Lately I have been reading a book called "From The Sanctuary To The Streets: Insights and Adventures in Power Evangelism" by Charles Bello & Brian Blount.  Charles has been a Vineyard pastor for over 25 years and Brian has been doing the stuff for over 25 years as well.  You may remember that during the SCATTERED 2011 conference, Robby Dawkins also recommended this book and had it on his table.  

Anyways, this book of some great personal stories and even some great stories and reminders of things that John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard churches said, for instance:

• Talking during his now famous, Signs & Wonders Conference, John WImber said that Luke 4:18- 19 was Jesus' personal job description.  And that as followers of Jesus Christ, our job description was also to be Luke 4:18- 19.  Just as a reminder, this is what it says: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
• This is our job description as followers of Jesus.  This is how we are supposed to make the Kingdom of God tangible in people's lives around us, wherever we are at.  
• Something else that John Wimber used to tell his church is, "The meat is in the street."  In the book it says... "In our age of consumerism, Christians can collect spiritual experiences or acquire biblical knowledge and mistakenly believe that spiritual maturity and happiness can be measured by the size of our personal libraries or the strangeness of our religious encounters... Wimber reminds us that maturity in the Christian life is never relegated to simply acquiring more knowledge or esoteric experiences; it is forever linked holiness, obedience and mission- the walking out of our faith.  Holiness is obedience turned inward; mission is obedience turned outward.  We are called to outwardly focused obedience to the great commission of Christ." 
• Look up Matthew 28:18- 20... this is known as the Great Commission.  You will see that Jesus promises us that as we go to the streets to make disciples... He will always be with us.  The authors said, "God moves in the sanctuary [the church building] to heal the church; God moves in the streets to heal the world."  

So what does this mean for us?  

This week is Halloween.  For the most part it is Thursday, October 27 from 6p- 7:30p.  As you know, Halloween can both be spiritually dark... and physically dark.  We are going to have a bunch of kids coming to your door Trick or Treating... and there are going to be thousands of kids all over the streets.  They are going to have parents with them.  There are going to be lives that need healing, lives that are oppressed by and in imprisoned to sin.  There are people that need the Kingdom of God the most.  While my small group and others are going to be doing servant evangelism by giving away hot dogs, drinks, etc... there is a street full of people that need your prayers.  So you don't need some outreach program to go... you don't need a pastor or leader there... you are the Kingdom of God in your neighborhood.  Jesus said this is Matthew 10 [from The Message]... "Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood.  Tell them that the kingdom is here.  Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously. "Don't think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don't need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment..."

This is your commission... GO this week and make the Kingdom of God tangible in somebody's life...

Next week... I am going to share some stories from people that have been out doing the stuff.  There are some pretty cool ones out there!