5 Ways to Bless Your Neighbor
Dave Ferguson shares five ways to bless your neighbors. This is a helpful structure to live out in order to live into conversational contexts for personal evangelism.
10 Books to Guide Your Church To Bless the Community
Your church should be a blessing to its community. You know that. In my current church, we are still looking for ways to bless our community. Our outreach will look different than yours. Our resources are different than yours. Our life patterns (working hours, commuting patterns, gated communities, social classes) are different than yours. But …
Video: What is the role of the Evangelist
Recently on The Exchange, Rice Broocks joined Ed Stetzer to discuss the role of the evangelist in the church. Every pastor wants the church to grow. I want my own church to grow. However, I don’t want only Christians from other churches to be part of my church. I don’t want a local believer coming …
Book Review: And The Gathered and Scattered Church
Is your church looking to make first steps to re-engage its community? Or are you caught up in the missional vs. attractional discussion? Google “missional vs. attractional” and you’ll find a slew of blog posts, articles, and books referencing the divide between two ways of doing church. Over the last few years, I’ve talked with …
What is the Church doing in the community?
Four out of ten pastors lack strong interest in increasing community outreach.
Getting beyond the walls
Today’s Guest Article is from my friend who has served as our translator during our Nicaragua mission trips. Earl and his family have been serving as church planters in Nicaragua for years, and he shares with us some reflections on getting out of the church walls. Here you go. . . . . . . …
Novel Evangelism: Build Bridges through Books
Evangelism Conversations through Popular Novels, or Novel Evangelism. Its an evangelistic bridge building strategy to help the believers in your church recognize and participate in more conversational opportunities about people’s spiritual journey. I’m familiar with using the same ideas in popular music, and movies, so the idea isn’t new. Listen to my friend Bill Feree talk …
Book Review of Outflow
Outflow, written by Steve Sjogren and David Ping, is a group study book aimed at small groups that want to try their hand at servant evangelism, a methodology of evangelism that emphasizes random acts of kindness. The main metaphor in Outflow is the concentric circles of a multi-tiered fountain, that parallels the concentric circles of …
The Prayer Station at Faith in Action Sunday
Prayer booths like this are an opportunity for evangelism that is not aggressive.
Your guests expect to talk a little about their spiritual needs while visiting your prayer station.
5 Keys to a Missional Small Group
Do your small groups make a difference in the world? Or have they existed so long they are very inward focused? Do they give themselves away, or simply demand more spiritual food from the gifted leader? What can you do to move a small group from self-feeding to selfless service? A Missional Small Group A …
Barton Heights Missional Community
Watch how some of my friends are seeking to be a missional community in the Northside of Richmond Virginia, my hometown. Part of the struggle of missional community where they live: Their house has bullet holes from a shooting in front of their house. Their cars have been vandalized, with bricks smashing the windows. They’ve …
PrayerWalking Webinar Resources Podcast Replay
Preparing a community outreach for your church this coming spring / summer? How can you spiritually prepare yourself and the community for your outreach? You are probably thinking: Planning meetings. Publicity Hoping for good weather. . .:) Don’t forget prayer for community outreach. Prayer is the key to preparing yourself and the community for your …
2 Attitudes for Small Church Transformation
Ron Crandall describes two characterics of what successful turnaround and transformational churches have.
The Church has left the Building
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.
Moving from Attractional to Missional
I’ve spent the last month talking with pastors around the US about church transformation. A few pastors are in really difficult situations (read more at: Leaving Egypt and Not Liking it). From those discussions, it seems that a common meaning of church transformation is Church transformation is to move a church that is stuck or …
How One Church Re-engaged the Neighborhood
A dying church made a decision that helped them re-engage the neighborhood. Out of that, they church was re-vitalized instead of closing their doors.
10 Ideas to Personally Reach Out To Your Neighborhood
When I lived in the suburbs of Richmond VA I experienced the lack of a sense of community in our neighborhood. We had all bought nice houses, but with the exception of one family, we didn’t know any of the neighbors. What a contrast to our former subdivision where we knew everyone on the cul-de-sac, …
10 Distinctives of Postmodern Churches
I came across this list of 10 Distinctives of Postmodern Churches from Ed Stetzer’s book, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age. Be unashamedly spiritual. People are tired of the modern belief that everything can be answered by science and reason. They are open to something mystical and spiritual. Promote incarnational ministry. Authenticity is essential. …
Community Exegesis: Where are you planted?
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. Here are a few study questions for your community exegesis: Who are the unchurched in your community that your church could easily reach? …
Christian Vs. Church Goer
Do I spend too much time in church to be a Christian witness to my community?
Six ways to engage your neighborhood
These are six ways that I’ve seen used to help the church engage the local neighborhood. Throw an annual block party. Hold a medical fair in your fellowship hall. Classes on community felt needs – parenting or economics, home ownership. Hold a job and community service fair. Hold a free dental clinic using student from …