I’m heading to Grand Rapids to share about my urban evangelistic outreach in the greater Providence, R.I. metro. A meeting for the general public will be held at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary at 7 p.m., this coming Monday, February 17.
For those unfamiliar with the work, the Reformed Parish Mission (RPM) is an outreach effort of the Presbyterian Reformed Church (PRC) of R.I. A major focus of RPM is bringing the Gospel and a confessionally Reformed witness to South Providence through regular, neighborhood visitation, in the conviction that minorities, immigrants, and the less privileged are easily neglected and are often more receptive. This effort aims at the gathering of folks to the regular Lord’s day services of the congregation, their conversion and upbuilding, and the offering of practical and constructive life-help as we are able.
In my slideshow presentation, we’ll be talking about Thomas Chalmers, his parish mission vision and method, and my attempt to operate on these principles in 2020. If you are a confessional Presbyterian or Reformed believer with a passion for advancing the Gospel and live in the Grand Rapids area, please join us! And if you don’t live in the area, but know someone who might be interested, please pass this along.
Note, 7/25/24. This meeting is one of many presentations I have given over the years to raise awareness about my urban mission work, at that time in Rhode Island and now in S. Jersey. With the blessing of my presbytery, I have been raising support within and beyond our churches to dedicate myself to this work full-time, as a kind of full-time home missionary. I am very grateful to PRTS for the use of their facilities, their encouragements over the years, as well as many supporters throughout the HRC and FRC denominations. For updated information about RPM, go here.
Yesterday I finished the last round through my parishes for the season. As the air gets chillier, my hands and ears get colder, so doorstep conversations turn less pleasant for all involved. For the winter, I turn to revisit folks who will likely have me in, reach out to other contacts outside the district, and resume and start up one-on-one Bible studies.
Last year we held our first evangelistic outreach meeting within walking distance of my S. Providence parish, right on Broad Street in Providence. Last Saturday evening we had our second. As before, we recruited Pr. Luis Morales to translate for me. We sang Psalm 1 in Spanish and English, and we read and preached from Matthew 21:1-11 on the Triumphal Entry.
“I will come by you into Spain.” (Rom. 15:28)
A brother and I were making our way through a street in our district some years back. We came up to a black fellow in his 30’s as he was standing outside his apartment complex. We struck up a conversation and spoke to him about God, the soul, and the judgment to come. Out of nowhere – or so it seemed to us – this fellow broke down and wept. He confessed a deep sense of his sin, especially his sinful and violent anger. It was very touching and a more hopeful sign that God was not done with this sinner and was striving with him by His Spirit then and there.
Saturday was no disappointment. Above our Congolese friends is a small Somali family. The young man, a Muslim, was very polite and listened to the Gospel of the “Lamb of God” who takes away the sin of the world. Above them we met a single Iraqi woman, also Muslim, complete with prayer carpet and ornately decorated Qu’ran lying out. She was clearly needy, in more ways than one. A lonely soul who needed friends, and of course, the Friend who sticks closer than a brother. We spoke of the story of Joseph (“Yousef” as she recalled from the Qu’ran), and how he was lonely and abandoned, yet not abandoned by God. And we shared that he was a picture of the Christ to come, who would be abandoned by his friends that He might die and redeem them. We got her contact information and hope to follow up with her on some practical levels – and hopefully she continues to be open to the Gospel.
Went out in my nearby Lakewood parish Friday. Very encouraging overall. First, approached a couple of fellows who were talking in their driveway. Not wanting to interrupt, I handed them my literature. “Don’t let me interrupt you … unless you’re open to talking religion!” Well, they were. The one fellow, a 40-something biker type with a braided beard, told me that Christianity was suspect, having come down to us through the ages through oral tradition. He didn’t mention the telephone game illustration, but that was the gist of it. I explained to him and his friend the radical concern the early Christians had in bearing witness to the truth. Eventually, I gave the great ‘for instance’ in Saul of Tarsus. Open enemy. Jihadi type. A card-carrying, high profile Jew who hated the Christians. Then he claimed he witnessed the risen Christ, then began “preaching the faith he once destroyed.” At the very least, we should sit up and take notice. I invited him to church, and he indicated that I would probably see him someday.
West Port Experiment 