Outreach

Before students came on Summer Project, the thought of doing outreach was exciting and terrifying at the same time, and the students longed to be able to know how to share their faith. These are actual quotes from the applications for Project from this summer’s group:

“Taking the initiative in evangelism is not the most comfortable thing to do. Jesus left us here with the Great Commission, and shoot, I’m going to do it.”

“I have not had much experience with evangelism, but there is no better way to spread Jesus’ love then telling people ourselves. It is so important to take the initiative to tell people about Jesus. I want to feel confident enough to do that. I think summer project would be a good opportunity to grow in that area.”

“I also really want to learn how to effectively share my faith. It’s something I’ve been nervous about doing but have always wanted to do.”

“It is actually one of my goals to be able to share my faith and witness. I have always been afraid to do so, and I have decided that this year, my goal is to get rid of insecurities of speaking out loud about Jesus.”

“I don’t know much about evangelism and that’s one of the reasons why I want to go on this project.”

This summer, outreach wasn’t just something that we did one day a week, it was a lifestyle. But in addition, we did focus our attention on sharing the Gospel during one day of the week. Every Saturday, after room cleaning, we had outreach time. It was something that the students really wanted, but they were also really scared to do. 

The outreaches really helped students to understand why in the world that we do evangelism. One student in particular, she came on project feeling apathetic about sharing her faith., Even on the first day of outreach, she held back and didn’t want to participate. The next Saturday, she and another girl got into a conversation with a group of mom’s and their little girls at the mall. While they were talking about spiritual things, the women kept answering the questions with “I just don’t know” and “I have never thought about that.” When we all returned to the Honey to debrief, the student got up and shared about her interaction with the women, and how the Lord had really broken her hardened heart. She was crying and saying, “these people just don’t know… they just don’t know about Jesus and what He has done for them.” This marked a significant step for our student, and she began to be passionate about sharing her faith, not only on Saturday outreach times, but in her workplace and with new people she met. 

Another guy had never really shared he faith before, and one Saturday he began to pray for God to open the door and let him have a great spiritual conversation. A few minutes later he was sharing Christ with a man, who prayed to receive Christ! The man had just moved to Branson recently and had to leave his family to find work. During his time in the new city, he began to realize his brokenness, but didn’t know what to do about it.  God had set a divine appointment for the two to meet, and we now have a new brother in Christ!

It was really cool to see God open the hearts of our students and challenge then to step outside of their comfort zone and actually share the Gospel. And thankfully, there are so many more stories of lives that were changed and new people placing their faith in Christ because of our students following the Lord and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and direct them! Praise the Lord!

Also, Tuesday nights we had an open dinner night where students invited anyone they met to come and eat a free meal, and 3-4 students shared their testimony and the gospel. These nights were always my favorite dinners because it was so fun to see the picnic tables packed out with people who were getting to hear the gospel. Some were co-workers, some were children, some were homeless, some were people who had trusted Christ the summer before because of students on that Summer Project. Regardless, it was just another way to see God’s faithfulness to being all these people together to share a meal, and to hear the best news they could ever hear.