Church Hospitality Ministry is not Evangelism!

Hospitality is not evangelism

Does your church hospitality committee call itself something like:Evangelism Committee Evangelism and Outreach Committee Witness Committee?I've encountered several church committees with similar descriptions like this: (Evangelism) Ministry Team is responsible for greeting visitors to our church.Visitors  receive a visit from a … [Read more...]

Obnoxious Habits in Personal Evangelism – Bait and Switch

Obnoxious Evangelism

A mainstay of my personal evangelism habits when I first came to Christ was the "big event" meeting.Marketed as free, a performer or speaker would speak on a good topic about life, but then switch it to Jesus towards the end.The music would start.The altar call process would begin for those who would make a decision for Jesus.It … [Read more...]

Guest Article: The Seismic Shift in Evangelism

ChurchCulture

Do you understand that evangelism has changed? Popular approaches you may have grown up with were great for their time, but new approaches to the unchanging gospel are necessary.  Last week, James White sent out this post, and it's republished here with permission.Vol. 9, No. 10 The Seismic Shift in Outreach There has been a seismic … [Read more...]

30 Days of Prayer: Day 20 – Spiritual Thirst and Good Works

are-you-a-good-person

I volunteered the other day and I had lunch with another volunteer. As we talked about my mother's recent death, she startled me with the following question. I've always wondered, how do religious people deal with death? She wasn't opposed to religion. She didn't have a defined set of beliefs of her own.Spiritual Conversations occur at … [Read more...]

7 Detours in Evangelistic Conversation

Detours to Evangelistic Conversations

In a recent Outreach Magazine article (Nov/Dec 2012), Larry Osborne put together a list of 7 detours in evangelism conversations.Detours are those conversational rabbit trails that are deflect significant evangelistic conversation elsewhere, rather than at the true spiritual need of others.We often step into those rabbit trails, thinking … [Read more...]

Appropriate Silence in Personal Witnessing

Torpedo Conversation

I've got a few friends who have always been hostile to talking about faith.Their level of spiritual thirst has been low.  In fact, it's downright hostile.We remain friends, but talking about Jesus provokes emotional hostility or an evasive awkward silence.Other times, they attempt to change the subject.When I try to open up … [Read more...]

Tim Keller on How churches reach cities – Lausanne Capetown 2010

TimKeller

Here's a 17+ minute video of Tim Keller talking at Lausanne about how you reach cities byPlanting & renewing churches that are contextual to the city, Establishing citywide gospel movementsBy contextual churches, he speaks of planting a church that fits in your context.   As part of that talk he gave these marks to becoming … [Read more...]

Reaching a Community Via a Coffeehouse

A church coffee shop

The Evangelism Office in the Presbyterian Church USA (which is my tribe) is putting out some videos on churches doing innovative things to reach into their community.Check this one out:I'm impressed with their strategy of Business as Mission, but using their coffeehouse to not only provide job, but a gathering space in the community … [Read more...]

The Apostle Paul’s Journey to Faith in Christ

The Spiritual Journey to the Christian Faith

Jesus also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like.A man scatters seed on the ground.Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.As soon as the grain is ripe, he … [Read more...]

How to get more faith sharing conversations during your week

Spiritual Conversation

Recently, I've been coaching church teams on personal evangelism over a 4 month time frame.Their goal is to increase the number of faith sharing conversations they have throughout the week. Here is a little test that comes out from coaching:If you were to look back at the last 7 days, how many times did you get to share something about … [Read more...]