Evangelism
Church-wide evangelistic activity
One of the main aims of Highfields is to reach out to people with the good news of Jesus and we have been doing this in so many different ways over the past 12 months that it is hard to quantify. All church ministries (both staff led and volunteer led) have had some element of evangelism as part of their annual programme, whether through specific targeted events or through their weekly events. In this section of the annual report we will be focusing on the church-wide activities of evangelism.
In February we had our Winter of Sports events where we tried to capitalise on the Christians in Sport city wide mission in our Universities and the start of the Six Nations campaign. On the first Saturday we held a Sports Quiz in a local venue to reach those people within our church that play sport and have team mates who don't know Jesus where a short gospel presentation was given by Christians in Sport. On the following Saturday we put on an Italian meal and decorated Dalton Street for the Wales v Italy game. On the Sunday Graham Daniels came and provided an evangelistic talk at our Sunday evening service after a time of listening to a couple of testimonies.
In March as part of our Easter outreach programme we hosted Roger Carswell who came and spoke at both our Pontprennau and Cathays services as well as providing an outreach talk during our Student Lunch.
During the Summer term we ran a course called Frontline in our life groups. This course had a positive impact on people within the church as it showed us that every area of our lives was an opportunity to serve God and witness to those around us. This course was great at equipping us for evangelism on our own frontlines in our own context.
In September we ran a four week apologetics course called ‘If I could ask God one question’ which was designed to help people discuss some of the bigger questions or blockers to looking further into Christianity. The course was provided in September to cater for the number of non-Christian parents that attend our holiday bible clubs and a stepping stone for people to invite their friends to the upcoming Christianity Explored Course.
In October we did an outreach Sunday where a number of the congregation took part in the Cardiff Half Marathon raising money for Human Trafficking whilst promoting our church. We also had a number of the congregation in the crowd offering free tea and coffee to those watching as a way for our church to reach out to the community and show support to community wide projects. During the same Sunday we had Michael Green speak at our Sunday services and our student lunch where a number of people came to a saving faith.
Christmas is always the largest outreach event in the churches calendar. This year we had three Carol's by candlelight services and an all age service where many friends and family members who didn't know Jesus came and heard the wonderful news in which he brings.
This year has seen another year where we as a church family have tried with God's help to reach our world (friends, family, work and community) with the good news of Jesus. It has been encouraging to see what God has done through our service to him and we pray that this coming year we will have many more opportunities to tell people about this amazing saviour.
Jon Reeves
