Evangelism Coach

First time here? Thanks for dropping by. Get our Monthly Newsletter and get a free article on hospitality. Keep your evangelism passion high by subscribing to my Feed.

Tim Schraeder writes “June 22 was a sad day at Park Community Church, we lost a dearly beloved friend … our weekly program.”  (Thanks to Church Marketing Sucks writing Death to the Church Bulletin)

Chris Forbes writes: Diary of an Expensive Church Planting Marketing Outreach Flop.  He writes:

Areas to think about when Planning a Marketing Campaign

Audience: When you buy media you are not buying media per se, you are buying eyes and ears of particular people. Audience comes first in media. When you have done your homework, you know who your audience is and you find the media channels that reach them best. When you don’t have a particular audience in mind, media sales people have a way of convincing you their media is the best way to reach people. Know the people you want to reach!

Use of Media: Think about media as the tools you use to travel to the audience you want to reach. It’s like traveling in a train. Say you wanted to get to New York City by train. You can’t get on just any train to get to New York. Imagine someone saying after failing to get to New York by train, “I tried train travel, but trains can’t get you to New York. The Devil wants to keep me outta NYC!” The fact is trains can get you to New York, if you take the right trains. You have to take a train that is going to New York. In the same way, you need the right media “vehicle” to get to your audience.

Mark Buchanan wrote “Wreck the Roof,” a reflection off of Mark 2 when the religious folk were upset that the friends made a whole in the roof to lower the paralytic.

Roof-tile Syndrome is when we are so caught up in the preaching of Jesus, we turn our backs to the needs of those still outside the building. We become barriers and not gateways. It’s when we care more about keeping things intact than about restoring lives that are shattered. It’s when we’re more upset when stuff gets broken than excited when the broken are mended. It’s when church gets reduced to the preaching of Jesus so that we fail to notice that we’re seeing very little of the forgiveness and healing of Jesus. It is when we are so fearful about upsetting the religious folk (or homeowners) in our midst that we stop taking risks to get people to Jesus.

It’s when my program, my office, my title, my privilege, my influence, my comfort takes precedence over others’ needs.

It’s when the church exists for itself; to hell with the rest of you.

George Bullard asks: When is a Congregation Finished With Transformation?

Actually the answer is never. Congregations must be continually transforming to be in full, active response to the pull of God in the direction of their full kingdom potential.

A better question is, when is a congregation successfully transforming? To that question there are several great answers.

Recently, in late July, I was in Volcán Panama, teaching evangelism training workshops at the mission base of Operation Mobilization Panama.  Missionaries from 6 different countries had come to Volcán Panama for two months of working with the local church.

To double up the use of the time, I also had the opportunity to do personal evangelism training at an international bi-lingual new church development called Iglesia Casa De Luz (Lighthouse Church).

The OM Panama Base in Volcán

The OM Panama base is located at the end of a road in a residential neighborhood at the foot of a dormant volcano, Baru (pictured below, center rear).   I am told that from the peak of Baru, one can see both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The town of Volcán is about 1500 meters in elevation (about 4900 feet).  The weather was a combination of clouds (we were in them some times), rain, and strong winds.  

At times the wind was biting cold.  Perhaps one doesn’t think of coats, hats, and sweaters for life in the tropics, but that is often a necessity here because of the wind.  It often blows with such strength that tree saplings are bent over and grow at an angle.  I saw several trees that had a graceful curve to them.  The air is pretty cool year round that most houses don’t have either a heating or air conditioning system installed.

The terrain was mostly rocky, with giant boulders that had been left from lava flows eons ago.  Roads were sometimes paved, sometimes littered with potholes, and sometimes not paved at all.  A 4×4 would be a good car to have in Volcán.

Casa de Luz — 3 keys for Explosive Church Growth

See a photo album at our Facebook Fan Page.

The church has experienced an explosion of adult conversion growth in recent months.  I met many people who had become a Christian within the last 6 months.  Some as recent as two weeks prior to these workshops.

I want to share 3 vital keys I observed in their growth.

