Evangelism Coach

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Some Snippets:

From the bookshelf:
I’m currently reading
Logic of Evangelism by William J. Abraham, and
Finding Common Ground: How to Communicate With Those Outside the Christian Community…While We Still Can by Tim Downs.

I’ll have a post on these a little later next week.

Questions for Evangelism
Vanguard church writes an article called Appreciative Inquiry Evangelism. The question introduces a series of yet to be written posts about evangelism that is cast a little differently than sin/salvation.

What if we saw people not primarily as sinners, but as image-bearers? How would our evangelism look different if we appreciated all people, affirming their past and present strengths and successes? What if we valued people as human beings first rather than as merely possible candidates to become Christians? What if instead of seeing people as inherently flawed that we saw them with inherent potential?

And…What if our interaction with people helped them explore and discover those potentialities and possibilities that God wants to flourish in them? What if we could introduce them to the Redeemer of all things, Jesus Christ, who wants to restore us to our image-bearing glory? What if we framed the gospel around a desired destiny rather than a defeatist depravity?

It raises some great questions and seeks to speak to some of the richness of the gospel — its good news because its also an invitiaton to step into God’s destiny for you — You have been created to do good works that have been prepared in advance for you to do (Eph 2.10)

MMM. . . . That’s a good question
Over at their blog, they raise a question: What is Gospel to you? The best quote there is:

My “best” attempts at evangelism have been “dimmer-switch”-based. That’s a new phrase I picked up from TheOffRamp.org, describing how people probably already have some interaction with God before I ever start a conversation, and if in the course of time we turn up the dimmer switch and shine that light a little brighter into the crevices of our lives, then we’ve done our job.

When you consider evangelism as seed sowing, this is an interesting metaphor.

The Terminal
Presbyterian Global Fellowships blog has an article looking at the metahpor of a “terminal.” It’s a good read.

It struck me that the church is a lot like an airport terminal. The purpose of the airport terminal is not to get a lot of people to stay in the terminal as if it was their final destination. The purpose of the airport terminal is to help people make connections so they can get somewhere else (to another city, to somewhere else in the same city as the terminal, to meet a loved one, or to an important business meeting).

Another definition
Paul Siems, an Evangelical Lutheran pastor, posted this definition on his blog:

Evangelism is the communication of Life

Evangelism is both proclamation as well as an invitation to join God’s work. Communication is a two way street, so some response of the listener might be implied. I look forward to how he’ll develop the fullness of that definition.

Have a great weekend folks.

Various models of personal evangelism have been put forth. If proclamation and invitation is central to evangelism, what form does the proclamation take?In our series of conversion stories, we’ve seen individual conversations that contextualize the gospel to the person being evangelized. We’ve seen public addresses about Jesus.

In some stories, the actual content or sermon is not really given, but the focus is on the conversionFor today’s story, we have a clear example of the gospel message rooted in the story of Israel’s history.

Paul and Barnabas have been invited to come and bring a message of encouragement to the synagogue in the town of Pisidian Antioch. (Acts 13:13ff). The story:
From verse 13:16-37, Paul recounts salvation history, “The Story” of God’s activity in the life of Israel.Since he was speaking to a Jewish audience, Paul connects the story of Jesus to the story of Israel.

Jesus is spoken of as having fulfilled the promises of God.Paul ties the story of redemption into the known story of Israel’s history.

“Through Christ, everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.”The results
The fruit of the sermon was that some people wanted to hear more – spiritual thirst. (v. 42).For some, it was enough, “many . . . followed Paul and Barnabbas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God” (v43).

Paul and Barnabbas were invited back to share some more on the following Sabbath.

During the week in between word spread and the crowds were huge the following weekend, as “almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.”Many Gentiles believed (v.48), and Paul and Barnabbas were run out of town by persecution.

Evangelism to the masses
Evangelism can happen at a mass event through the proclamation of the works of God.
There were clearly follow up conversations, where people can reason, interact, and respond to the invitation.Proclamation can happen on an individual level (like Simon, or Cornelius), or in a larger group setting.

Paul used the facets of the gospel message that fit within the worldview of the covenant people of God, as that was his primary audience. As Peter contextualized the gospel to Cornelius, Paul contextualizes the gospel to his Jewish audience.

They were familiar with the works of God, the language of the covenant, and respected biblical authority. The history of Israel was the bridge to proclaiming Jesus, and that righteousness that couldn’t be found in the Law is now found in Jesus Christ.

He connects “their story” to “the story” and shows how Jesus fulfills God’s promises and what Jesus has accomplished. He uses Old Testament references because his audience respected biblical authority, and were familiar with its words, language, and significance.So what?
Paul spoke clearly about justification – terms that were very familiar to his Jewish audience. They respected biblical authority and knew the words well.One of the challenges we face today is Biblical illiteracy. I see it in many of my conversations. Another challenge we face in our culture is the lack of agreement with Biblical authority – just because the Bible says so, so what?

But there are people who are both Biblically literate and believe in Biblical authority. There is a respect for the Word, and a respect for Christian tradition. We cannot forget that gospel is for them as well.

They may have grown up in a community of faith, but left it as a teen, never forgetting the longing to know God. They may begin to recall some of what they learned in youth group, or Sunday school classes, or a well timed sermon from their earlier days, and now, there is something drawing them back to the faith of their youth.

Others may have been in church all their life, but never “got it.” There is a sense that something is missing, seaching for a dynamic vital relationship with Jesus.

The gospel is so multi-facted that we can frame our explanation of it based on where our audience is. It might be an audience of one (like Cornelius), or a group (like here). They might have a churched background, or maybe none at all.

Philip started from the point were the eunuch was reading, and Paul started with the story of Israel. Let me ask you this?
When was the last time you had a chance to present the gospel, or sow a seed? Did you start from where your audience was, or did you make them come to your starting point?

