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Church Hospitality Audit 3.0 for 2014 is Released

The gospel should be offensive, not your church members or your lackadaisical hospitality ministry.  Your hospitality ministry in the church is one of the most important factors in the experience of first time visitors that will influence their personal decision to come back to your church.

After all, your church won’t grow if your visitors don’t return and make friends.

But you may have unintentional barriers that might hinder that person’s decision to return.

Find some with a Church Hospitality Audit

Church Hospitality Leaders find it helpful to have a questionnaire [Read more…] about Church Hospitality Audit 3.0 for 2014 is Released

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Break the Barriers Hospitality Training on DVD

You’ve worked so hard to attract church visitors. . . . .

You passionately desire to reach these newcomers for Christ.

You know that Jesus can make a difference in their life.

Perhaps you’ve spent money on advertising like a direct mail campaign or business cards members give away. You’ve designed sermon series to hopefully entice a second visit.

You’ve done a lot of hard work to get visitors to come to your church, but they fail to return.

It’s frustrating to work so hard and then feel like it’s all in vain. It leaves you wondering –

Will our church ever reach new people for Christ? [Read more…] about Break the Barriers Hospitality Training on DVD

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Free Download: Personal Testimony Questionnaire

Your story of your journey to faith is one of the most crucial ways that people see how Jesus is relevant to life.

But as I’ve given many evangelism seminars, particularly in more traditional Protestant denominations, I find that many people don’t know their own story to faith in Christ.

Devotional questions to help you develop your Christian Testimony. Free Download from EvangelismCoach

Because you want to learn about evangelism, you’ve had an encounter with Jesus Christ that you want to share with others.

You might have been a dramatic conversion like the Apostle Paul, or a gradual awakening like Timothy.

You might be able to point to a day and time (like walking forward to an altar call, or kneeling alone in your bedroom), or might be able to say “It happened, but I’m not sure when.”

No matter how it happened, you need to know the story of your conversion.

You need to know it well so that you can share relevant portions at a moment’s notice.

The purpose of this conversational guide download is to give you some guidelines to

of your conversion experience.

Your conversion did not happen in a vacuum or in a microwave.

Your conversion to Christ was the fruit of a process that God used in your life.  If you are not sure what I’m getting at, watch the Macaroni video at:  https://www.evangelismcoach.org/links-in-the-chain-video/

Likewise, the non-Christians you encounter will be in some part of their process of conversion.  Gaining an understanding of your own story will help you see where your conversational partner might be in their journey towards Christ and will release some of the pressure to “get them converted.”

Doing this Personal Testimony Exercise

This may not be easy to fill out in 5 minutes.

Some of these questions are meant to provoke deep thought.

So I suggest you take the time to journal and reflect and ask the Lord to help you remember if it was some time ago.

You’re experience of personal evangelism will be much richer if you can master your own story.

The questions might seem like they overlap. That’s ok.  Sometimes we get insight by answering the same question a different way.  You also might not have answers to some of these.  That’s fine as well.

All of us have unique stories, and if we’ve not thought about our story, this exercise may be a little hard.

Key principles I hope you see

  • Your conversion was a process that had a back story to it.
  • There were significant moments / events along the way.
  • Through the Holy Spirit, God was at work in bringing you to faith, probably before you even realized it.
  • You had some restlessness (spiritual thirst) that began your journey to faith.

At the end of the day, I’d like you to know your story of transformation.  You can learn to summarize elements of your story and expand elements when needed.

What people need to hear is

  • HOW God has worked in your life to answer your deepest questions, and
  • HOW you are experiencing transformation right now.

I’ve learned this often sets up further conversation towards their own journey.

Download Your Personal Testimony Questionnaire Here

English:

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Discover Your Story Conversational Guide (English) 183.26 KB

Czech (thanks to a volunteer translator):

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Discover Your Story Conversational Guide (Czech) 240.36 KB

This is an Adobe PDF format.  You’ll need the latest PDF reader to view it.  You are free to distribute.

If you are having a problem with the download, make sure

  • you have the most recent version of Abobe Acrobat Reader.
  • most recent browser version.

Then contact me by email or on the Contact us page and I’ll help you get it.

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If you like this document, please share it to Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest the image.

Free Download to Help you Compose Your Personal Testimony, from EvangelismCoach

Fear Free Personal Evangelism Mp3s

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What is Evangelism? Group Discussion Guide

Evangelism Training MeetingLast week, I met with a leadership team for the first time to help them brainstorm new ways to grow in evangelism.  I led them in a group discussion on evangelism.

Since this was my first discussion with them, I wanted to get a feel for their experiences and their pre-conceptions about

What is evangelism?

The outgrowth will be future discussions into particular areas.

What is evangelism?

Leading a group discussion on evangelism can be a challenge because the field of evangelism is huge.

In fact I did an evangelism mind map to start thinking about all the different aspects for this group discussion.

If you are

  • gathering a new evangelism team, or
  • starting up a new evangelism work in the local church, or
  • leading some other group discussion on evangelism

here are some discussion questions I used that you might find useful.

Discussion Questions – What is evangelism?