Key #1: A passionate love for Jesus

It was clear to me when I met with this church that they have a vibrant relationship with Christ.  This is expressed in so many ways — in worship, in prayer, in giving, and in community involvement. 

The positive buzz about this church in the community is attracting those seeking all that Christ has to offer.  Word about this church’s love of the Lord and for its neighbor travels the social vines pretty quickly.

Key #2: A praying leadership

I attribute this growth to the dedicated prayer of the leaders.  Four mornings a week, the leadership team meets for prayer at 4.30am to pray for the church.  They meet in various houses and the host provides a little snack / coffee.

Those who make that prayer time reported to me what a blessing it was to be awake at that hour doing the work of the church and seeing its fruit.  Seeing the fruit of new believers in their midst reinforces their desire to make the sacrifice of prayer.

This is in contrast to other 12 churches in the town that are not experiencing such growth.

It’s not the intensity of the prayer, or the hour of their prayer.  This is an hour that works for them.

Rather, it is the discipline and commitment to prayer that has fueled the growth of this church.

Key #3:  A confidence in the Holy Spirit’s work

Conversion growth is a supernatural event. 

The Holy Spirit uses the church (and it’s people) to proclaim the gospel, and the Holy Spirit creates spiritual thirst or longing in the person seeking faith. 

Evangelism in this church is not a high pressure “we can’t go home until someone raises a hand” altar call.  Rather, people invite others to start following Jesus, trusting the Holy Spirit has set up the moment like Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.  Invitations are given not only on Sunday, but throughout the week in small groups or in personal conversations.

This church simply trusts God’s working through the Holy Spirit and as such is finding the “low hanging fruit” that is ripe for harvest.

First Evening: Small Group in David.

David is a major town about 45 minutes away (down the mountain) from the church.  The church has small groups in that area because of the distance that hinders regular large group meetings.  Pastor drives out to meet with them on a regular basis.

We met with some of the small group on the back patio of a house.  Most of those pictured to the right are new believers in the Lord who have come to faith in recent months.  Many had little to no bible knowledge when they came to faith, and are at the stage of faith where they are drinking in all they can get of the teachings about Jesus.

They have a passion for sharing their faith because of the tremendous impact that the Grace of God has had upon their life.  The particular training this evening was on the role of the Holy Spirit in evangelism.

After about 90 minutes of teaching time, we moved into a time of prayer ministry. 

We felt that God was leading us to pray for those who do not know Him, and to rejoice in the fact that God has saved us.

A surprise

I was surprised once again by the fact that a pre-Christian would come to a workshop on Evangelism.

However, here again, one lady came to the workshop on the invitation of a friend.  During the workshop, I had explained the gospel message, had explained how the Holy Spirit prepares our heart.

During the ministry time, she came forward on her own wanting to start following Jesus to come into her life. 

God had been already working in her heart, creating a spiritual thirst for Him, to bring her to a place where she knew her need and only Jesus could satisfy it.

We continued to minister in prayer to people for various prayer needs, such as a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit, a passion for those who don’t yet know Christ, and some for physical healing.

2nd evening: Small group in Volcán

The second night, we repeated the same workshop on the Role of the Holy Spirit in Evangelism.  This time, was for the small group in Volcán.  A different set of people came from the local area, including an American lady who had retired and moved to Panama from the US with her husband only 4 months ago.

Again, after about 90 minutes of teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit in Evangelism, we moved into another powerful ministry time.  I was sick and fighting a cold, so the pastor lead the ministry time. 

We were led to pray for those who do not yet know Christ, for infilling of the Spirit again to be his witnesses, and particularly felt that God was giving prayer burdens for specific people groups.

3rd evening: Whole group in Volcán

The third evening, both groups from the first and second night gathered in Volcán for part two of the workshop series.  I had recovered from being ill the day before and was much more sensitive to God’s working.

This evening, the teaching focused on paying attention to the Holy Spirit’s promptings to guide you in your evangelism efforts.  It is a variation on the “Fear Free Evangelism” workshop that I offer to churches in the United States. 

It uses Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch as a model of listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit to position yourself in the right place at the right time.

Afterwards we moved into another moving and important time of prayer ministry. 

