Apply Radical Truths: The Blessing of Ministering to New Believers

We all love children. Looking at them and playing with them surely takes away our stress. I, myself, love children, too. I love to look at them, play with them, cuddle them, kiss them and hug them. Children has this innate characteristics to really give you a one-of-a-kind refreshing. Their innocence and angelic character relaxes your heart and mind.

One child whom I love is the child of one of my friend in the church. Her name is Keyl. Everybody in the church loves Keyl. She is so cuddly and cute. When her Dad posted her pictures in Facebook, I was so glad. When I get tired at work, just a glance at the above picture eases my mind.

Kids make the place happy.

Kids make everybody sweet.

Kids refreshes you from any stress.

Connect this in a church and you will discover that this is also the one that can contribute to the liveliness and happiness of the church. What I mean is- the new believers. Yes, the new converts, the visitors or the people new to our church. They are the "babes" in Christ.

And isn't it also true that knowing that there is a new believer or a new visitor in the church makes the church happy? Isn't it true that we act differently when there is a new convert? We are conscious of our actions to make our new believers feel accepted and loved. New believers make everybody sweet. Why? Because there is a new "babe" in the church. New believers remind you of your first love. New believers remind you of how sweet it was to be a child of God. New believers has this innocence. New believers appreciate much what we often took for granted. To them, everything in the church is wonderful. Everything they see is a delight and a blessing. And we, in reaction to their attitude, becomes very accommodating to them. Visitors change our Sundays. When you have no visitor brought in the church, you don't care if the songs are too loud, or the message is long or the people don't smile. But when you have a visitor, how you prayed that the songs will be okay, the message ought be perfect, and you wish that everybody will smile and shake hands with your visitor. You are careful and you ensure that nothing will offend your visitor. Speaking of, taking care of fragile kids, right? New believers make us behave how we ought to behave in the church. Visitors make our church gatherings happy.

Another thing, new believers make everybody sweet, and new believers refreshes us from any stress. To the new believers, our issues in "Christianity" is not their issues. All they know is that they have a new life in Jesus. To the new believers, even our issues in the church is a petty thing to them. New believers make us behave differently.

This is why if the church has no new believers, no people being reached and no new members, the church is not that happy. There is no liveliness. There is no baby in the house! And since there are new people being reached, we tend to focus on ourselves to the point that we tend to notice our differences, and eventually, conflicts emerge in our midst. Why? Because there are new babes in the church. Everybody is stressed out, and all our attention is among ourselves in all those years.

But just wait when a new believer comes, O, the atmosphere will be different. There is a new child of God, there is a babe in Christ, and their presence makes our gatherings happy. New believers make us sweet. They refreshes us from stress, making us realize that there is no need to dwell in unnecessary issues and better to minister and focus to these new believers.

Just like Keyl, our attention is to her when she is around in the church. Her smile makes us happy. Keyl makes everybody sweet. Keyl relaxes you from stress. This is the same blessings you get when you minister to the new believers.

The blessing of ministering to new believers is that actually, they are the ones blessing us.

- A r t R o y R e m y

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Just few more radical thoughts:

I will not spend my time resurrecting the dead when I can focus on new births.

If we want radical change in our churches, if we want any issue to vanish, if we want liveliness in our midst, let us focus more on the new believers and pool all our resources and potential to minister to them.