Broom Stick Outreach
Dacia Bray

       This past summer we heard about a US weight lifter who was competing in the Olympics. He explained that the technique of the weight lifter was even more important than how much weight was lifted. If the weight lifter didn’t have the technique down, he couldn’t lift even the smallest amount of weight let alone the world record.
      
       In order to perfect the technique, this particular weight lifter used a broomstick to practice with. Nothing high tech, no computer modules, no drug enhancement, not even any weights. Just a broomstick. He said that for one month, for hours each day, he lifted the broomstick. He was careful to plant his body weight evenly. He made sure that his hands held the broomstick in the most effective position. He worked on foot placement.

        Over and over for days on end, this man lifted a broomstick. When he felt confident that he had mastered the technique, he stepped up the process by adding a little weight. So in place of the broomstick, he switched to a 40-pound metal pipe. And for another 30 days he worked on technique.
        40 pounds! I’m just not that patient. I would start with the big weight. I would dive right in. I would want the end result immediately. And I would fail. But this world record weight lifter was patient He knew that through diligence and repetition of the ordinary, he would grab the extra-ordinary.
        Even though the actual competition is based on how much weight is lifted. It is ultimately the technique and the training that allows for the enormous weight.
        The same is true of outreach. It’s the technique and training that give way to the grand outcome. And yet it’s because of the grand outcome that many see outreach as too big an undertaking. “How can I solve someone else’s problems when I can’t solve my own.” they ask. “It’s too hard to do, too much weight to lift.”
        Really though, it’s not about the grand outcome. It’s about having an outreach mind. In The Message Jesus put it this way: ‘Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them.’ It’s not about elaborate programs or complex solutions to difficult problems. It’s all about the broomstick.
        Broomstick outreach. You don’t have to travel to South Africa to build a church to say you’ve had an ‘outreach’ experience. Isaiah 58:6,7 says this: This is the kind of fast day I’m after; to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interest in seeing you do is sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes [and churches], putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.”
        First get the technique down. Practice this over and over for days on end. The only ‘program’ you need is the desire to begin. Like the broomstick, use the ordinary thing that you have around you to perfect the technique. A smile, a handshake, kindness, compassion, Be quick to listen, be very slow to criticize and even slower to anger.  Can you imagine if these techniques became basic core values for all Christians? The world would run to the Jesus they see in us. It has to be more than a coincidence, that to lift enormous weight, the weight lifter begins with a broomstick: a simple tool used to clean up messes. And after all, isn’t that what outreach is: someone extending a hand to someone with a mess?