Evangelism Coach

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Gas on the Fire:

The Fuel for Evangelism 

 

Tips to keeping your

Evangelistic Temperature High

 

Date:

August 7, 2008 9pm EST

 

Popularity: 9% [?]

Here are some more Evangelism Quotes that I have compiled.  Check out our other article on Evangelism Quotes as well.

• There is no kindness more cruel than the kindness which consigns another person to their sin. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
• Evangelism without listening is like playing golf blindfolded. (Larry Chrouch)
• We have to find the back door to peoples’ hearts because the front door is heavily guarded. (Ravi Zacharias)
• “We can only know God well by knowing our iniquities… Those who have known God without knowing their wretchedness have not glorified him, but have glorified themselves.” - Blase Pascal.
• Experience taught me that evangelism is work, and there’s no substitute for, well, experience. – David Goetz
• Our Presbyterian forefathers are good caretakers of our ancient fireplaces, but many of them haven’t started a fire in quite some time. –Rice Brooks

Charles Spurgeon wrote in his Evening Devotionals:

• Paul’s great object was not merely to instruct and to improve, but to save. Anything short of this would have disappointed him; he would have men renewed in heart, forgiven, sanctified, in fact, saved. His prayers were importunate and his labours incessant.

  To save souls was his consuming passion, his ambition, his calling.

  Dear reader, have you and I lived to win souls at this noble rate? Are we possessed with the same all-absorbing desire? If not, why not?

  Jesus died for sinners, cannot we live for them?
  Where is our tenderness?
  Where our love to Christ, if we seek not His honour in the salvation of men?

• O that the Lord would saturate us through and through with an undying zeal for the souls of men.

Let me ask you this?

Do you have some favorite evangelism quotes?  Feel free to share them in the comments below.  If you have  source or a name, please share it.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I will be presenting at the PC USA Transformation Pastor Training event in St. Pete’s Beach Florida at the end of September.  The conference is open to pastors from other Christian denominations, you don’t have to be PC USA to participate.

If you are in the Tampa area, I’d love to meet you and say hello.  Feel free to use the form on the Contact Us page to set up a visit.

From the www.PresbyGrow.net website

Transformation Pastor Training Event

September 29 - October 2, 2008

Tradewinds Resort, St. Pete’s Beach, Florida

Are you…

The pastor of a church in Transformation?

Considering accepting a call to a church in Transformation?

Discerning whether Transformation is your calling?

Discerning whether or not your church needs to go through the Transformation process?

…then make plans to attend the Transformation Pastors Training Event Sept. 29- Oct. 2, 2008. You can expect to attend seminars, participate in small group sessions, engage in periods of prayer and discernment, as well as connect with other pastors and leaders in Church Transformation.

See PresbyGrow’s website for more information on registration and conference fees.

You can register a couple of different ways:

1. By downloading the registration form and faxing/ e-mailing the form to the office of Evangelism and Church Growth. Download Registration Form
2. Online, by clicking here.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Our family visited another church for the first time.  We showed up unannounced and uninvited.  We had seen the sign on the street announcing service times and chose to attend.

The experience was very different than the first time visitor story we shared in a prior posting.

This church met in the same building as the prior experience.  It is an immigrant Spanish language church that shares the facility with an established English language congregation.

We experienced a little more comfort factor in navigating the premises because we now knew where the entrance was and where the sanctuary was. 

It’s a smaller church, so the lobby area was not full of people, nor was the sanctuary, which led to us being recognized quickly as first time visitors.

We were promptly greeted by several people who came up, offered a hand shake and engaged us in conversation.  None of these conversations were the formulaic exchange of a simple hello. 

Each conversation asked questions of us, making it obvious they were taking simple interest in us.

After a while, the pastor came and introduced himself to us and sat down to talk with us for a few minutes before the service.

As visitors, we were welcomed publicly in the service, pointed out by the pastor, but not asked to stand or share a story, or anything like that.  We were simply acknowledged, along with the other visitors that day.  Simple information like what country they were from, or what our ministry was about.

After the service, more people came to us to shake our hands and let us know they would like to see us return.  We did make it clear that we didn’t live in that town.

Overall, the impression we received was of warmth.  This congregation welcomed us and demonstrated an interest in who we were as people.  If we are ever in that town again, we’d be there.

Popularity: 9% [?]

This weekend, our family attended a church down the street.  I share the story of our visit as a first time visitor. 

Our family was not part of this denomination, and not a part of this local community.  This was our first time ever in this building, and first time ever in that particular denomination.

We went uninvited, with no pre-exisiting social connections.  We were out of towners, looking for a church to join in Sunday celebrations.

How did we find the church?

My parents live about 5 miles off the main highway.  There is only one road that goes to their house.  This church is located on that main road.  We have driven by the church over many a family visit.  Every time we go to the house, and every time we leave the house, we see that it’s there.

This weekend was our first chance to go.

Church website

We looked up the church’s website in Google.  For the church name, came up first.  Clicking around the pages, we saw only 1 picture of the congregation.  The rest was text.  Sometimes the text was way over the top and flowery, full of Christian lingo about contemporary hymns and responding in worship.

Some of the links were broken, but at least the service time and directions were on the home page.   

Under the ministries tab, they had a link for evangelism, but it was broken.

Parking Lot

Approaching the building, we entered the parking lot. 

We didn’t know where the front door was (it wasn’t facing the one and only parking lot entrance). 

We did find that they had spaces marked for visitors — they were all empty.  We chose to park with the normal people, even though we were visitors.  Most of the cars were parked towards the rear of the building. 

The campus was clean and landscaped well.  There didn’t appear to be any signage indicating where the front door was.  We arrived at the same time other people did, so we watched where people went to enter the building.

