The Matthew (Pumpkin) Party
Tonight my small group is trying something totally new. In fact, I have no idea how it will actually turn out. About a year ago, we read through Bill Hybels’ book, Just Walk Across the Room. It is a book on relational evangelism and one of the ideas that he presents is what he terms a “Matthew Party,” based off of Luke 5:27-32.
The idea is to take a group from the church (in this case our small group) and host a party focused on people who may not necessarily go to church or believe in God. The idea is to create meaningful friendships outside of the church walls and to focus on other people. My wife had the idea to twist it a bit and make it into a pumpkin carving party.
So tonight, in my driveway, we are hosting our first “Matthew (Pumpkin-Carving) Party.” We’ve invited a whole bunch of people, including all of my immediate neighbors. We’ll have a screen set up on the side and a projector playing the cheesiest old-school horror movie we can find. And we are going to have some fun. Michelle even found some Homestarrunner pumpkin designs! We aren’t going to preach to anybody and there is no pressure to do anything but have fun and get to know some new people, or get to know them better.
My prayer is that God would cause us to go into the “Zone of the Unknown,” (a term from the book referring to the area opposite of our comfort zone) and challenge us to talk with new people and to establish new friendships. My prayer is that we’ll be the Church tonight and that we’ll see God show up in cool and surprising ways. I’ll post an update tomorrow with how it went and hopefully some pictures. Here is a quote from the book that explains why things like tonight can be so valuable:
“The longer a person attends church, the fewer evangelistic discussions they engage in with family members and friends. Fewer presentations of the life-changing plan of salvation are given, and fewer invitations to events that attractively present the message of Christ are offered, mostly because Christ-followers have fewer friends outside the faith to whom to offer them.” – Bill Hybels
This is the personal blog of Jeremy Jernigan. Husband, father, teaching pastor, and student of truth.
OOoooh now that’s a great, fun idea!! Definitely will be praying for tonight and look forward to seeing how God shows up!! Going out into the ZOTA…that’s what it’s all about! Love the fact you guys are putting your walk into action which should spurr us all on to do the same! For the longest time I’d been thinking about having a ping pong tournament with the neighborhood….hmmm, time to put it in action!
Hmmm. Food for thought….and action.
Jeremy,
Thank you for reaching out. More workers are needed to have compassion on the lost and reach them. Much can get in the way of true outreach to the lost. In Luke 5:27-32 the religious leaders are upset that Jesus is at the party with sinners. Jesus takes that opportunity to explain the main reason He is at the party. Jesus makes it clear that not only is it right to reach out to the lost by having a meal together but also the main purpose which He says in verse 32 was to call “sinners to repentance”. Jesus loved them enough to preach (share) the gospel in addition to eating with them and connecting with them.
In Luke 4:43 Jesus made it clear the reason He came from Heaven was to preach the kingdom of God (repentance and faith). Then at the beginning of Luke 5 in verse 1 people are pressing all around Him to listen as he preached the word of God. In Luke 5:15 people were gathering to hear Him preach. In Luke 15:17 He is preaching and teaching again. When at Matthew’s house he did not decide not to preach and teach. After all “that” was the purpose of the party.
Please prayerfully consider that if the purpose of your party includes a desire to not preach (teach, share the gospel of Jesus) to anybody then it really is not a Matthew party. It is not even relational/friendship evangelism. Friendship evangelism is neither friendship nor evangelism without the verbal proclamation of the Gospel to lovingly show men where they stand apart from Christ and his command to all men everywhere to repent and trust in Him.
The ultimate love of Jesus is reflected in the message of the Gospel itself as shown in Romans 5:8. I am glad you are reaching out to the lost. I am also praying that you make the most of this opportunity and like Jesus love them enough to share the message that calls “sinners to repentance” and faith in the Savior. Pray that you would do all that Jesus did in the real Matthew Party which was to speak the words of God. If you desire to do that God will give you his words (Ephesians 6:19-20) and then the Church will show up this evening for the purpose it was sent (Mark 1:15, Luke 4:43, John 17:18 and John 20:21, Luke 24:44-48).
Love,
Rob-roy (1 Thess. 2:8)
PS: This quote Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg
“We’ve got to talk about our faith, putting spiritual concepts into plain everyday words. The apostle Paul was adamant about this in Romans 10, where he warned that people won’t figure out the message on their own. Even closely watching the life of a contagious Christian won’t be enough. Somebody has to articulate the gospel to them by spelling out who God is, what kind of damage or sin has caused, and how each of us needs to receive the forgiveness and life that Christ offers. But in order for that to happen, we must take the initiative and steer discussions toward spiritual topics.” Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg / Becoming a Contagious Christian p137
I LOVE the book!
Great idea. I am looking forward to see how it goes.
Whoops…I meant ZOTU. Doh!
This is so cool! What a great way to meet the neighbors and start establishing relationships with them! In our old house we would have driveway bonfires (translation HUGE flames that each year was a new challenge to beat the previous year’s) this time of year, and neighbors that we’d never seen come outside their garage would stop to chat, which led to some great relationships.
And why not share the gospel in an appropriate way What if it was the last night on earth for one of your party attenders and God sent them to you to hear the gospel before it was too late? Did they leave your house ready to meet the Lord?
in response to people who think that jeremy should preach at his party:
christians are now famous for having relationships with ulterior motives (read “unChristian” by David Kinnaman). it has given us a reputation of being uncaring, and more interested in “saving” people than in the person themself. i think that jeremy having real relationships with his neighbors where they are mutually interested in each other, is a great step towards improving the reputation of Christ through christians who are willing to show love through the ways the world feels it. in this case, through a pumpkin carving party. opportunities to preach the word will come through authentic relationship, but if forced, i think it only serves to distort the love of Christ into some agenda. our world is increasingly sensitive to that so we have to be “wise as serpents, but innocent as doves”