October was Breast Cancer Awareness month. All month it seemed like everywhere you turn, you saw something Pink to symbolize the month, letting people know about Breast Cancer and it effects so that they can raise money for research and a possible cure. In fact, the organizers behind Breast Cancer Awareness month have been so effective in making people aware, you would be pretty hard press to NOT see something pink highlighting the month. If you watch an NFL football game, you see the men wearing pink towels, pink hats and pink shoes. If you go to the grocery store you will see pink grocery bags and pink ribbons all over the place. There are races dedicated to Breast Cancer awareness and women even post on Facebook messages indicating their support for Breast Cancer research.
But you know what? For all the publicity and awareness that goes along with it, breast cancer is not even the leading cancer killer worldwide. In fact, according to a 2004 statistic, breast cancer kills the 5th most of all different forms of cancer. Lung, stomach, colorectal and liver cancer all kill more people worldwide than breast cancer.
So what am I getting at? What I am trying to point out is that the people behind Breast Cancer Awareness month have gotten their message out. In all honesty, I am would be very surprised if the Breast Cancer Awareness month campaign is not one of the most successful marketing campaigns in recent history. I would love to see how much money they bring in because every October you are made well aware of their message – please support our cause. They found a niche in communicating their message and they hammered it home so well that I am not even aware if the other cancers have an awareness month. If they do, I for one do not know about it.
So this is where we all, ministers, come into play. The question for all of us is what are we doing to get our message out? What are we doing to promote the Lord and His plan for people’s lives? What are we doing to reach out to the community to draw people in? No matter what ministry area you focus on, what is your message and what are you doing to promote it to those around you? How are you getting that message out?
See, I think sometimes we believe that “if you build it, they will come”. That if we build a church and just put our name up on the building, people are going to just flock into the sanctuary. Although some people do that, the majority of non-believers will not. They don’t give a hoot that we have a super cool building with wireless internet and a multi-screen projector. They don’t care because they don’t know the message of hope we have. That is why it is so important that we take the message out to them. We cannot rely on them coming to us, we have to go to them. We have to go to them with a message of hope for a lost world.
I want to challenge you to TAKE A MINUTE and evaluate how well you are doing about getting your message out. This would actually be a pretty good Staff Meeting discussion to have. What is your message and what are you doing to get it out? Do not become lazy and rely on people to come to you. Take your message to them so that more people can have the opportunity to hear about the life-transforming message of Christ.]]>