Pastor Hector Boucet

Church is not just about coming. It’s about going. Who is the one person GOD is asking you to invite this week?

Pastor Hector Boucet opened week four of United as One Body by reminding The Gathering Church of the recent Sunday spent praying for strangers at the beach — including a family he never expected to meet, sitting under a tent, who turned out to already know the LORD. Nobody could have known that just by looking. “We tend to say” things about people based on the cover of the book, he said, but every person carries a story worth stepping toward.

It’s nice to come to church, take notes, and study the WORD, Pastor Boucet said. But listening alone doesn’t make anyone holy. The real question is what happens the moment believers walk back out those two doors.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the FATHER, and of the SON, and of the HOLY SPIRIT, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28:19-20

Pastor Boucet read Matthew 28:19-20 and asked a simple question: who is JESUS talking to? The church. Every person in the room. He pushed back on the excuse that the Great Commission is only for pastors and leaders. “You are a vessel, you’re an instrument,” he said. “One way or another, the LORD is going to use you, but you have to be intentional.”

He was honest about how the enemy works against this calling — whispering excuses, creating distractions, celebrating every time someone stays home instead of showing up. Every purpose GOD has prepared for a believer, Pastor Boucet said, the enemy is watching for a way to keep unfulfilled.

“Church is not just about coming. It’s about going.”

— Pastor Hector Boucet

Pastor Boucet challenged a common trap: believers who serve happily until a title makes the work feel beneath them. “There’s people like, ‘I’m the pastor’s right hand, and I’m not going to mop,'” he said. “You take the mop.” Every member of the church has a role, whether or not it comes with recognition — and membership at The Gathering Church was never about paying dues. It’s about telling the church where GOD has called you to serve.

He reminded the congregation that being obedient is how believers demonstrate love for GOD — not by saying it, but by doing it. “The worst thing is not being in obedience,” he said. “The worst thing is when you don’t even want to be in obedience.”

Pastor Boucet turned to something specific to The Gathering Church’s calling as an English-speaking church on a Spanish-speaking island. “You could have a Spanish church every ten feet,” he said. “But not in the English-speaking.” He described “having his radars on” for English speakers wherever he goes — tourists, neighbors, coworkers — because if believers don’t reach them, no one else may.

He shared how a visitor who came broken just days earlier had been so touched by one word, one sentence, that his whole heart shifted. Nobody knows in advance which word GOD will use — the only responsibility is to plant the seed and invite. “I’m not asking you to invite 20 people,” Pastor Boucet said. “But invite at least one person.”

“A united church is a growing church.”

Pastor Hector Boucet

Outreach and involvement are not about who brings the most people through the door. It’s about the one person who comes, gives their life to the LORD, and is never the same. GOD wants to grow this church, Pastor Boucet said — but HE is asking the congregation to be the ones willing to go get them.

Watch the Full Sermon

Hear Pastor Hector Boucet preach Outreach and Involvement — Growing the Body, Part 4 live at The Gathering Church — August 11, 2026.

Reflect & Respond

Who is the one person GOD is asking you to invite this week — and what’s stopping you from being intentional about it?