The Grace Brethren church in Lititz, Pennsylvania (Scott Distler, pastor) this past weekend conducted the largest outreach event in the church’s history. Using a rodeo motif (photo by Stan Hall), the church believes it touched at least 7,500 area residents with contact with the church people and many with the message of the gospel. More than 175 volunteers participated in staging the event. Here is a bit of Pastor Scott’s report to his people:
“It appears that the final attendance estimate from the registration workers for those who attended our Rodeo and Western Event was right around the 7,500 mark! Praise the Lord.
“Imagine what God is going to do over the next year in the lives of these 7,500 people who we built bridges to and who had barriers to the idea of church, Christianity and God knocked down in one fun event as they rubbed shoulders with us, the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world.”
“But wait. It doesn’t end there. This event was so incredible that these same 7,500 people who attended will each probably tell at least three, maybe up to ten others this week who did not attend the event all about the great time that they had.
“Many of those same people will also respond with a “WOW! Maybe I should go check out that church!” That means that in the end we will have directly or indirectly made a very positive contact in one single day with anywhere between 30,000 and 80,000 people or more who live right here in our community.
“Now we must pray daily that God will use the many bridges that we have built to stair-step people closer to our church and ultimately to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through faith!”