Everyday Evangelism-Christmas Caroling Project

"O Come All Ye Faithful". Hot cocoa, Gingerbread cookies, Scrooge. The memories of Christmas. The true meaning of Christmas is becoming more and more distant as time goes on. At least in America. "Let's keep Christ in Christmas" is a plea we are hearing today. Keep in mind that people don't celebrate the holiday the way that you and I celebrated it when we were kids. Christmas caroling, which has long been part of the Christmas season, is also declining. But here is what we can do. We have an excellent opportunity to do evangelism during this whole holiday season. Christmas time is an excellent time to take advantage of in preaching the Gospel. So here is just one way, out of many, that the work of evangelism can take place.

Every year, sometime in early December, we have a group of people who are willing to use their voices and instruments to the glory of God. We have old Christmas carols that are based upon the historical event of the nativity. But songs that most everyone is familiar with. Someone in the church will open their home to meet in and get organized. Depending upon how many people come out to go caroling, will determine how many groups can go out. The first time we did this we had quite a large group. We divided up into two groups. One group went one way, and the other group went to another set of houses. We sang at least two carols at each house we visited, and told the people at the house that we were from Metro Life Church www.metrolife.org . Children are invited to be part of the caroling. We have a goodie bag ready to give to the family we are singing to. If possible, we have the children hand the bag to the person at the door. In the bag there is a book, a toy, homemade soap, a bookmark, and some other items that we put together. The book we will use this year is Josh McDowell's book called, 'More Than a Carpenter'. The toys are beach balls, frisbies, or maracas with a Bible verse or saying on them. Sometimes we put a schedule of church events in it. Of course, the main thing that we need to be doing now is to pray. Pray for the hearts of the people to be receptive to the Gospel. Pray for them to have ears to hear God's voice. Pray that they would have a deep conviction of sin and would repent and come to Christ.

The first year we did this, we had one lady respond to my son in law a couple of days later. We held the caroling at my daughter's house and the next day a woman told my son in law that she enjoyed the caroling. She said that she missed it since she moved to Florida and appreciated the bread in the bag. The following year, we had the caroling at someone else's house. A lady on around the block seemed affected and had tears in her eyes. It gave the person who hosted the event an opportunity to get reacquainted with her since she was a widow and enjoyed having the daughters over to play cards with a long time ago.

When we are all done, we go back to the host house for hot cocoa and fellowship. It provides a great memory as well as an opportunity for making His name known.