Evangelism Group Meeting,
1- We began our meeting with the question: Why must we evangelize?
First: It is a Command From the
Lord:
Matthew 28:19-20 (The great commission): “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and
lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
These two verses tell us about our commission as Christians. We are the
people that have the good news about how our Lord Jesus Christ has conquered
death for us. It is our job to spread this message to all people.
As a side note, the word “Gospel” means “good
news” in Greek, so we are actually spreading the Gospel to everyone.
Jude 1:2-3- ‘Mercy, peace, and love be
multiplied to you. Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you
concerning our common salvation, I found it
necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith
which was once for all delivered to the saints.’
These verses further show how we, as Christians, must
continue to spread the Word of God to others, just as the saints and disciples
have spread the faith to us. We spread the same faith that was once for all delivered
by the apostles. Other churches lost
that faith, but we still have it in the Coptic Orthodox Church.
1 Corinthians
These two verses are another command of the Lord. Every time we drink of His blood and eat of His body, we
must spread our glorious message and share the blessings that we
receive. When we go into communion we are taking our Lord inside of us,
as it is our duty to allow the Lord to fill our spirits and dwell in us, so
that we can become stronger in our faith and more able to spread the good
news.
2- We were very blessed to have Father Moussa
join our meeting, just as we had wanted from the first Evangelism
meeting.
3- We continued to go over the points
mentioned in the first meeting, discussing them together and with Father Moussa, in order to try and make these “ideas” become more
real.
4-We delegated many tasks to some of the people in the meeting, so that God-willing we can make
changes in our church as soon as possible.
5- We came up with one new idea pertaining to the cleanliness of the church,
both inside and outside. We decided to have
one individual responsible for organizing a clean-up effort with all of the
Sunday school classes. We
decided it would be best to get the children of the church involved in this
service, with each class rotating each week. The 1st and 2nd
grade Sunday school class has offered to take part in this effort as soon as
this coming Sunday. We mentioned the idea of having
them wear a special ribbon that will distinguish them from the rest of the
people, in order to add a sense of pride for the kids.
6- I attended the Servants’ meeting on
a) The new cleaning
effort that will include the children
b) The need for the Sunday school servants to talk to their kids about cleanliness and needing to clean the rooms before leaving
c) The possibility of having
our kids sit with us during the Divine Liturgy in order to teach them more,
while also keeping the church quieter during the services
A new idea was made at the Servants’
meeting. This idea was to shut off the snack
machines until AFTER Sunday school, that way the kids will not make a mess
with the wrappers and other trash. Father Moussa
did approve this idea, and it is up to the Evangelism group to discuss and
decide if that would be a positive approach to decrease the trash in the
church.
7-God-willing, next Friday night we will be getting into more detail
about the need for servants to greet and seat our visitors.
Mr. Victor Beshir will continue with this topic for us. I am very happy that we are all working together and that
all areas of the church, whether it be the servants’ meeting or college meeting
are involved in this Evangelism group.
Please remember this Evangelism meeting in you prayers and please try to be
punctual to the meetings, so that we can benefit fully. The meeting is at