Four or five more people came forward to ask Christ into their life, including the two children of the woman who invited Christ into her life in David, two nights before.  We felt led again to be praying for all sorts of things under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

One lady, who had only been a Christian for two weeks, came forward for prayer.

I felt led to pray for physical healing, and physically felt God was working.  I’ve have learned to recognize when God is using me to do a healing work and those signs were present.  I initially was praying for healing, not knowing what for.  After a while, I asked her specifically what for and she reported having some tumors.  As I continued to pray, she reported the physical sensation of her tumors being pulverized, and felt God’s healing upon her.  Of course, we’ll wait for medical verification, but we are confident in God’s healing work.

Saturday: Youth Group meeting

Saturday night, we participated in a Youth Group meeting, together with OM Mission Extreme Team that I had been training during these days.

We had a program that focused on a call to missions, to get beyond the mediocrity of casual Christianity and into giving yourself fully to God’s service no matter where that may take you. 

For some, it involves a short term trip in a foreign country.  For others, like us, perhaps moving to a foreign country.  For still others, it might be in your local neighborhood.   If you have a passion to reach the world that is not geared towards one specific people group, then perhaps you are called to be a missions mobilizer — helping others reach their dream of reaching the nations for Christ.

Sunday morning: Worship service

The final day of ministry wrapped up with preaching at Casa de Luz, using a message on Psalm 51. 

It’s a bi-lingual church so much of the service is translated.  It meets on a covered carport because it doesn’t have a building to meet in.

Many of these people are new believers in Christ and God is doing a wonderful work there.

It was a beautiful morning.  The punishing breezes of Volcan had calmed and the clouds had lifted so that we were warmed in the bright sunlight of that morning.

The message focused on the punishing burden of sin, and the freedom that is found in Christ’s forgiveness.

It is a message that naturally led into a time of repentance and rededication.  The time of prayer ministry after the preaching lasted about 30 minutes and had several highlights.

People came forward for prayer about personal repentance, to give or rededicate their life to the Lord.

Others came forward for prayer as well, and several families spent time seeking forgiveness from each other for the broken ways they had been behaving.

A son sought forgiveness from his father and mom, praying for them as well.

A mom sought forgiveness from her daughter for how she had been behaving.

Brothers and sisters asked to be reconciled to each other.

One family, after being away from the Lord for two years, visited church for the first time and rededicated their life to the Lord.

Others, including one lady from the local indigenous tribe, came forward to give her life to the Lord.  She also sought prayer for her sick child.

Final Reflections

God is doing amazing work with this church.  I am humbled to have been a part of it.  I don’t claim any special power, but am simply a vessel in God’s purposes.  I may have the gift of evangelism, but am humbled every time God chooses to use me in leading someone to faith in Christ.

I don’t claim to have any special ability.  But rather I’m an available tool that God has chosen to use, and one that has been positioned at the right place at the right time.

I wasn’t in Volcán on my own doing, but in the sovereignty of God, the door opened and I was there to participate in a work that God was already doing.

What a privilege to see more souls come into the kingdom, to see people experience the power of God, and to ignite the church in the power of the Holy Spirit for missions.

Full online Photos:

You can see the full photo album at our Facebook Fan Page. 

We are also available to do workshops for your local church or for your local area.  Contact us for more information.

If you want to be involved in supporting the international work of EvangelismCoach.org, tax deductible donations can be made to support our work.  See our support us page. 

Adrian Warnock asks: Should You be a Church Plant Leader?  In it he gives video and a list of 20 questions that every church planter should ask.  I was a church planter one, and I work with church planters now.  This is a great inventory to add to the list.

Joshua Cody at Church Marketing Sucks has two great articles that speak to marketing and church.

• Nitpicking our Marketing (Is the breakfast served out of love or a marketing strategy?)
• Semi Automatic Assault Rifle offered as an incentive to visit church (What was that guy thinking?)

