Evangelism Coach

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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!

God has appointed us to live in certain places at certain times (Acts 17:26).  It’s reasonable to extend this to the church that you are connected with being planted in the neighborhood.

• Who are the unchurched in your community that your church could easily reach?
• Who are the unchurched, that your church could read with some effort?
• What would it take for your church to reach the “easily” and “some effort” group?
• What changes in philosophy, program, and structure would you need to make in your church to reach the “easily unchurched?”
• What might block your church from reaching the unchurched?
• Who has God brought to your attention that is unchurched?
• Would you feel comfortable inviting them to your church?

Source: Brian Clark, PC USA church planter in Northern Virginia.

Some churches play hard to get!

• Websites don’t list any contact information
• Worship Service times are not on the telephone responder,
• Service hours are not on on a sign near the front door or on the road.

Here is one low-cost idea that you can use to help advertise your church and raise awareness in the community.

Print up business cards that are about the church — not a person or the pastor, but about the church.

Include items like service times, a phone number for the office, maybe a map, your website. 

Print them by the thousands for your members to give away.  My church in Richmond did this and I was giving away several each week or so to people that I’d see in line, customer service people in fast food joints, or people standing around pumping their gas.

Here is a sample from my church in Richmond.

• It features the church name.
• Worship times.
• And a map.

The back contains phone numbers and website information.

You can print these by the thousands for your members to give away.

People may not be comfortable talking about their faith, but many are excited to invite people to church.  This gives you a tool to put in the hands of your members to help them invite others.

Let me ask you this?

What kinds of invitation tools do you use?

God sovereignly brings visitors to your church.

They can fall in a variety of categories:

• Reached/Churched
• Reached/Unchurched
• Unreached /Churched
• Unreached / Unchurched

Source: Breaking the Missional Code, Ed Stetzer, David Putman

But once people are first welcomed into your church, and the service is over, then what? 

The need to build bridges - a conversion to the church.

I see a big difference between Latin Culture, African American Culture, and typical North American Suburban Culture.  In the latter, we see the death of sense of relational community. 

Growing up, my community had a pool and a dock (as it was waterfront).  My last subdivision — we only knew one neighbor.

When we were first married and moved to Chicago, we started attending an Assembly of God and went to a Sunday school class for married couples, and socializing after the class, we had lots of things in common with 3 other couples: newlywed transplants from another state.

Then the phone calls began to happen.

• “Hey, Tom had surgery, come over and play cards.”
• “Hey, let’s go to dinner.”
• “Hey, let’s have a cookout.”
• “Hey, what are you doing. Let’s watch a movie tonight.”

Pretty soon, three things began to happen as we spent time together.

(1) We felt connected to the local church.

(2) We developed deep and intimate friendships that are now 15 years old.

This got started because someone took the initiative to get us together and we met over a meal and played cards. An act of hospitality.

How to help visitors connect:

• If you have small groups, have leaders intentionally invite visitors to their small group
• Invite visitors to your home for lunch or dinner (don’t worry about dessert or a spotless house — I heard a story this week about a woman who made her sister use a restroom at a gas station because her house wasn’t ready to receive her sister — sure, it needs to be clean, but not perfect)
• Invite visitors out for a snack / lunch / dinner or something with a group from the church.
• If you prayed with the visitor after service, make a phone call during the week.

Let me ask you this?

What methods do you use to help visitors connect with your church?

I had the privilege this week of preaching at a church in Marietta Georgia.  It was a church in the Pentecostal stream of the Body of Christ.  It was ok with them my ordination is with the Presbyterian Church. 

I’m a Presbyterian that’s been "tampered with,"  meaning I don’t fit a stereo-typical Presbyterian pastor.

I enjoy being with the people of God during my evangelism coaching travels. I enjoy the diversity of the body of Christ and it’s multi-cultural aspect — truly the body of Christ is made up of people from all nations.  The Atlanta Metro area is truly rich in ethnic and cultural diversity.  I see more and more multi-ethnic churches and that’s a beautiful thing.

It’s a reminder to me that one day, all the nations, tribes, and tongues will gather to worship Jesus (Rev. 7.9) 

The fruit of our evangelism should be a multi-cultural body of Christ, not just one flavor of humanity.

As we sang songs during our worship time, I felt the Lord give me a question to ask at the beginning of sermon.

1. How many of you have been a follower of Jesus for less than a year?
2. How many of you have been a follower of Jesus for less than 5 years?  1 hand.
3. Less than 10 years?
4. Less than 20 years?
5. Over 20 years?  All the rest of the hands were raised.

The next question set the rest of the sermon:

Where are the new believers? 

Where are the people not yet followers of Jesus but in the process of discovering their faith?

Now the question gets personal. 

1. Do you have friends who are not yet following Jesus?
2. Do you have liberty to discuss faith and perhaps be used of God to influence them for God’s kingdom? 

Let me ask you this?

If you have such friends, what are you doing to help them move closer to discovering Jesus? 
If you don’t have such friends, what can you do today that will change that?

I’ve been out all this week teaching at the Youth With A Mission Base in Panama, but here are some finds for this Friday.

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.