Making Use of Every Opportunity

Inviting A Family to Church

I was working in my office one day, when a group of insurance agents came over to sell their products. I was passing them by when one of them asked me if I can spare a few moments to listen to their insurance products.

My first natural response was that I was too busy to listen to these (which I really was), but suddenly a thought came to mind, "maybe there can be a chance for me to share the gospel with her." Fine, since I listened to her talk, she would be obliged to listen when its my turn to talk.

Okay, another reason is that I have just finished a session of doing some door-to-door selling of my clients' product (for the experience) and had some empathy for sales people.

So I told her that she had only 5 minutes to say whatever she wants to say, and I need to get back to work. She made her sales pitch, and we exchanged contacts, and she left.

Some time later she called for an appointment to meet up, asking for a time convenient for me. I said week days are out, so preferably on a weekend. We decided that we should meet up on a Sunday about 2pm, after church. The venue, at a restaurant nearby the church.

I brought along Alisha to the meeting, and she brought along her husband and her young daughter, a cute little girl aged 5. We had lunch and made some conversations.

When we were talking about religion and church, I talked about inviting them to come over to our church for a visit, and that the church is just nearby where we were.

Out of a sudden, an idea came to mind. I said that there is also a Sunday school specially for children. There their daughter can learn something and mix around get to know some new friends. And most importantly, she can get to learn to speak English, because the best way to learn a language is through interaction.

We went on with our other conversation, and she made her explanation on her insurance policy etc. We agreed to meet up at another date for her to prepare a proposal, probably in 2 weeks' time, since the following Sunday is Mothers' Day.

The week passed as usual, but on the second week, that is on the 13th May, while reading the newspaper I came across a news article that reads, "Bosses prefers English profiency as main criteria for employees". Then I thought, wow, this works really well to encourage the family to come over to church.

Then as I read on, there was another advertisement that reads, "the best time to learn language is before 12 years of age". Then I thought, WOW! this is double confirmation, two on the same day!. I got very excited about it.

Surely, a few days later she called me for an appointment to give me the proposal. I invited her to church, and told her about the newspaper article. After having a discussion with her husband, she called me to tell me that they will come this coming Sunday.

Today 3 of them came to visit my church. The young girl went over to the Sunday School, wearing in a pretty dress. The parents came with me to the church service. The church service went fantastically well, good worship, excellent preaching. Although they did not step forward to accept Jesus, I am sure they had been touched by the message.

On my way back I was so thankful to God, for giving me the right words to speak to them to invite them to church. I thank God also for the divine arrangement, for both the news article and the advertisement to appear on the same day, which was wonderful.

I wondered, they might not have heard about Jesus if I had followed my natural response and refused to give the lady 5 minutes of my time to listen to her. Praise God.


[My key verse for this year... "God's temple must be exceedingly magnificent." This year, my main purpose will be to build God's house. Since I'm not involved in any leadership capacity, I can only do what I am able to do, that is to invite people to church.]