The more we love God,
It is true as McRaney states on page 198 that, “the highest level of motivation for evangelism is love for God.”
Unfortunately, this (along with many other statistics) shows that Christians in America lack the passion to be godly and love God as they should.
We have lost sight of proper priorities in life. God calls us to “love the Lord your God with all of our Heart, soul, and mind.” (mt. 22:37)
My personal problem is isolation… I am calling it a problem not a barrier, because it is my own fault. Labeling it a barrier, to me seems like pushing the blame on uncontrolables. I know better than that, because I know that I can do something in my life to address this problem.
I am glad and humbled that McRaney straight-forwardly calls me out by saying that Isolation is my selfishness. I am selfish and enjoy the fellowship of other believers. There is nothing wrong with that in of itself, but when we are blocking our own movement from growth it is a problem. We should spend some of this “fellowship” time together sharing the Gospel together, through servant evangelism, door-to-door evangelism, inviting non-Christians to join us in our fellowship at home or church…so that they see the love of Christ with us.
When I shelter myself from the world, I am disconnected. Some of the best experiences I have ever had with other Christians and with God have been the times of brokenness and challenge. Times when I had a passion to reach the lost and I was being challenged daily to share my faith with other Christians.
Accountability in evangelism is one the best tools to avoid isolation. Two or three guys or gals should meet together regularly not only for Bible study but also for sharing the Gospel. Talk about and pray for the oppurtunities in real life, but also make oppurtunities intentionally whether you are going door-to-door or if you simply just have a get-together at your home and invite your lost friends there.
We need a passion for God and a passion to be godly. Amen.
I recently listened to podcast by Apologetics.com featuring apologist and author Greg Koukl who recently authored the book called Tactics. In this book Greg offers several great approaches to talking to people in a way that will lead to spiritual conversations and possibly sharing yor faith with them.
“People are more than twice as likely to allow a person to share their faith when evangelism is combined with simple acts of servanthood.”
Servanthood Evangelism is intentionally sharing Christ by modeling Biblical servanthood.
The great ideas for servant evangelism are numerous!
Check out this website for some ideas!
Here are some thoughts:
Walk the streets of the community offering to change burnt out light bulbs for free and share the light of Christ
Change the batteries of fire alarms because of the love of Christ
pass out free water at a sporting event
Do a gas buy down…for a few hours at a gas station offer to pay the station .25 for every gallon pumped in 2 hours. The gas station sells the gas 25 cents cheaper, the customers are happy and you get a chance to talk to the customers about why you are doing this!
Bake cookies for visitors and visit them. The principle is do not just invite the community to come to your church, instead bring the church and love of Christ to them!
Community-driven: cook food for or mow grass for a particular community or a particular set of families, no strings attached.
Do not participate in a “church sports league,” do participate in a community/open/secular league.
People will ask “why are you doing this?”
This is the essence of servant evangelism and this is the opportunity to share the Gospel and God’s love!
Now Crandall’s original study was done in the 10 years ago, when church growth scholarship was really studying the impact of such advertising. From research done some time ago and still in print from Amazon (Source:The Inviting Church, 1987 p. 44), here is what was found:
from: http://www.evangelismcoach.org/2009/15-strategies-to-increase-first-time-visitors/
My Youth Group has joined many other groups in doing an ONLINE MISSION TRIP
Here are a lot of videos we are using to share our faith online!:
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=JTyv1RwL3WM
Smart Video
Code:
Link:
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=VKaRQMZ7TqQ
I’ll be Honest Video
Code:
Or this link:
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=tKdLX2HkA_s
Captive (short film)
Code:
“Youth Evangelism” – Christian short film – Captive (Drama)
Link:
http://vids. myspace. com/index. cfm?fuseaction=vids. individual&videoid=33805634
Four Spiritual Laws
Code:
Link:
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=SkQ1o5ikU6I
The Christ tract clip
Code:
Link:
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=rc2RrQTz9qk
Examine your faith Christian Game show (Comedy)
Code:
Examine Your Faith – Christian Game Show (Comedy) – redruthfilms
Link:
http://vids. myspace. com/index. cfm?fuseaction=vids. individual&videoid=45692739
LightHouse “everything” Skit
Code:
Link:
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=9_M0H5nrY8E
Refuge (Short film)
Code:
Refuge – Christian short film (Drama) – Redruth Films
Link:
http://vids. myspace. com/index. cfm?fuseaction=vids. individual&videoid=45799868
Fight for Life (Short Film)
Code:
The Fight for Life – Christian short film – (Drama) – Redruth
Link:
http://vids. myspace. com/index. cfm?fuseaction=vids. individual&videoid=33816170
Other stuff:
Create your personal testimony in 5-clicks:
http://www. 5clicks. com/
The Gospel explained in four points:
http://4laws. com/laws/english/flash/
Also send your friends to http://www.onlinemissionstrip.com/blog/2009/02/download-14-days-of-audio-omt-bible-studies
Online Gospel Interactive Umbrella Tract:
http://www. pocketpower. org/umbrella/
In His sermon this week, my pastor spoke about Jesus and the disciples. Jesus chose fisherman to be his disciples, regular fishermen. The fishermen “immediately” left their boats and followed. “immediately” left their father and their fishing business to follow a man whom they had just seen for the first time!
