Evangelism Coach

Every now and then, I put up a series of links that simply reflect some of the reading that I do.  

• Nathan Eshleman at Presbyterian Thoughts raises a provocative question about how the Church and Illegal Immigrants.  Having personally been involved in the immigrant community, and where my church is unable to send a mission team overseas, this question is personal.  The Church needs to get involved in the just treatment and compassionate care for immigrants.

• Tony Jones reposts a Response to Critics about Emergent Village, by Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Spencer Burke, Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, Andrew Jones, Chris Seay.  Downloadable as a PDF.

• Jason McNutt writes “Hot Dog’s for Jesus.“  This is a great practical idea to serve the neighborhood and build relationship with it.  Servant projects like this can provide a lot of moments for causal conversations about faith that can be part of a person’s journey to faith.

• Eric Jones compiles a list of questions about raising mission minded children.

• Here’s an article about “downsizing” the Sunday service for the sake of mission.  Reduce the time and effort that needs to be put into the Sunday service in order to allow more time for leaders to “rub shoulders” with non-Christians during the week.  (Thanks to Benjamin Sternke).

• Confessing Evangelical writes a great post about evangelism methods and techniques, with a great quote from a speaker he writes about:

“Is your life the sort of life that makes people ask questions about God, and is your conversation the sort of conversation that answers them?”

Have a great weekend!

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.

Emergent Churches and Postmodernism
One of the active discussions in evangelism these days is the influence of postmodernism and the development of the Emergent church. The Internet Monk writes up a good summary of this.

Virginia Tech:
There is a lot that is being said about the events at Virginia Tech this week. I was a youth pastor during Columbine, during Oklahoma City, during September 11, so I know that over the next few weeks, many youth pastors will have discussions with their groups about the love of God, God’s sovereignty, and the problem of evil. As our nation mourns, let us continue to look to God our strength. At Passion’s 286blog, there is an article that comments about heavy hearted, yet still with hope. The Christian has a privelge of an eternal hope, even when the world seems to be falling apart.

Questions and Discussions

Mere Orthodoxy raises a theological question about evangelism as a form of discussion. Can evangelism be conversational? Or does it really have to be a one-sided presentation. I simply point it out for you under an article that is titled “Fostering Conversations that count.”

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.

Today’s non-Christian 20- and 30-somethings are big fans of Jesus but are less thrilled with His followers and the churches where they worship. Pastor/author Dan Kimball reveals their six most common perceptions of Christians and the Church, what they wish church was like–and why you should be listening to these emerging voices.

From Outreach Magazine.

I’ve read some stuff on emerging churches, and by no means am I complete expert on it. However, I’ve read enough to be fluent on what it is and where it might be going.

One issue that comes up for our context is evangelism and emerging churches.

Scott McKnight, one of my former professors at seminary, and now a college teacher offers this warning.

This emerging ambivalence [in emerging churches] about who is in and who is out creates a serious problem for evangelism. The emerging movement is not known for it, but I wish it were. Unless you proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, there is no good news at all—and if there is no Good News, then there is no Christianity, emerging or evangelical.Personally, I’m an evangelist. Not so much the tract-toting, door-knocking kind, but the Jesus-talking and Jesus-teaching kind. I spend time praying in my office before class and pondering about how to teach in order to bring home the message of the gospel.

A reaction:

A blog writer that I found today offers this reaction:
There are a couple shifts in EC theology that cause them to arrive at different methods of evangelism.

First, What is the Gospel? Most in the EC have shifted focus from the Epistles to the Gospels to understand the nature of the gospel (Emerging Churches, 48). Hence, the gospel is “simply put, Jesus announced that the kingdom of God was arriving” (EC, 53).

Second, this shift of focus from cross to kingdom does not eliminate evangelism, but it does help reduce the modern, individualistic, consumeristic gospel that is packaged and sold as “Jesus died for your sins so you can go to heaven.”

The EC maintains the truth of Christ’s passion and redemption and retains the belief in the uniqueness of Christ and his sacrifice, however the emphasis has shifted. Repentance still means changing ones direction and reorienting oneself toward God, but the recognition of the inauguration of the Kingdom of God by Jesus takes central focus. What results is that evangelism is word AND deed.

The author cites this book: Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures

What do I think?
The Emerging church has a good focus on “belonging” before belief.

The danger that McKnight points out is that if the focus is on belonging, than helping people come to belief in Christ may be neglected. To call people to repentance is a call to change belief in many things: who is Lord of my life, what authority will rule my life. The call to repentance by definition requires an either/or decision that will cause some people not to want to belong. Some groups may choose to neglect the call to repentance simply because of the potential harm to the sense of belonging. Some groups may so focus on belonging that they neglect calling for a committment to Christ — everything is acceptable because belonging is more important than belief.

On the other hand, the emerging church allows people the time and space to discover what they believe in a safe context of community. Most traditional / mainline types require belief (here meaning full agreement to a set of propositions) before belonging. “You are not one of us if you have not made a decision, said a prayer, and / or get baptized. Until you do, you cannot serve in our midst, play an instrument, or even work in the tape ministry or homeless shelter with us.”

The strength of the emerging church is allowing people to belong first while discovering their faith in Christ.

I do believe that evangelism happens in emerging churches. The form is very different than what prior generations may have become accustomed to. It is word and deed. However, in some places, evangelism may not happen because its just a neglected priorty.

Let me ask you this:?
Put the Emerging churches aside. Do you do evangelism at all either in your daily walk or in your church?