Scripture records that the apostle Peter went to a rooftop to pray (Acts 10 and 11). He was about to experience something that would change both him and history.
Without Peter realizing, God was actively setting into motion, a series of events that would result in the gospel spreading across the earth and reaching those ‘beyond the walls’.
During his prayer time on the rooftop Peter saw a vision and heard the voice of God telling him to kill and eat ‘unclean’ animals and then came the words: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
As he left the rooftop Peter began to see that God was at work. He was met by gentiles, those who were thought to be unclean, because God had also been speaking in a dream to Cornelius, a Gentile.
Peter was asked to preach at the house of Cornelius and he went because he had heard the voice of God and saw the vision. As a result, the gospel broke out across the world and an international movement began. The first church slowly grasped that the gospel is for all people everywhere—even those beyond the walls of the church.
Today, most Christians are accustomed to reaching people who are familiar with the gospel and who have a broadly Christian view of the world. We are now living in a new reality where this is no longer the case.
We need an encounter with God that is similar to the experience that Peter had on the rooftop. He, like so many of us, was familiar with things happening in a certain way and believed that there was a need for people to conform to the customs and practices that he had always known before they could be transformed by God.
His encounter with God on the rooftop was the beginning of a transformation that took place in Peter and, as a result, the world heard the message of Jesus.
In our time, tragically, the vast majority of Christians do not have a passion for reaching lost people. Whilst they are among lost people every day they seldom, if ever, have the desire or confidence to talk about their faith. They have not understood that, in our time, we can no longer just expect people to come to church to hear the gospel. We need to live and share the gospel AMONG the people beyond the walls of the church.
If we are going to reach the lost then there is as much need for a transformation to take place in the hearts of many Christians as there is for a transformation in the hearts of lost people.
‘The Rooftop’ aims to provide just this through its easy-to-follow and very flexible three-step strategy:
Begin by taking the church to a rooftop to seek a fresh vision of God’s heart for the lost.
Equip Christians to engage with lost people beyond the walls of the church.
As new people become followers of Christ, equip these to reach others.
DOWNLOADABLE MATERIALS
For each step of the strategy we have created downloadable teaching materials that will enable you to equip the church to engage with lost people beyond the walls of the church:
Leader’s Manual
This Leader’s Manual contains all that is required to lead a group through ‘The Rooftop Three-Step Strategy’.
Personal Journal
Each person that is equipped through ‘The Rooftop Three-Step Strategy’ should be given a Personal Journal. This journal contains teaching materials, worksheets, discussion questions and places for reflection.
Teaching Videos
These Teaching Videos can be used as part of your equipping sessions. Each short videos contains simple, thought provoking teaching from Dennis Pethers that will encourage discussion and participation in the group.
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