We had a great day in God's House this morning! Now I am praying for your Life Group to have fun tonight at your Super Bowl party. We intentionally encouraged each group to invite family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers to a party so you can build relationships with people who need Jesus or who need a church home. Many of our groups, all over East Jacksonville, are meeting for this purpose. Instead of "having" church tonight, we are "being" the church in our community! There are people in our church now, not because they first came to a worship service, but because they enjoyed themselves outside of a church service with some of our members. It was not until later that they decided to attend a service to see what all the excitement was about. This is not a new approach to reaching people with the Gospel. It is exactly what Matthew Levi did when Jesus saved and called him. He threw a party in Jesus' honor and invited his friends over to meet Jesus!
Luke 5:27-31
27 Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. 28 So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him. 29 Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them. 30 But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum? 31 Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. 32 I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”
