Lifeway has put up a website for pastors that is full of articles and ideas for thanksgiving.
Read about it here.
Free model sermons.
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How to Welcome Visitors During the Christmas Season
While at the Mt. Vernon Evangelism Dunamis, I had the opportunity to visit with some elders of the Deming Presbyterian Church in Northwest Washington State (Acme WA), with about 15-25 people in worship.
Here is what one of the elders had to say [edited for spacing and readability]:
On the evening we and other church elders met with Chris Walker, he was able to provide new insight and confirm existing notions about reaching our community for Christ.
His taking the time to first hear about our church profile and current state of evangelistic activities before offering input was encouraging and helped make the title of Evangelism Coach fitting for Chris. He then proceeded to offer direction that was both appropriate and doable.
. . . .
Chris also drove home some great points we all could benefit from :
- Seek the face of God when we pray; we want to follow His will not our program.
- When we meet as a group to seek the will of God, save the brainstorming until after significant time is spent in group prayer.
- Once an inventory of community needs is taken, know that no church can meet them all. Ask the Lord to direct the church to which needs it is called to minister to.
- Do ministry with the stamp of Jesus clearly visible. It needs to be publicly proclaimed that our work is empowered by the love for others that flows from Jesus, through us and into the lives of others.
- Get out! These Post-Christendom times require us to get out of our building and into the community.
The following Sunday morning in our Adult Study time, after inviting our Lord’s leading, we had discussion about our mutual desire for our little church to become more connected to our community.
Next thing we knew we were inspired by an idea . . . . .
To conclude, I would say that Chris is about delivering the truth in a way that emulates how Jesus does it: He turns our attention and hope toward our Father.
Grateful,
Bruce Burke
Do you want a similar coaching session with your church outreach team or leadership team?
This type of meeting can be conducted via conference call and is travel free.
There is an expense for my time, but this church pastor said it was worth every penny to see his elders re-energized!
See Church Leadership Coaching Session to schedule your call and find some fresh ideas. Risk free.
Quick Evangelism Coaching Call
Free Evangelism training Seminar
Presbyterian Transformational Conference Links
A reader recently submitted submitted a question via Ask Evangelism Coach section. (I’ve edited this for spelling an grammar).
What is the best question to ask someone to start a conversation about evangelism?
Thanks for submitting the question to me via Ask Evangelism Coach section of the website. This page is beginning to fulfill its purpose in helping you with specific questions.
One of the most important questions to consider is
under whose initiative is the conversation starting?
It seems to me there are at least three personal variables in each conversation:
After 20 years of conducting evangelism training and doing personal evangelism myself, I have found that the best and most fruitful conversations happen when the Holy Spirit is providing the initiative for the conversation.
This happens when you are available and desire to be used of the Lord.
This happens when you are praying for such conversations to happen (see Fear Free Evangelism Case Study for an example).
Put these two pieces together and you’ll begin to see an increase the number of people in your life speaking with you about spiritual things that provide a fertile ground for planting, watering, and harvesting the seed of the word.
To notice these moments of God’s sovereign working in your life, grow in your relationship with the Lord and the ability to recognize His guidance on the spur of the moment.
What hasn’t always been so fruitful is when I take my own initiative to make conversations happen. It feels forced, and often winds up being confrontational, versus cooperative.
I do believe that God can use such conversations anyway, but in the moment of occurrence, they feel awful and strip away a lot of my motivation.
The initiative is in myself, and thus it doesn’t really seem to advance so easily. I’m not watching for the advance working of the Holy Spirit.
Kairos is a greek word for time, and Kairos moment is that moment that the Holy Spirit has prepared for you and your conversation partner.
It is that moment when the conversation you have will rapidly advance that person’s journey towards faith in Jesus Christ.
The best NT example is Phillip and the Ethopian Eunuch
Sometimes you will feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit to start that conversation, as did Phillip with “Do you understand what you are reading?”
Other times, you will see the conversation “fall into your lap,” such as one encounter I had when a stranger said to me
“I heard you were a pastor. My spiritual life sucks. Can we have lunch?”
See Divine Appointments for more examples of kairos moments
Assuming that the Holy Spirit has setup the particular conversational encounter, I’ve got two further articles for you about starter questions, with free downloads that you can keep and distribute.
One service that I offer in the US and Canada is evangelism coaching. A coach can help you think through some of these issues and can help you improve your conversation skills.
There is a fee involved, as I need to earn a living but it can be done. See Do you Need Evangelism coaching?
Submit your question via Ask Evangelism Coach section. I’ll see about turning it into something we can all learn from.
Many people find personal evangelism scary.
Some would rather clean a pig sty instead of talking about Jesus to their friends.
Yet Jesus commands us to go and share.
