Looking for a new way to help connect the social assistance work of the Salvation Army with the gospel? The phrase "mission integration" has been on my mind lately ever since it was presented to us as an area that God is desirous of the Salvation Army to pursue. There are not two separate areas of the Salvation Army, there is one Salvation Army that considers the soul and the needs of the person holistically.
To that end I would like to share a simple, yet effective way to connect the gospel with the social services work of your corps building: Set up an evangelistic literature table.
I helped set this up at my previous corps in Michigan, and it was quite helpful. We had a display case with some historic Salvation Army items in it sitting in our waiting room, near the chairs where people sat to wait to meet with the social worker. I took responsibility as the intern at the time to keep the area stocked.
We often have extra tables or cabinets that could easily be set up in our waiting area. Find that display table and set it up, and perhaps give one of your employees the responsibility of keeping it stocked with supplies.
Here are some recommendations for items to place on the display table:
1. Prayer Request Bin - I'm sure, especially if you're a creative individual, you could find or even make a beautiful prayer box, with an opening in the top to write and place prayer requests. We had a simple wooden prayer box that had carved in it: "Prayer requests." And there were a few pens and blank paper there for people to write down prayer requests. Then the administrative assistant would empty it every week, and give the prayer requests to the officers. I took the idea further because the officers didn't always have time to pray for those requests. So I typed them up into an email and sent the email out to members of the congregation who agreed to pray weekly for those individuals. We normally got 2-8 prayer requests a week! Prayer is powerful. This is simply, effective, and inexpensive. And it helps people visiting the corps for services to feel they are cared for.
2. War Crys, Tracts & Devotionals - There are tons of sources of free and cheap tracts out there on the web to access. I would send out for them, receive them in the mail, and then set them out in the table. Walking by the table I'd often see people bored in the waiting room wandering over to the table reading the literature. I also sent out for "Our Daily Bread" the free devotional books, and I placed them out as well. Click here to order ODB for free.
Free Gospel Tracts: http://www.bibletractsinc.org/
Fellowship Tract League
http://www.tracts4u.org/
3. CDs / DVDs - Millennials like me don't have a lot of time to read, we're too busy listening to CDs, watching DVDs, and surfing the web. To that end, I decided I needed to get some media out on the literature table. For quite a while I would purchase sermon CDs from Christianbook.com. I mainly left out apologetics messages given by Ravi Zacharias. Those went very fast, wow, super fast! So I found some free to share sermons on the internet, several from LivingWaters.com Ray Comfort's ministry, and I would purchase CD-writables, and spend time each day burning a few messages to CDs and then leaving them out in little Cd sleeves on the table. Additionally, Ray Comfort's ministry offers DVDs in bulk, ten DVDs for two dollars each, and I would buy those and then leave them on the table as well. They went very fast!
Click here for "free to share" MP3s from Ray Comfort's ministry.
4. Church Service Pamphlets - We created a three-fold church services and weekly activities pamphlet for our corps, and printed hundreds of copies. A good program to do that is Windows Publisher. We had two upright standing pamphlet holders on each side of the table, one was our church services pamphlet, and the other held some information on our social service programs. Later I also researched some of the alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous meetings in the area, and created a pamphlet listing the meetings in the area. We printed those out as well, and placed them on the table. You never know when someone struggling with addiction might need to access that resource.
5. Gospels / Bibles - The word of God will not return void! I ordered little "gospel of John" booklets and set those out on the table. They went fast. For a while I set out Bibles, but we decided on a different approach for a Bible. We tacked up a sign that said come to the front window and ask if you would like a free Bible. We must've had at least 10-12 people ask over the time I was there. The gospel of John booklets were available through Lifebook.com. Those sort of materials can also be purchased from sources on the web. I like Lifeway.com, Christianbook.com, BiblesbytheCase.com, and BiblesinBulk.com.
So in conclusion, here's my encouragement: Literally everyone who walks through your doors needs Jesus. We obviously can't talk to everyone who walks through the door to access services. But we can make materials available. We can offer pray, materials, media, and Bibles to these people. Try it out, and see how it goes! Set aside a small amount of money in your budget, $200-$1000 annually depending on how far you want to go with the idea. We spend a lot of money feeding and clothing people, we can also spend some reaching them with literature. Good luck and God bless!
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