and we'll say, God's love is free, and so is this
little gesture of God's love. We give them a little card so they can
follow up if they have any interest.
LONNIE: And some of them actually do come check you
out then?
RON: They sure do. We have done a Christmas gift wrapping at Christmas
time, and we don't allow them to pay us. We go into a laundromat and
when a young mother comes in with her laundry we ask her, which machine
would you like to use, and then we feed the machine, and give her a
little card in case she wants a follow up.
LONNIE: That's beautiful.
RON: We've also started what we call IP Parties.
LONNIE: Now that's an interesting expression.
RON: We have a little card we print up, and we give
it to someone, maybe we've met them for the first time and we want to
invite you to our IP party. Well, they're confused by that term, and
they say what in the world is that? That stands for interesting people
party, and you look interesting. We've had a number of these parties and
we would love to have you come. It's an opportunity, an excuse to invite
them into your home, and we find with that little catch phrase that we
give that probably three out of four people will come to our home and we
can then build a relationship with them and move closer to Christ.
LONNIE: That's beautiful. It's important for people
to grasp the concept that we need to bridge the gap. It's our
responsibility to go out and bridge gaps from the church to the
community.
RON: That's exactly what Jesus did. He mingled with
people. He showed them that He cared about them, and He met their needs.
Then after they had confidence in him, He said follow me.
LONNIE: Can you give me an example of someone who
was changed and transformed, maybe even a baptized church member because
of theses creative ways to build bridges?
RON: Yes I can. Dennis, in Medford Oregon received a
smoke alarm battery from church members who went door to door just
simply saying we would like your family to be safe. There was a little
card in there and that evening Dennis called the number on the card and
said, would someone come visit me? When the pastor went to visit, Dennis
said, You know, I have never heard of a church that gives instead of
trying to receive. Can I attend your church? Today Dennis is a baptized
member of that church.
LONNIE: That is beautiful. Ron Gladden, the director
of the church-planting center in Vancouver, Washington. Thank you so
much for sharing with us today on the Voice of Prophecy.
RON: You're welcome. God bless you Lonnie.
CONNIE: It's important, isn't it, to find ways to
bridge the gap between the church and the community.
LONNIE: It's the only way to make the gospel
relevant, really.
CONNIE: And when we as Christians do that, we're
just following the example of our Master, as this song reminds us:
CONNIE: Amen! Jesus is the ultimate bridge builder
isn't He--coming from heaven to earth to connect us to God.
LONNIE: That's right. He crossed over the chasm that
separates us from God in order to rebuild our connection to heaven. |