We’ll tackle questions like:
Saturday November 8, 2008
9am to 3pm
1518 King St
Enfield, CT 06082
A love offering will be received to further the work of EvangelismCoach.org
If you want the catered lunch, please check the box. Lunch tickets are $10.
cforms contact form by delicious:days
The seminar dispelled the fears associated with evangelism. Both personal stories and Biblical truth provided a framework from which to proceed in making sharing my faith conversationally more a part of my lifestyle. I would highly recommend this class to anyone with a heart for becoming more verbal in their witness. — Participant
“I didn’t know evangelism could be that simple.” — S. Massie
“You’ve got keen insight in to the hearts of people” — M Bews.
Q: Who is Chris Walker?
Ordained Pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Chris Walker has taught on evangelism for over 15 years in the US and Latin America. Read more about EvangelismCoach.org
Q: Is there any cost?
No. It is entirely free. But a love offering will be received to cover our expenses and advance our ministry. We rely upon free will gifts at events like this.
If you want the catered lunch, meal tickets are $10. Pay at the door, but reserve a lunch on the form above.
Q: Is there a product pitch? What are you selling?
No. There is no sales for an expensive seminar and no product placement, just a simple of sharing of information to help you grow confident in sharing your faith.
Q: I know several people who could use this seminar. Can I invite them? How?
Yes. Keep Reading.
Bookmark: Use the bookmarking features Tell a friend tab below to post to myspace, facebook, etc. . . . I’d appreciate you sharing this page to your profile.
Email: Create an email to send to your friends that direct them to the following links.
Seattle WA Personal Evangelism Training Conference
How Presbyterians Do Evangelism
Youth Night: Discover Your Faith - Enfield CT
One of the blogs I read (Fierce Grace) decided to do something entirely different on a Sunday morning.
Cancel the service.
Serve the neighborhood.
Read about it at The Church Has Left the Building.
I have often mentioned that some churches can do this. I can’t imagine Mars Hill or Seacoast doing something like this. However smaller churches can easily take this idea and run with it.
Leading up to this Sunday off was a sermon series. The whole series is mapped out at “Beginning this Sunday” and the follow up posts in that series continues to map out the theology and the practice that led up to that Sunday.
One Sunday, Pastor pointed out:
The Samaritan took a risk, got personally involved, spent some time and some money to help the man in need - He put himself out to help someone else get through. That’s what we are called to do if we’re going to love our neighbor like we love ourselves.
The second Sunday focused on:
Jesus’ mission is our mandate (Luke 4:14-21) - and it’s people-centered, outwardly focused, and compassion driven. If we can see people as He saw them, sees them, we will overflow with ideas and discover dozens of practical ways to show them the love of Christ.
And on the third Sunday:
The third installment of our “Taking It to the Streets” message series focused on “Little Acts with Big Impact.” We looked at Jesus’ description of the Kingdom in Luke 13:18-21. There, Jesus said the Kingdom was like a small mustard seed that grows in to a bushy tree large enough for birds to build nests in. Then He said the Kingdom was like a lump of yeast that was worked into 50 pounds of dough to make bread for as many as 100 people!
It wasn’t a surprise to the congregation but rather a vision that had been cast and people rallied to it.
What do you think?
Have you tried this idea?
What did you find?
Friday Finds -- A brief roundup of interesting posts
Short Term Mission, What Can Peru teach us?
Evangelism Training Ministry in Nicaragua
Friday afternoon during the Mt. Vernon Evangelism Dunamis, we had a lab time or a live practicum, based on the Phillip and Ethiopian Eunuch story.
We gathered as a group, prayed, and then dismissed to visit various places in Mount Vernon as we felt led or guessed at a leading.
The goal was to have a spiritual conversation with whomever the Lord pointed out to you (a la “Go stand next to THAT chariot”). If such a conversation was to be had, it was to help the people you felt led to speak with make another step forward in their spiritual journey. You might get to
It was perfectly fine if one didn’t feel a particular leading to go somewhere. It could be simply free time, or remain at the church praying for those who did go out.
During the prayer time I had a vision of a young woman, smoking a cigarette, reading a book, sitting on a chair at the loading dock in a particular commercial center / strip mall.
The person driving also felt a leading to visit the local community college.
First, we visited the college campus and encountered the pastor for the Chi Alpha student ministry. We prayed with him, the ministry’s worship team, and for his effectiveness as a campus pastor. Three out of town pastors on the college campus, blessing a young student pastor.
Then we left and we visited the commercial shopping center where behold, I found the woman, smoking a cigarette, reading a book, sitting on a chair, as pictured.
I described my vision and my reason for interrupting. We told her we believed that God had sent us there to pray just for her. We offered to pray for her and she allowed us to. If she had said no, I would have respected that boundary.
We felt led to pray about God’s provision in her life and to remind her that God hears her prayer. Whatever will come of that, who knows.
Many other groups returned with stories of the people they met, prayed with and for, and some had stories where nothing happened, which is fine during a clinical lab time like this.
Some had deeply meaningful conversations, other simply experienced small talk. Some encounters occurred on Indian Reservations, in Wal-Mart, or at the local gas station or thrift store.