The Greek Word “euyewv” is used for straightway, forthwith, or best fitting for modern English “immediately.” aka- quickly, shortly, without hesitation, at once or soon, as soon as possible.
This hits home with me ,because the very first disciples laid down a pure example of what faith can look like. These men did not know Jesus well when they met him, when all he said was “follow me.” But they left all that they knew and followed.
Ever since the first disciples and even today, that is all it takes to follow Jesus. It is not necessary to know everything about Him in order to believe and to follow Him. I am not saying that people shouldn’t look into Jesus and learn about Him before they make any kind of decision. Please do the research, Jesus speaks for Himself and the more you know about Him the better.
But for the point of this post and just pure reflection, it is an interesting thought. The first disciples simply followed. There wasn’t any skepticism. My point really is that this still happens today. Look at my salvation story, for example: I was very young when I came to know Christ. At eight years of age, I only knew the basics…Jesus died for my sins. Sure I grew up in a Christian home, but I was not trained on epistemology, hermeneutics, and Christology, not as an eight year old. My mom asked me if I would follow Him. I kind of understood that I was a sinner. But I wanted whatever it was that my mom had and was talking about. So I followed Him. That is it! I was saved without knowing very much at all about Jesus.
Today as my faith has matured a lot, I enjoy studying those deeper things I referred to. And if you read the Gospels and then read Acts, you see how Peter and the disciples’ faith mature quite a bit too. They knew very little and then over time and in their relationship with God they began to understand more deeply.
It is really basic observation but truly amazing, Jesus is for everyone!
why are they afraid of me? Why don’t they tell me the truth …
(Interesting points from Penn Jillette, from teller and Penn)
“How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that?”
…a Christian can do in this day and age is to live in a Christian bubble, with only Christian friends and never develop real relationships with the lost.
This has been my observation as have been studying evangelism, the post-modern culture, and the church.
You see the culture is more relativistic. They are less likely to be concerned with any theory that claims to be the one true way. They are more skeptical of any type of theory or logic, in general. They have questions but they are not sure what type of answer they want. They enjoy the journey of life.
What they value and want is real relationship. They want someone to love them, listen to them. 1. Becuase all humans desire this. 2. Becuase there is a higher value on this in the post-modern society. Community and social connection. People want to share ideas and blend the relative ideas together. They are extremely acceptable and tolerant of pretty much any belief system, as long as it does not claim to be the “One true way.”
Missional churches have placed a lot of time and creatively into the methods of evangelism. Let me tell you, these creative ways of sharing the Gospel, some of them are pretty effictive. But the biggest thing I have learned and like about most of these missional expiriments is this: the foundation of the outreach is a relationship.
Live out your faith, live out Jesus in your life. Build a real relationship with your lost friends and do not base the relationship on if they go to church with you or not. Do not base it on if they accept Jesus or not. Just be real with them. Be honest with them. Love them. DO invite them to church with you, but do not try to force anything on them.
The most dangerous thing a Christian cna do is to not have any non-Christian frineds, not share his faith, live in a Christian bubble. This is dangerous and bad for all Christians for several reasons!
It portrays a selfish “fat baby” Christian and Christinity. We have portrayed Christianity in a negative light and outsiders have a negative (false) perception of what Christianity is and what we are about long enough! It is time to demonstrate the Gospel and live as Jesus did!
It is not responsible way to live. God has called us to share our faith with others.
It shows lack of maturity, shallowness , and misplacement of priorities. Is Jesus Christ your first love? Prove it.
Intentional Christianity.
Fully Alive Life Coaching 