TARGET THREE wall - the start of something BIG

Last Sunday as we started our new series, "Finding Your Style." I ended the message by asking you to think of three names (something I like to call a TARGET THREE list) of people you know who don’t know Jesus or don’t go to church that you will commit to:

Pray for daily by name that they will find Jesus and that God would use you in the process!

Build bridges to regularly!

Partner with E-Free to get them under the sound of the Gospel!

This Sunday as we continue this series the message will end with a very special opportunity that I believe will start something very BIG in our church.  At the end of the message during both services we will be giving opportunity for our church family to come forward and write the first names of their TARGET THREE on specially designed boards.  These boards will then be put where it can be seen regularly between now and Easter as a constant reminder to us as to what our church is all about – MEETING people where they are and MOVING people to where God wants them to be.

We did this very thing at one of my previous churches and it resulted in the greatest year of church growth and people coming to faith in Christ that I have experienced in a local church in 26 years of being a pastor.  We actually wrote our TARGET THREE names on the very wall of the auditorium (which was also a gymnasium) where we held our services.  It was amazing to watch what happened.  For example:

People would bring their own markers with them to church for weeks after we initially wrote our names on the wall in order to add more names.  We literally had several thousand names written on the wall of our church.

People would come through the door after services and introduce me to guests they had brought, letting me know that their names were ones written on the wall.

I'll never forget the Sunday morning after one individual whose name was written on the wall had started attending our church and committed his life to Christ.  On that Sunday he followed the Lord in baptism.  Immediately upon getting out of the pool on the stage he and the man who wrote his name on the wall weeks earlier walked together over to the spot on the wall where his name was written and he crossed his name off of the wall.  

One man in our church had a ministry of coming in each Saturday and setting up our portable stage for Sunday's services (remember, we met in a gym).  His dad was not a believer and would not come to church,.  His son had written his name on the wall.  One Saturday his dad actually came with him to help him set up the stage.  He noticed the wall and asked his son if the pastor knew people had written on the wall?  He told his dad that the pastor had actually told them to write on the wall.  When his dad asked why, he took his dad over to a spot on the wall and pointed to where the word "DAD" was written.  He told him that they wrote on the wall the names of people they were praying for daily that they would come to know Jesus.  He then told his dad that he had wrote the name "DAD" on the wall.

As you prepare to come to church this Sunday, be sure to prayerfully consider who your TARGET THREE names will be.  Together we will write these name on these TARGET THREE walls so that we can be reminded regularly between now and Easter what we are all about as a church - MEETING people right where they are and MOVING them to where God wants them to be!  I believe that Sunday will be the start of something BIG!