For more in our series:
The Apostle Paul
Simon the Sorcerer
Ethiopian Eunuch
Psidian Antioch
Sergius Paulus
Cornelius

Presbyterian Global Fellowship recently spent time with Sally Morganthaler, perhaps best known for the book Worship Evangelism. She’s discussing to describe “missional” worship in the North American context and ways to incorporate it in our various congregational settings.

You can read the whole article here.

Update: Download this questionarire as used in a presbytery meeting.

Doing evangelism can be as simple as telling stories about God’s activity in your life.

Telling personal and current stories is but one piece of evangelism.

As discussed in our definition series, The PCUSA General Assembly adopted a definition of evangelism in 1990 that defines evangelism as:

Joyfully sharing the good news of the sovereign love of God, and calling people to repentance, to personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, to active membership in the church, and to obedient service in the world.

(Definition adopted by the 202nd General Assembly of the PCUSA, 1990). 

The definition begins with “Joyfully sharing the good news of the sovereign love of God.”

Two questions come to mind:

1. Do you have a faith worth sharing?
2. Do you have someone to share it with?

To help answer the first question, ponder it in this way: What is God’s activity in your life now that makes the gospel of Jesus Christ “good news?”

Think about it for a few minutes. Where do you see God’s activity in your life and how would you describe it?

After thinking about it for a while, turn to someone next to you and share your story of God’s current activity in your life.

Feel free to use this with your church leadership or small groups. If you rework this into your own handout, simply site “Found at www.evangelismcoach.org” Thanks.  Download a printable version here.

Trapped:

Read about Chairlift Evangelism in a ski resort. I’m all for conversational evangelism, as long as its done respectfully and when the other is a willing participant in the conversation. I don’t want to have an angry rider share a 6 minute chair lift ride with me and ruin their day.

But Creation (the natural beauty of the ski resort) gives testimony to God and the quiet of the chairlift ride make people stop and think in the silence. When I used to ski, i remember several friendly conversations about faith during the 5 minute ride up the mountain.

Other News and Information

Timmy Brister writes about evangelism in Baptist circles, and recent comments from Frank Page, curent president of the Southern Baptist convention. Alot of blog writers have been referring to Page’s comments about humility when it comes to the SBC brand.

Rupert’s Blog continues with part 7 of a series. This entry is called The disciples didn’t do evangelism. You can follow the links in the opening paragraph to the other sections. He’s doing a series on missional.

Sin must exist for grace to mean something. Eli Dorman at Invite One raises a question about sin and grace in our cultural context.

One atheist encourages Christians to listen at the eBay Atheist.

Preachers Magazine gives a sermon about Peter and Cornelius, looking at all the conversion that occurs.

Glenn Hager has a good discussion happening about the church, doing vs. being. In fact, he’s written a series of articles called “Be the church.” Follow the related posts links.

Otto Ekk, in his first post on his new blog raises a question about the transforming work of the gospel. It’s just the beginning of a conversation, but he raises some good questions nonetheless.

Over at The Word on the Streets, the author is writing a series about Sin, God’s Love and the Gospel. Check out this entry on God’s love.

Have a great weekend!

This week, I read Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens by Niel Cole. He writes about spontaneous church planting and leans towards a viral house church model. The church should be spreading the DNA of the kingdom spontaneously, thru planting new and smaller churches.



It was quite a contrast after reading Confessions of a Reformissional Rev by Mark Driscoll, who is pastor of Mars Hill, a mega church in Seattle and their dreams to keep growing by adding new people into the Kingdom.


Both have a passion for seeing people come to faith in Christ, though both go about it in different ways.

I enjoyed Cole’s thinking outside the pizza box, his passion for evangelism, and his rather sound explanations of new testament era churches. He does a good job in explaining the biblical idea about the priesthood of believers. I liked the critical thinking about engaging the culture.

I found two challenges with Cole’s book.

1. What makes a church?
It didn’t go into much detail about the individual churches themselves, how they are structured, or what makes them definably different than a traditional small group. It read as if any small group of people that organized themselves would have been called a church. Perhaps he lays out further development somewhere and I’ve not yet come across it.

But I’m not sure what separates these little churches from small groups disconnected from a church. He doesn’t interact with the rich theological history of the marks of a church, which in my confessional tradition (Presbyterian) are

1. The pure preaching of the Word of God as sound doctrine,
2. Administration of the sacraments,
3. The exercise of discipline

The point here is not to debate tradition, the validity of how many marks define the church visible or invisible, but rather how to blend the material in the book into the richness of good sound theological tradition.

If’ you are more familiar with his writings elsewhere, I invite you to chime in with comments.

2. Church Leadership
There are variety of historical understandings on church leadership and plenty of good books. Driscoll’s book devotes a chapter to exploring church leadership given that Mars Hill is hosting over 10,000 people a weekend.

From reading this book, there is no clear discussion of leadership other then a good discussion on the priesthood of believers. But New Testament ideas of “appointing elders” or “pastors and overseers” is not developed in this book. Some of the illustrations indicate perhaps the premature elevation of inmature leaders, or the lack of protecting churches from wrong doctrine.

Implications
For our family, we will setting up shop in a new town (and a new country) in the not too distant future.

Our current ministry plan is to link up with a local church, but start new small groups in our section of town.

We will live in a 14 story apartment building, in a neighborhood with more condos in nearby towers.

Our group will be made up of mostly non-Christians who are seeking a relationship with God and want to discover their faith. I hope they as they find faith, they would get involved with the local church, instead of seeing themselves as a local church as Cole seems to indicate.

Once such folks are established and connected to the local church, we’d start another small group.

Let me ask you this?
Would you pray about starting a small group with your neighbors?