Entering the church

An usher held the door open for us, and politely shook our hand.  He even volunteered his name, which prompted both of us to offer ours. 

We entered the main lobby (some people still call it a narthex), on our own. 

Here I noticed my emotions were stirring– we were in a crowded room, not knowing where to go, not knowing a soul.  People were around us talking, smiling, and greeting each other, but we were feeling a little insecure in a strange crowded space. 

We had no bearing on the physical space, no map in our head of where everything was.  Anxiety? 

I glanced around and noticed a table.  The sign said visitor table, but no person standing around it.  What were we supposed to do?  We ignored it.

We found our way to the sanctuary.  An usher gave us a program, but we had to interrupt her conversation with other people in order to get one. 

Once we entered the sanctuary, we eventually found our own seats, wondering if we were sitting in someone else’s seat.  People filed in and out, greeting each other with smiles and conversation, along with the "How’s your wife, how’s aunt Suzy doing?" type small talk. 

People sat in front of us, and actually talked to the people behind us,

The service

Even though I’ve been a visitor in many services, I found that I was disconnected from this one. 

The songs and tunes were unfamiliar.  Rich in their theology, and probably very accurate in this theological tradition, we didn’t connect.

The leader of the service said something to the effect of "Visitors, we welcome you and invite you to stop by the visitor table on the way out for a free gift." 

I knew where the visitor table was, because I had seen it, but no one was there.  Did other visitors know where the table was?

The worship bulletin said "Attention visitors, glad you are here."

The preaching was fine.  The music was good. 

The benediction was given, and church dismissed.

We exited the sanctuary, in an orderly process with the crowd, and went to the lobby where some coffee was served. 

We stood around a few minutes, observing people talking and laughing and carrying on.  My wife browsed the ministry board that had the flyers on all the ministries of the church.

We eventually left, since no one was talking to us, or perhaps even noticing that we exist.   They were all engaged in their own friendly conversations.

I don’t even recall eye contact with people.

Reflections on a fist time visit

The social circles in this church seem really strong.  In fact, it seems like it would take an extrovert to put himself or herself out there to break into those social circles and feel a sense of home. 

We left feeling like we’d never fit into that church. 

They said 2x that they were glad we visitors were here, but made no effort to notice us.  The people around us truly talked around us.

My wife said, "I find it nice when the pastor or leader says, Take a moment and say hello to someone you haven’t met yet."  That can at least allow us to briefly feel welcome, even if its a cursory greeting.

Perhaps this chuch’s philosopy is to ignore the visitor or let the visitor remain totally anonymous until the visitor makes themselves known in some way, like parking in the visitor spot, or visiting the visitor table.  

There is no one in that church that noticed we were first time visitors.  The church administration or ministry team have no idea that we were even there.  We left as anonymous as we arrived.

 Let me ask you this?

When was the last time you were a 1st time visitor in a church where you

• showed up uninvited
• knew absolutely no one,
• had never been in the building before?

Did you notice the 1st time visitor in your church last weekend?

Popularity: 14% [?]

As part of our 5 week road trip, we are collecting stories of evangelistic outreach ideas, and learning what some churches are doing successfully or not.

Meeting a Community Need

One community church had heard that a local city council banned people from walking their dogs in the local park. 

If you owned a dog and wanted to take the dog for a walk, you were not allowed to legally take your dog for a walk in the city park.

The church took a different action. 

Seeing the need in a community, they fenced in their front yard and set up a dog park for the community.  Of course, some rules were in place to keep it clean and pet friendly.  Benches were provided for people to sit on and visit while their dogs played.

Over the few years, this park has become a vital spot for the community to gather, even though the local council has changed it laws. 

People have formed clubs around the type of dog: beagle club, poodle club etc.

Between 5-7pm, when the owners get home, the dog park is very busy with lots of community members gathering.

Sounds like a great outreach idea: it serves the need of the community, allows the church to be more visible.

Does the church connect?

This sounds like a great idea to help a church connect with it’s community, to build relationships with people in it.

• Perhaps the pastor can get a dog and join the club for that breed.
• Perhaps church members can get dogs and start visiting and connecting with people.
• The church can "do life" with the community, providing the grounds for great discussions about faith, for opportunities to invite people to church.
• The church can connect with its neighbors.
• Imagine having hundreds of people and their dogs on your church’s front yard each week.

From the second hand conversations I have had, it appears that people in this particular church do not visit the dog park in their front yard. 

A few folks were asked if church members are connecting with people, and no one knew of any. 

Perhaps the church is missing a great outreach opportunity that is meeting regularly in their front yard.

Let me ask you this?

Consider how the general public uses your building outside of worship service times: dog park, AA or NA meetings, day care, after school tutoring, etc.

How are church members connecting with people already visiting your church on a regular basis outside of Sunday morning?

Are church members inviting these people to your worship services?  Are church members talking about their faith?

Popularity: 13% [?]

One of the features here is “Ask EvangelismCoach.org“, a place where you can submit a question that’s on your mind about evangelism.   I collect them for ideas for future articles, and is a great conversation starter.

A recent one that came in was:

I’m so excited to have found your website - you were recommended by the Evangelism person on staff at PCUSA in Louisville, KY. 

There’s a specific question on my mind, one that is causing quite a fuss at the church I’m serving as an interim pastor.  Here’s the question:  should first time visitors be asked to stand up during the worship service, identify themselves, and receive a flower that then identifies them as visitors to the more tenured members of the congregation?

Before I share my answer, I’d like to hear from some of the regular readers who get this via RSS feed, or some of the recent visitors who are here for the first time. 

• What does your church do to recognize first time visitors?
• Do you recognize first time visitors?

Describe your church’s practice in the comments below, or use the email form on the contact us page if you don’t want to leave it publicly.

Popularity: 11% [?]