A major component of the outreach approach at New Way will be “Service Evangelism”. This is different from (but may technically include) “sevant evangelism”. Servant evangelism is the doing of natural charity for strangers as an act of outreach. Service evangelism (my own term) describes not just doing good works of charity for strangers, but actually inviting strangers to help do those good deeds with the church community. (The recent World Vision Caregiver Kit program is a partial example of this sort of outreach.) Evangelism—when looked at as handing out invitations to the Lord’s wedding feast—is not only declaring the truths of the New Church, but also inviting people into the life of the church, which is a life of doing good. By thus marrying truth with good in our outreach efforts, we are acting as not just the lungs, but also the heart for the surrounding community.
[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Yesterday I shared the Marketing Philosophy. Tomorrow I’ll post something on Ratios.]