Evangelism: Todays Christian Curse Word

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Preacher

Most of us cringe at the word evangelism. Christians I talk to are creeped out by it, uncomfortable and want to run as far away from “witnessing” as possible.

Evangelism, witnessing, sharing the gospel, has a horrible image.

As my mom said to me the other day, “it seems that evangelists always need to go find people. Why?”

Evangelists and evangelism strikes fear in people’s hearts. It has the connotation for being pushy, agenda driven, careless with humanity and furthermore, slick and salesman like – INAUTHENTIC.

Ya that is the word we were looking for. Maybe forced, showy, and aggressive.

Evangelism therefore is a curse word and we want nothing to do with it.

So my question to you as a Christian is this:

Are you going to perpetuate, ignore, or change that image?

You have to pick one as a Christian.

Read the full article over at www.beaucrosetto.com as I unpack all three options

Expelled: Evangelical Groups Being Removed by Universities This Fall.

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In a collision between religious freedom and anti discrimination policies Christian groups are being removed from campus. Any group holding to the policy that one must be a Christian to be in leadership is being systematically removed this Fall.

We who work on the campus have known this was coming for a while, but this recent NY Times article brings it to the forefront for many of you.

At Cal State, the nation’s largest university system with nearly 450,000 students on 23 campuses, the chancellor is preparing this summer to withdraw official recognition from evangelical groups that are refusing to pledge not to discriminate on the basis of religion in the selection of their leaders. And at Vanderbilt, more than a dozen groups, most of them evangelical but one of them Catholic, have already lost their official standing over the same issue; one Christian group balked after a university official asked the students to cut the words “personal commitment to Jesus Christ” from their list of qualifications for leadership.

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Five-Fold Partnership: What Apostles Need

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By Jon Hietbrink

If indeed God gives us the five-fold gifts to play a “symphony, not a solo”, then it’s critically important that we understand both the unique role that each of the five gifts play (differentiation) AND how that gift interfaces with each of the other four (integration) to create a rich kingdom harmony. Perhaps more clearly than with any other gift list in the New Testament, we can see how the five-fold gifting of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, and Teachers are designed to work interdependently as a beautiful all-channel system given by God to develop the body of Christ into maturity.

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4 Questions To Ask Before Joining A Church

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I found this article really helpful over at Missio Alliance on how to pick a church.

The long-standing effects of a Christendom-shaped imagination incline us to misunderstand the nature and purpose of the Church. It continues to influence the way we view leadership, mission, and evangelism. It can even shape the questions we ask when we find ourselves in the position of seeking out a church community to belong to. One example of this can be seen in a current post on The Gospel Coalition website. The article presented four questions to consider before joining a local congregation. I understand the limitations on fully articulating a position via a blog post. Further, I realize the author limited himself to just four questions. I would assume, if given more time, there would be additional questions to consider. However, recognizing the limitations, I still found the post to be woefully inadequate. I believe the essence of each of the four questions highlights the deeply rooted, and some cases, devastating effect the legacy of Christendom has on the American church.+

In my opinion each of the questions flow out of a Constantinian ecclesiology that is organized around an understanding of church leadership that is skewed towards the gifts of shepherd and teacher, while at the same time void of the apostolic, prophetic and evangelistic gifts. As a result, the body doesn’t mature (read Eph. 4), and does not experience multiplication. Apostolic movement (which I believe is at the essence of the church) simply will not happen if we rely only on the ministry of shepherds and teachers. We need to understand the “marks of the church” from a fully functioning five-fold ministry model.

Get the 4 questions by reading the whole article

People Group Grows By 1400%: Still Unnoticed by Church Planters

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picture credit to http://www.sacm.org/AcademicSupervision/TrasferAcad.aspx

This is guest post is by someone who oversees international student ministry and has a vision to see every American fellowship in her organization engage with international students. She chooses to remain anonymous as she is writing about a highly sensitive population.

Do you know who some of the most unreached people are? Do you know who’ve been most overlooked by missionaries and evangelists? And, did you know that this group is right here in the US?

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Church Planting: Are You Starting In The Wrong Place?

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View IVCF Central Region Scouting 2012 in a full screen map

By Jon Hietbrink

We are starting in the wrong place.

Most of our ministry priorities are built on an assumption that we should focus on what exists and grow what we’ve got. We invest in leaders, engage more people, and whole fieldconstruct our network, all in an attempt to build Kingdom influence in the communities we’re trying to reach. The paradigm looks something like this.

It’s a simple enough proposition and has often borne significant fruit; the problem is that it’s wrong.

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3 Things Every Seeking Person Needs

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By Beau Crosetto

I did not grow up in a religious home, never went to church growing up, and wasn’t really that interested in God – I never thought about him.

But then one day in high school a few of my buddies (the same ones I would smoke pot with occasionally) struck up a conversation about the end times and we started talking about if it was real or not. I had no idea. But something inside of me was pretty sure it was real and that the end times would come. It was just one of those things that you kind of deep down believed but you don’t know why.

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What’s Behind Their Questions?

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Question Marks

By Eric Rafferty

My kids are in a serious question asking phase.  For example, two nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night to a voice whispering in my ear, “Daddy, do bees have families?”

What was going on in my four year old son’s mind?  Exactly what it sounds like.  He woke up at 2:30 and was thinking about bees and whether or not they have families.  So, naturally, he got out of his bed, came into my room and woke me up to find out.

That’s the beauty of curiosity in a child.  You can take a question at exactly its face value.  Curiosity springs up and a question is asked because an answer is needed.  Question = I want to find the answer.

When it comes to grown ups and the spiritual questions that our friends ask, I don’t think that’s always the case.

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