  • How would you describe or define evangelism?
  • How do you think evangelism should be done?
  • How do you do evangelism in your life now?
  • In your journey to faith in Christ, how did evangelism happen in your life?
  • What is the role of the congregation in evangelism?
  • What is the role of the pastor in evangelism?

The Group Discussion on Evangelism

The opening question generated lots of answers that felt like cliches or rote answers — quick bursts of answers from years of hearing it from the pulpit.

  • Preaching the Word.
  • Sharing the Good News.
  • Sharing your testimony.
  • Giving the reason for your faith.

It may seem like a no-brainer question, but this questions reveals assumptions that people bring to the discussion on evangelism.

As the group facilitator, I pushed back a little to help people think through the “fixed answers.”

For example,

  • What’s good news?  What makes it good?
  • Can laypeople do evangelism if it’s only preaching?
  • What are the key elements to the gospel that you want to share?
  • Personally, how do you share?

As we got into the group evangelism discussion, it became clear that on a surface level, these 8 people had great answers, but underneath that surface, I saw

  • Different approaches to evangelism.
  • Different experiences.
  • Different theological understandings.

Avoid conversational drift.

Most opening discussions on the nature of evangelism, if unchecked at this point, tend to drift into colorful theological debates. For example,

  • Do people respond to God’s grace, or do they make a decision to respond?
  • What is the value or lack of value over the “sinners prayer?”
  • Do people have to fully understand their sin first, or can they start following Jesus and learn about sin later?
  • Can people follow first and understand later?
  • Can people follow Jesus before even having a completely biblical world view?
  • What do people have to understand before following Jesus?
  • Can conversions be “false?”

Other times, it may drift into areas of practice and styles:

  • Rush to present the gospel to as many people as possible.
  • Take the time to build relationships of influence with people.
  • Invite people to church
  • Go to the mission field.

The purpose of this group discussion on evangelism was not theological debate, but to expose some of the presuppositions that these group members were bringing to the table.

By exposing the presupposition through careful questions that challenge simple rote assertions, it made for a very rich discussion, and then setup the potential for further discussion into particular areas.

Get a full copy

I’ll send you the full PDF discussion guide that I used.  I want to have it field tested with other users, not just me.  To get it, leave a comment below (or at the blog if you get this via feed).

At least tell me how and with whom you’d use this discussion guide.

I’ll send it to you and then follow up to see how the discussion went.

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Review of Beyond Belief by Patrick McElroy

Beyond Belief by Patrick McElroy is subtitled Live a Consistent, Spiritually Powerful life.

From the back cover:

“a book about breaking free from a spiritually weak life to achieve the consistently powerful one that is available to every believer.

It’s a Bible Study 101 that guides reader to a greater revelation of God.”

[Read more…] about Review of Beyond Belief by Patrick McElroy

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How to Make and Use Church Name Tags

This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Church Name tags

For churches that have considered and want to implement using name tags, today’s post gives you some thoughts about how to make and use name tags in church.

1.  Preprint church name tags for your regular attendees

One church set up two large registration areas.

One has pre-printed tags for regular attendees and blank name tags for first-time guests.   To get a name tag, each guest completes a registration information card.

The next week, those guests have pre-printed name tags waiting for them.

Another area has pre-printed name tags for staff and core volunteers such as the prayer team or ushers.

First time guests are somewhat easy to identify because their name tags are handwritten.  This can help your ushers and greeters connect them with more information and resources about the church.

Yet, this “obvious” distinction may have an unintended consequence of showing a visitor that they are yet “different” as the name tag is not like the others.  You know your local culture to be able to discern how people might feel about this.

2. Handwritten name tags every Sunday

Another church has a stack of labels every Sunday.

All members and visitors fill one out as part of their “culture.”

All are handwritten, avoiding some of the concerns of the pre-printed ones

This takes administrative burden off the staff, but requires that your regular members understand the reason for doing this every week.

One church shared with me they pre-print a theme logo, plus the branding of the church with its phone number, name, and website.  Sometimes they will use an image for a special event that week, like a Baptism, or communion.

3.  Distribution of name tags

Churches need to design a system that works for them.

Some will have a board of some kind near entrances where members can obtain their name badge and return it when the service is over.

Visitor centers or guest information booths will have greeters staffed to provide name tags for visitors.

4.  Recollecting name tags

Some may have one central area near the entrance, and make announcements in the bulletin about how to return the name tag.

Inevitably, some will get ripped, accidentally taken home and put through the wash, or just somehow lost.

Part of your ongoing maintenance of a name tag initiative is replacing lost ones, torn ones, or overly doodled name tags.

I’m familiar with churches where about every quarter, leadership reminds people of the reason behind the name tags and that begins a new wave of organizing, using, and distributing.

Let me ask you this?

  • What style of name tag do you use that you have found effective?
  • How do you distribute them?
  • How do you recollect them?
  • How do you maintain them?

Share your thoughts in the comment field below (Feed or email readers: click through to find the comment field).

See also

For more church hospitality tips on welcoming church visitors, buy your copy of How To Welcome Church Visitors.

How To Welcome Church Visitors

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