Allow me to be cantankerous...

What is often labeled Outreach is merely a church reaching out to the world with some interesting something to get the attention of those in the world for the purpose of drawing people into something. I'll do this, but you must know who is doing this for you.

Neil Cole nailed it with this one. Neil says, "I saw an article in a denominational magazine highlighting the outreach idea of a local church. At Christmastime they sent their choir to a local mall to sing Christmas carols as a means to get the gospel out. This was paraded as a successful outreach. *No one was spoken to. No relationships were made. *No one was able to ask a single question of the religious people standing there singing in strange robes. *All that happened was that people heard songs sung that were already playing over piped in music throughout the mall. Like a flight attendant at the start of every flight, the choir was announcing important information of life and death significance to people who took no time to listen because they'd been inoculated to it. And the churched people are convinced that this was a great work of God? Come on! We have a problem." (* added by the Planter)

Do you agree with Neil's assessment of this outreach?