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Testimony of Chris and Christine Miller |
East-Central Oklahoma Church-Planting
by Larry Jones The Jerusalem Priority outreach program appealed immediately to our church-planting work in McAlester, Oklahoma, because it provided our new church with high quality materials all tied to a central theme. To the best of our knowledge, prior to March, 2003, there was no ABA-affiliated mission or church in McAlester, a city of about 20,000 people in southeast Oklahoma. Organized five years later on March 1, 2008, the McAlester Missionary Baptist Church had been blessed by God with a dedicated core group of people including many children and some fine young families. Not long after our organizational service, we received information on The Jerusalem Priority through the Christian Education Bulletin and the brand-new Missionary Baptist Church of McAlester was immediately interested. As any missionary or church-planter knows, soul-winning outreach and visitation are not just useful...they are critical. Churches cannot be established until people are reached with the gospel of salvation. The Jerusalem Priority provided to our church some very good tools to use in carrying out the Great Commission which Christ gave to His churches in Matthew 28:16-20 and in Acts 1:8. The members of the young church in McAlester, Oklahoma, were already well aware of the fact that our local community was our “Jerusalem.” We began planning for our Jerusalem Priority outreach several months in advance. Being a new work and needing to guard expenses, we carefully looked through The Jerusalem Priority materials and choose those which were best suited to our particular situation. We emphasized those materials which would give us the most exposure in the community. We bought the large outdoor banner and took it to a local print shop where they personalized it for us by putting our church’s name on it, then we put the banner up in front of our church building. We explained The Jerusalem Priority to our people and “talked it up” for several weeks ahead of time. We used The Jerusalem Priority bulletin inserts (some of our people knew personally some of the people mentioned in the inserts). We also ordered several packets of The Jerusalem Priority postcards and handed them out (with postage already attached) to our church members during a Sunday morning service, encouraging them to send them to neighbors and friends. In fact, our church continues sending the postcards today in follow-up outreach. We also used the smaller pocket-sized cards and the Bridge tract, which our members liked very well. Some of the residents of our city should be quite familiar with The Jerusalem Priority logo! The Jerusalem Priority gave our people the opportunity to work together in reaching the unsaved and unchurched. We used The Jerusalem Priority in the fall of 2008, with good results. We did not limit our outreach to only four Sunday’s, but spread it out over a couple of months. During this outreach, some of our newest members were able to bring six first time visitors—two single moms and their children—to church with them. In August and September, 2008, we had near-record average attendance with dozens of first time visitors. In September we had a man and wife join our church. In November we were still reaping the benefits of outreach, with a young lady saved and another baptized. One man came to a Sunday morning church service with a letter stuck in the pages of his Bible which he had received from our church the week before. He came to the altar, tearfully rededicated his life to Christ and thanked the church for contacting him and reminding him that he should be serving Jesus! I recommend The Jerusalem Priority as a scriptural tool in evangelistic outreach.
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