Mark Driscoll has been writing about Charles Spurgeon:

Evangelism

The hyper-Calvinists in his day disdained Spurgeon for his passion for lost people to meet Jesus and his continual offering of the gospel of grace to the masses, which led to the baptism of 14,692 converts during his ministry. Despite much mean-spirited opposition, Spurgeon never shied away from calling all people to repentance and used unconventional means, such as meeting in a public theater (not a church) and preaching from a stage (not a raised pulpit), in an effort to be more culturally relevant with his ministry style. Curiously, however, he forbade the use of choirs, organs, and other musical instruments in his church services.

Spurgeon has deeply impressed upon me the importance of always inviting people to repent of sin and trust in Jesus. He rightly shared God’s heart for lost people and his example reveals that one can believe in both election and evangelism, as the Apostle Paul did also. Too often those of us who are theologically reformed spend more time criticizing evangelistic methods than doing evangelism ourselves. I too consider myself something of a reformed evangelist and appreciate that Spurgeon shared a deep love for lost people that God used to save many lives.

Source: Spurgeon Prayed, Laughed, Cared, and Evangelized - Part 3

David Fitch writes 10 Ways to Engage the Poor in the Suburbs.  He took the time to prayer-walk his neighborhood and it didn’t take him long to find ideas.  The poor are not just in the inner city slums, or the rural outskirts of the countryside.  They are indeed right around you. . . .

As we have been looking at houses, praying over the neighborhoods, seeking where we might buy a house, I have walked the neighborhoods trying to open my eyes to where mission could be engaged. I find the suburbs difficult for mission. The poor are so hard to find. Yet as I walked and prayed, I found my imagination stoked by the Spirit. Mission was all around the rhythms of this place. The poor could be found. Here are ten missional places I noticed . .. . . .

Gary Rohyrmayer finds Seven Surprising Facts of the American Church.  Here is one.

The increase in churches is only ¼ of what’s needed to keep up with population growth.

• 3,000 churches close every year
• 3,800 new church starts survived
• Net annual gain: 800 new churches
• Net annual gain needed to keep up with population growth:10,000 new churches

California church reached out via Garbage:

First Christian Reformed Church in Bellflower CA reached out to its community in an unusual way in July (2007), arranging for six huge dumpsters along the road beside its building.  Church members manned the dumpsters to help community members dispose of unwanted items.  They also handed out information about the church.  This marked the third time the church has partnered with the city to help clean up the community
Source: The Banner Magazine (www.thebanner.org), October 2007

On Friday’s, I usually share some of what I’ve been reading on other blogs that is of interest to me.  Some of the material is integrated into our workshops, or into my mind, as this collection is like a journal for Evangelismcoach.org 

There is no real theme other than evangelism, church growth, and things related to them.  You’ll not find links to Obama and McCain insights, or gossip about Paris Hilton, or even a summary of Twitter and Facebook and their value of wasting time or connecting.

Doesn’t happen every Friday, but as there is enough to share.

I’ve had many a conversation with

• church planters who want to start a coffee house
• church members who want to start a coffee house ministry
• church members who want to run a coffee shop
• churches who want to deal Fair Trade Coffee (such as Esperanza Coffee Group) for their gatherings.
• building committees that dream a coffee house in their church.

What drives many of these visions is the idea of a social gathering spot for informal evangelism, or a setting for evangelistic bible studies.

It’s considered a vision for evangelism that often sounds like this:

“Let’s build a coffee house and THEN we’ll do evangelism bible studies.”

What about this idea?

Don’t build or design a coffee house.

Use the one in your neighborhood!

Ten Reasons to use a local cafe for your evangelistic bible study:

1. No Capital Outlay — No need to design special space in your building, or purchase/renovate an existing building
2. Supports local economy — Local business owners are supported when you meet in their store.
3. Get out of the church — Cafe’s are a neutral space.
4. No clean up — No coffee pots to clean or grinds to dispose of.
5. Good coffee — I can’t tell you how many cups of burnt coffee or colored water I’ve drunk at church.
6. Public space — Regular meetings may produce curiosity and people self-introducing themselves and connecting.
7. Start tomorrow — no need to design, dream, spend lots of money. You can focus on gathering people and building relationships now instead of when its ready.
8. Low Cost — the infrastructure exists at the coffee shop, freeing you to meet people instead of paying for building plans, inspections, materials, and supplies.
9. No volunteer recruitment — you don’t have to recruit more overworked volunteers from your church to support the work.
10. Put your efforts into building relationships, not business — a coffee house is a business.

