Friday’s Collection . . . .
I got my new stack of books in this week. I’m currently reading They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations by Dan Kimball about ministry to the Emerging Generation. I’m drinking it up and will likely be writing about it next week.
My little article on Offering to Pray was posted on Ordinary Attempts. That got a good conversation going between Helen and I on both blogs in the comments section. I certainly hope that our blogs will continue to interact. Helen even posted a link to a bulletin board called Internet Infidels to get the reaction of some others to an offer to pray. I invite you to scan the article and its comments, and even the reaction over at the other board.
Ron Crandall, of Asbury Seminary, just published an article about evangliesm. Feel free to read the whole thing (p. 6-8) in the seminary magazine.
In it he writes:
“Evangelism, in its greatest simplicity is God’s powerful, saving activity at
work through us for others as we share the good news of Jesus Christ. . . .
Evangelism is our multifaceted effort as individuals and as Christ’s Church in
cooperation with God’s Holy Spirit to offer what John Wesley called the
medicine of life. The overwhelming motivation for our evangelist ministry
is the divine love that fills our hearts with the joy of heaven to earth
come down.“
He goes on to say that one important question to ask is “Where is the Holy Spirit of God at work in our world today?
Theology of a “decision”
I have no problems giving an invitation at the end of an evangelistic sermon or as part of a presentation. The Internet Monk looks at this method a little theologically. I simply offer it for thought.
Invite a friend
Steve Furtick spends some time writing about inviting a friend to church. Granted its about inviting people to their particular church, but he raises a good thought or two about inviting people to come. Somewhere i have the statistic to support that of first time visitors, over 80% say they came because of the invitation of a friend.
Church attendance staistics
Speaking of attending church, here is an interesting statistical report.
Religious Literacy
Ever wonder how much bible knowledge there is in our culture? Read about it here. There are links there to further articles that the writer is reacting to.
That’s pretty much it for this week. Have a great Easter. By the way, I’ve added some further ways for you to auto subscribe to updates. At the bottom of each post there is a subscribe button that will let you put the Evangelism Coach into your newsreader, or direct to your email box.
Connect
Possibly Related Posts
Conversational Evangelism Conference
Dan Kimbal on 20 and 30 somethings
Ten Reasons To Use Your Local Coffee Shop for Your Evangelism Small Groups
Loading ...
Chris thanks for mentioning the various links to the ‘pray with me’ dialogs.
You’re welcome to participate in our OA blog discussions anytime.
Sure thing. Since there was rich discussion, I didn’t want our discussion to get lost in the article aging process.
Pastor Chris
EvangelismCoach.org