Will You Sing For Our Mother?
Tim McClure

My wife, Jenny and I had already finished lunch and on the way over to pick up Steve. I had called Mike and told him that we were going to the park to witness. If he wanted to join us we would meet him there. Mike and Gloria, enthusiastic about sharing their faith, told me they would meet us at the park. I had called a few other passionate enthusiasts about evangelism from church, who also said they would meet us at the park. At age eighteen it was clear to me that traditional church evangelism wasn’t working. Something else had to be done if we were going to win souls to Christ.

After arriving at the park, we unload our boxed guitars and agreed that we would simply sing and pray for the sick. We just had a passionate, burning desire to share Jesus Christ with someone believing that the Lord would bless them. As we walked around in the park together singing hymns, families all over the park would stop what they were doing and listen. Some even started singing with us. People nodded or waved as we passed by singing. One man came up and asked, “Would you come over and sing for our mother. It’s her birthday and she has cancer.” We were thrilled. After singing a few songs, tears were streaming down their faces, eyes closed with a few bowed heads in prayer.

Who can follow the life of Christ through the gospels and not be moved by His passion to minister to the needs of people? Jesus didn’t follow the model of the Pharisees when it came to ministering to the public. Jesus did not restrict himself to only the Jewish people. Jesus did more than teach Jewish doctrine. The heart of Jesus was to give the people something; Faith, hope, love, forgiveness, deliverance or healing.

We desperately need a millennial metamorphose of personal evangelism if we are going to succeed in evangelizing the world in this new millennium. Modern day Christian evangelism seems to be all about the Christians, rather than the unsaved. Too many gifted “ministers” are focused on their gift, rather than the needs of the people. The family asked us if we could sing for their mother. When we did, all of them were moved by the Holy Spirit. Why? Because we were not at the park for us, we were there for them.

When Jesus started his evangelism ministry, He moved through the cities to meet a need, heal the sick and bless a life. Jesus always pointed those He touched to the Father, the church or the Kingdom. Today’s curse in ministry is that it has become all about the minister rather than the people needing ministry. Forgive about your gift; it’s their mother’s birthday. Ignore your ego; their mother has cancer. Stop talking about yourself; find out what they need and meet it. Talk about your Heavenly Father; brag about your church; leave them better than you met them. No matter what you’re going through, there’s a mother out there you can sing to.

This article “Will You Sing for Our Mother?” by Tim McClure was excerpted from the PromiseLand Newsletter. www.promiseland.org web site. April 2009. It may be used for study & research purposes only.

This article may not be written by an Apostolic author, but it contains many excellent principles and concepts that can be adapted to most churches. As the old saying goes “Eat the meat. Throw away the bones.”