While I learned many things about what evangelism is and will post my thoughts about the conference in the next few weeks, I learned one thing evangelism is not. It is not this:

(Love that video– it’s so funny!)

I take for my sureties:
The power of God to guide me,
The might of God to uphold me,
The wisdom of God to teach me,
The eye of God to watch over me,
The ear of God to hear me,
The word of God to give me speech,
The hand of God to protect me,
The way of God to go before me,
The shield of God to shelter me….

Christ be with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

However you choose to celebrate Patrick and his day, remember his faith and commitment to doing God’s work!

It’s from James Choung — author of True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In.

Part 1:

Part 2:

I highly suggest reading Choung’s book — as well as following his web site, following him on Facebook, or on Twitter. He has some excellent ideas on how to share Christ!

These 4 words are the “rallying cry” for many church members — and many pastors fall into the trap of adopting that mantra for themselves. They believe that ministry effectiveness is based on how many attend your services on Sunday morning.

“We’ve got to grow!”

I fall into the trap of believing that the effectiveness of my ministry depends on the growth of the church I serve from time to time myself. My Monday morning mantra from time to time is: “We’ve go to grow!”

The problem is that I am not sure that the number of folks in Church on Sunday is an accurate measure of the effectiveness of a Church’s — or a ministers — ministry. While this may sound like I am trying to justify the trend in many churches of losing instead of gaining members, I believe that God wants us to serve Him in the community instead of simply “packing the pews” to make our ministries look good or successful.

I believe that if members of a Church are doing what they can to reach folks in their community with the love of Christ, they are doing God’s will. Service to the community should be more important than Church growth. Service to others around them may bring folks into a Church — but it may not. Whether it does or doesn’t is not the question — the question is doing God’s work and focusing on being God’s people in that community” instead of just focusing on growth.

Instead of saying “We’ve got to grow!” maybe church members and minsters alike should be saying: “We’ve got to serve!” It seems to me that serving instead of growing is a more faithful focus for Churches and minsters.

All this came to mind this morning as I read the following article at the Ministry Today web site. You can read it here — great food for thought for a Monday morning!

Here are the 6 ways:

1. Interrupt a person’s private thoughts (i.e. — barge in when someone is trying to just have some quiet time
2.Slightly agressinve body language
3. Monologue
4. Pick a moment when your audience is trapped
5. Answer questions that are not being asked
6. Ignore body language that says “I’m not interested”.

These are indeed 6 ways to “turn people off” to Christ!

Any other ways anyone wants to add?

Read Chris’ article here.

There’s an interesting article at The Columbia Partnership’s web sitethat says it’s not a question of either / or — but both / and — that churches need to develop ways to do both.

You can read the article here — although you may need to go to the site and click on the article “The Disciples Journey”.

Makes for great reading on a Monday!

Here is more of that interview – which includes an interesting and thought provoking quote:

But I have also experienced churches that are seeing people outside the faith coming to know who Jesus is. These aren’t churches that are watering things down to attract people. They’re not afraid to address issues. The irony of that whole thing is that the churches that are physically visiting and talking to people are doing solid biblical teaching.

Being missional is reaching people for Jesus in any way you can!

He lists the principles as:

1. Disciple – making is the number one priority. Churches need to focus on making disciples for Christ — not just “folks in the pews”.
2. Social networks a vehicle for disciple – making. Members of a Church have top get involved with folks in the community — get to now them — and show them they care. This will bring them to the Church when they feel the need.
3. Church connects with people where they feel their need to be. Members of the Church have to find ways to show folks that the Church offers answers to the needs they have.
4. Relationships are the glue that hold members together and attract others. Relationships between members of the Church keep them in the Church — and attract others to the Church.
5. Transitions are the windows of opportunity. Transitions in peoples lives are the opportunities the Church needs to minister to them.

I like these 5 points. I know that reaching out to people in their need — showing them God’s love — and teaching them to follow Christ are all important aspects of growth for the Church.

You can read the entire article here.

Chris Walker at Evangelism Coach has a wonderful article on ways churches can engage their neighborhoods and serve those around them. You can read the article here. While visiting his site browse around awhile — he does some great stuff and has some very practical evangelism tips!

BTW — I will be going with 7 youth and 2 more adults to Athens GA for a mission trip much like the one in the article in 2 weeks. Looking forward to it!