Here is another pastor that moved his bible study to Borders: No Borders at Borders.

Other coffee house ideas:

• In They like Jesus, but not the Church, Pastor Dan Kimball wrote about getting himself out of the church office and setting up a secondary office in the Cafe. He speaks of many evangelistic conversations.
• Another church simply opens their doors on Monday morning giving away free coffee.
• I used to go to the same St. Arbucks every Sunday morning prior to church. I got to know every staff person and every regular Sunday morning visitor. I had the opportunity to pray with and for nearly everyone.

Now this doesn’t mean you can’t start your own coffee house, like The Refuge has done, but don’t avoid doing evangelism while waiting for a building to finish. Get out there and build a group in the local cafe while you are waiting.

Let me ask you this?

Where are your evangelism bible studies held?

Homes, Church, neighborhood coffee shops?

Does your church dream about a coffee house ministry?

Do you have the people meeting already, or are you waiting for the space first to build a group?

I’m not the first to point this out, but I’ve heard the expression: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Perhaps you’ve heard it too. Perhaps it’s a cliche that is beyond trendy.

But, when one person is excited about evangelism, and doing it, sharing their experiences, and reflections, other people begin to get the idea that perhaps “I can do this too. ”

When you are causing the evangelistic tide to rise, others will rise up and do evangelism.

You keep your evangelistic passion high, other’s will increase as well.

It just pours out.

When I preached every Sunday, I always had a new evangelism story — a book I was reading, a conversation I had, a prayer that I had with somebody. People around me began to feel more comfortable doing evangelism, and within a few months, people were telling me their own stories of conversations.

That’s where I learned to love evangelism coaching. Asking folks to recall the conversation, explore it a little more, think about how to do the conversation differently the next time a similar topic came about — just like a debriefing. Asking questions to help sharpen the skills.

As long as my evangelistic temperature was hot, the people around me warmed up to evangelism.

Stoking the Fires

How does one keep the fires hot? Let me give you 15 right off the bat. It’s not a linear list and not exhaustive, but here goes:

1. Keep your relationship with God strong.
2. Read the Scriptures, meditate on them as your day goes on.
3. Enjoy noticing God’s activity around you.
4. Regularly tell others about God’s work in your life.
5. Regularly engage in evangelistic conversations
6. Review them as part of your devotional life.
7. Read evangelism books.
8. Read and comment on evangelism blogs.
9. Participate in the evangelism activity of your local church
10. Share your evangelism stories with others.
11. Join an evangelism coaching group that meets regularly to review conversations.
12. Worship deeply.
13. Pray regularly.
14. Notice the people around you and pray for them.
15. Practice explaining the gospel clearly and simply.

Let me ask you this

What would you add to this list?

Mark Driscoll on video explaining the various themes on the Emerging Church. I find this a helpful summary of the ongoing conversation and a fair critique of it.

The Jolly blogger asks: “Why are church plants the most successful at reaching people and does my established church stand any chance of being renewed?”

Five ways to sharpen you evangelistic skills.

A pastor’s conversational encounter in a cafe. Get out of the office my friend and see who you run into.

Take a risk and pray. From a slide show on evangelism full of quotes from books.

Check out this quote on authentic Evangelism at Pentecostal Post-it Notes:

Quote on Conversational Evangelism:

“Actual conversations with other human beings rarely follow a script. So resolve now to be OK with interruptions, awkward pauses, rabbit trails, and even bursts of anger. Keep your agenda to love, but drop your agenda for how the conversation has to play out.” – Walter Henegar Evangelism for Dummies: The surprising gift of stating the obvious.

 

 

Next week, I’ll be teaching on Evangelism in Panama at the Youth with a Mission Base.  Pray for the work there.

This weekend, I’ll be preaching 3 services at Centro Cristiano Betania in Panama City.  If you are not in church on Sunday, you can listen to the live stream at http://www.stereoferadio.com/ at 8.30CT or 11:00CT.

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?