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07550 September 5, 2007
Taking it to the streets
Hoey tells elders outreach is more important than meetings
by Mike Ferguson Presbyterian News Service
NASHVILLE - The Rev. Eric Hoey's pointed question had elders nodding their heads during the last day of the National Elders Conference Friday (Aug. 31).
"Are you spending more time in church meetings than befriending an unchurched person?" asked Hoey, the PC(USA)'s director for evangelism and church growth. "If God gives you opportunity to open your mouth and share your faith, seize that opportunity."
Hoey preached during closing worship at the first-ever National Elders Conference, attended by more than 300 Presbyterian elders.
Hoey said a clergy friend has discovered a unique evangelism tool: he plays poker for fun and invites fellow card-players to worship at his church.
"I sit with irreligious people for three hours. You bet we talk about life," Hoey said, quoting his friend. "My church has several people from my poker-playing opportunities. What a scandal!"
Evangelism begins with that kind of out-of-the-box thinking, he said, citing the Highlands Adventure in Paso Robles, CA, as an example. The church has no liturgy and features contemporary music and worship. Clearly young people are the target, Hoey said - and yet when he visited he spotted several seniors worshiping there. He asked one older woman what kept her at the church.
"Don't get me wrong, sonny - I love my hymns," she told him. "The reason I'm here is God is at work here. God is moving in this church."
"People are willing to give up traditions," Hoey said, "so the Good News can penetrate the culture in a new way."
The heartbeat of evangelism, as Hoey called it, is the Biblical imperative for finding the lost, as Jesus laid out in his parable of the woman searching her home for her lost coin.
"She does a meticulous search, lighting a lamp, sweeping the house, and searching carefully until the coin is found," he said. "The question we need to ask is, do we relentlessly pursue those who don't know God? The people who aren't in your churches are a precious jewel to God, and we must do everything we can to pursue them. If we raise that to a priority, we would have no problem turning our denomination around."
Now more than ever, Presbyterians must "hear our responsibility for doing our part in God's plan," Hoey said. "All you have to do is go. Take it to the streets, because lost people deeply matter to God."
Mike Ferguson, a Presbyterian elder, is a reporter for the Baker City Herald in Baker City, OR.
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