The idea is to see the people around you with the Father’s eyes. (See the video Waiting on the World to Change).
To look for those people that God would underline to you.
The idea is not to force a conversation, but to watch it unfold, naturally, as you trust the sovereignty of God to lead you to the right person while you are on your way.
Let me ask you this?
Have you tried an experiment like this? Have you simply taken the time to pray and spend the afternoon looking for whom God might send across your path? Tell us your stories in the comments below.
I and one of my co-teachers just finished the The Evangelism Dunamis track in Mt. Vernon Washington, about 2 hours north of Seattle.
One of the joys I get in my travels as an evangelism trainer is meeting new people all over the country.
Pastors from various denominations and gifted lay ministers.
At this conference, new initial groundwork was laid to start a new track of the Dunamis project sometime next year in multiple places in Washington state as well as perhaps just over the border from southern Western Canada.
Prior to The Evangelism Dunamis, I had an extra day, and spent the morning with Mike Neelley (left) and Bob Ekblad of Tierra Nueva Ministries.
Bob (right) had returned from the southern tip of Argentina the night before, as he is an international speaker and trainer.
Tierra Nueva (New Earth) is an ecumenical ministry located in Burlington, Washington, that seeks to share the Good News of God’s liberation in Jesus Christ with migrant farm workers, new immigrants, and permanent Hispanic residents in Western Washington.
Tierra Nueva is caught up in a vision of a shepherding ministry that seeks after lost sheep until they are found (Luke 15:4). They have consciously structured our ministries to:
• seek after lost sheep until they are found–through Skagit County Jail Ministry, migrant chaplaincy, and Tierra Nueva Honduras.
• care for, defend, and protect–through the Family Support Center.
• gather, feed and heal–through our English and Spanish faith communities, bilingual jail services and healing services.
• equip and send out–through the People’s Seminary events and courses.
Mike told me of one gang member he disciples who is smoking a joint while studying the Bible. He told me of a sex offender he meets with. He told me of former meth addicts who are now working for the ministry trying to get their life reoriented around following Christ.
This kind of Christianity on the edges is messy as God works transformation in real life. People on the margins. This takes a special calling and is the prime opportunity for evangelism as broken people seek to find their purpose in life.
Bob has written two books that are now on my reading list of books to get
The executive of the Presbytery of North Puget Sound, Corey Schlosser Hall (right), organized a lunch for us.
Some Cambodian church planters (left) joined us at lunch. It seemed to be a divine appointment for Bob Ekblad (tallest one in the back) to meet these church planters at lunch. I had time to visit and talk with these men about their work among Cambodian immigrants they work with.
That evening, I had the joy of visiting with Pastor Tom Ross of Deming Presbyterian Church and Mount Baker Presbyterian Church. He and 3 elders for some evangelism coaching — talking about the burning questions on their mind.
These were small rural churches in the hills of Northwest Washington, with about 15-25 in worship. A 3rd elder was from a church of about 600, tucked in the back of a subdivision, away from the main traffic flow.
Two questions were on the minds of those gathered:
We spent about 90 minutes brainstorming. They reported to me what a blessing it was to have me lead that session and they felt energized with a new list of ideas (see Church Leadership Coaching Session).
One elder wrote (edited for spelling and clairty):
Thank you for the wonderful evening when Chris
Walker visited. I found his style very natural
for our little church. We needed his calmness and
small town way about him. I know that what he does is
truly from the heart. He allowed us to express
ourselves and our needs.
He responded to our questions and gave us his
undivided attention. I
believe we found in his answers some answers that were
right in front of us.
The Evangelism Dunamis is focused on personal evangelism training. (See related article: 10 Practical Ways Of Sharing Your Faith)
It began on Thursday morning and ended in celebration on Saturday afternoon where people offer their stories of what God was doing in their life during the event. Several people from lots of different Christian traditions attended.
Much of the content for The Evangelism Dunamis is found in various pieces here on Evangelism Coach, and it is always fun to present the material live.
This time, my co-presenter was Susan Finck Lockhart (See Guest Article: Sharing your faith in the ordinary course of life), who is part time pastor of El Calvario Presbyterian Church in Waco Texas.
We focused on some theology, including the wonder of grace, but much of the teaching time was also given over to lots of practical work, praying and sharing in small groups:
For my newest subscribers through the EvangelismCoach feed and Monthly Evangelism Tips Newsletter, here are some important links that I highlighted at the Evangelism Dunamis.
I will also post over the next few days, the actual slides that we used for the event since I wasn’t able to get them printed as handouts.
Did you attend the conference? I’d love for you to put your words of encouragement in the comment form, or email me privately if you wish.
Personal Testimony Questionnaire
MP3s from The First Reformed Presbyterian Conference on Biblical Evangelism.
Ten Prayer Points For your Friends
Evangelism Book Review: Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult
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