JACKSONVILLE — Nearly 11 years after leaving Oak Crest United Methodist Church here over a disagreement, one Jacksonville man is returning to the church. A group of United Methodists participating in the Share Jesus Mission July 19-23 in the Jacksonville District changed his mind.

Members of Oak Crest’s Share Jesus Mission team were visiting homes around the church and offering to cut people’s lawns for free as a servant evangelism project when one man asked why they wanted to cut his grass.

According to team leader Andy Searles from Aloma United Methodist Church in Winter Park, team members said, "To share God’s love in a real way."

The man then told them about leaving the church, and after Oak Crest’s pastor, the Rev. Carlos Otero, visited the man, he said he would start attending again.

"If we reach one person for Christ, how can you measure the value of that?" Otero said.

The Share Jesus Mission is a one-week, intensive mission program that pairs local churches with visiting teams to reach out to the churches’ communities. The church defines its own vision for what it wants to accomplish, and the team helps any way it can.

Of the 18 churches participating in July’s mission, 17 were United Methodist. The visiting teams were made up of nearly 200 pastors, laity and youth from across the Florida Conference; a group of 30 youth from Muncie, Ind.; 25 people from Richmond, Ky.; and 20 from England.

The cooperation between the churches and teams helps build church members’ self-confidence and prepare them to continue outreach efforts at their church after the Share Jesus Mission, according to the Rev. Terri Hill, Jacksonville district superintendent.

"There is a tremendous sense of togetherness," she said. "Churches are reaching out into their neighborhoods, and they’re talking about how to do it after the Share Jesus team leaves."

The Rev. Jorge Acevedo, pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Cape Coral and a member of the team working with Jacksonville’s Ortega United Methodist Church, said he was most impacted by evidence of the work God is already doing there.

"Share Jesus practices prevenient grace," he said. "We’re out there knocking on doors, building relationships with people and finding out that God was already there."

Acevedo said he and church member Kathy Nipper met the mother of a member of Ortega’s youth ministry at one house. Although the woman and her husband did not attend church, their daughter had been inviting them to attend Ortega’s new contemporary service.

When Acevedo and Nipper extended the same invitation, the woman said, "I guess we’re supposed to go."

Although Otero said he was pleased with Oak Crest’s progress toward its goal of reaching 25 unchurched families during the mission, he was uncertain about what would happen once those families started attending the church.