A new book has come out by an awesome pastor Judah Smith. He leads the City Church in Seattle and that church was a big part of my college experience when I was home on breaks. I think it could be a great book for evangelism and I am going to check it out.

It is also forwarded by Bubba Watson, The 2012 Masters Champion.

There are special offers if you purchase the book this week!

Jessica (second from left) hanging at MOPS

This is a guest post by Jessica Leep Fick. When she is not building Lego’s with her sons, trying to squeeze in a run or bake a loaf of bread, she serves with InterVarsity Christian fellowship as a Regional Evangelism Coordinator in a 4-state region in the Midwest to preach the gospel, teach and train in churches and campus groups across the country. You can find her blogging at www.sidewalktheologian.com

This has been a difficult post for me to write.  I feel caught between what I read in scripture. What I have been told is normative and what I have personally experienced.

A few years ago I read Alan Hirsch’s book The Forgotten Ways. It blew my mind for about six months and I was reeling from the implications he outlined in one simple phrase- “the priesthood of all believers.”  Though Alan’s description of apostolic genius- “the DNA that the Holy Spirit gives to believers to move the kingdom forward” I was gripped by this idea that I too could be, or actually was a legit priest in the royal priesthood.  In part this post has been difficult to write because I don’t want to disparage the churches I have part of in the past. I don’t want to critique their doctrines, practices or structures. I just want to be a nice missionary to the college campus.

Yet I’m not simply that. I’m an evangelist. I speak prophetic words into people’s lives and structures. I feel gnawing turmoil inside when I see the church doing business as usual without asking- “are we in the right business?”  I have seen too many of my friends who passionately led people to Jesus in college, planted bible studies with their study groups and organized campus outreaches be relegated to passing out church bulletins or working in the nursery on a Sunday morning.  They are serving, yes, but not to the full potential of priests serving King Jesus in his royal priesthood.  And the church, communities, neighborhoods and families are suffering because of it. They are living in darkness, sin and despair because evangelists like me have been told “leave it up to the professionals” instead of being empowered go and preach the living word.

Continue Reading

Photo Courtesy of Slack pics (creative commons)

By Linson Daniel

I was contemplating the impact of missionaries coming to India and sharing the Gospel with my ancestors.  If it were not for their efforts, then I do not think I would be a Christian today.  I am amazed at how God changed generations of countless families in India, including mine, because of the faithfulness of those few missionaries.  

Consequently, evangelism is very important to me.  I believe that evangelism should be the leading value for any church, para-church, and/or ministry.  Out of a healthy culture of evangelism flow the values of growth, discipleship, community, worship, etc.  

One of the first things I did as Area Director for North Texas and Oklahoma was to instill the importance of evangelism within my team.  My area did not have a fruitful history in the area of evangelism, and this eventually created stagnation in all of the other values.  Therefore, I initiated an evangelistic culture shift.

Here are the 5 steps that I used to lead an evangelistic culture shift within our team:

Continue Reading