Category Archives: Evangelism

Creating the right question

Pastoral Ministry

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I’ve heard it said that, in terms of relating the gospel to culture, the mistake that traditionalists make is that they give the right answers to the wrong questions; they’re answering questions that no-one is asking anymore. They’re tackling issues and fighting fights that belong to a previous generation. (more…)

Stranger evangelism

Everyday Ministry, Sola Panel

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I believe in stranger evangelism.

Over the course of 2009, my own denomination in this part of the world is mounting a concerted campaign to make meaningful, relational connections with everyone in our area, and thus help them to come into a relationship with God through his word. For me personally, this has involved (often tough) deliberate decisions to do less internal church-based activities so that I can slow down and hang around chatting with parents at our local school, talking to the neighbours in our street, and considering how we can connect meaningfully with the huge numbers of ‘unreached’ people who live within a few kilometres of our church building. It’s been a joy for us to start to get to know people in our area—to have barbeques with neighbouring families, to share with them the joys and challenges of life and parenthood, and so on. I trust and pray that, when we eventually give them a copy of Luke’s gospel and offer to talk about it with them, this evangelistic effort will be understood as a natural outflow of the friendships we’ve developed. (more…)

Cold Turkish evangelism

Everyday Ministry

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The phrase ‘walk-up evangelism’ stirs up, in most Christians, feelings of dread. But, as Ben Pfahlert points out, at the heart of all evangelism lies extremely good news. (more…)

Son of encouragement

Resource Talk, Sola Panel

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In late 2003, when we were talking to Gordon Cheng about coming to work at Matthias Media, I remember asking him casually about how many of our resources he had used in his many years of ministry up to that point.

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A truly reformed pastor

Up front

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The word ‘pastor’ comes from the word ‘shepherd’. Someone is considered a good ‘pastor’ if they are skilled and compassionate in dealing with the issues facing Christian believers. That is, the job of the pastor is primarily to care for Christians. (more…)

Review: “The Gospel and Personal Evangelism” by Mark Dever

Review

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The Gospel and Personal Evangelism

Mark Dever

Crossway, Wheaton, 2007, 128pp.

GospelPersonalEvangelism

There is much to commend about The Gospel and Personal Evangelism. It is warm, engaging and theologically accurate, and it left me encouraged to speak to friends about Jesus. However, it also left me with questions about the best way to mobilize us for this task. (more…)

Professor

Word Watch

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Are you a professor of Christianity?

Today we tend to use the word ‘professor’ to mean “a teacher of the highest rank in a university department” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). Mind you, Americans often apply the title to any teacher at college level, and, in Aussie English, ‘professor’ can be used jokingly of anyone who either has, or pretends to have, a lot of knowledge. So today the word ‘professor’ is linked to this notion of having a great deal of knowledge. (more…)

Is church for evangelism?

Interchange

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I wonder if Tony Payne has created a reductionist focus in pointing the church to act like a “fellowship of the redeemed” when it gathers (Briefing #362, ‘Is church for evangelism?’). In the descriptive ministry of Jesus, he turned effortlessly to the mix of his listeners (Luke 12). Paul could ask his readers to “examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Cor 13:5). (more…)

The power of God’s word – Interview with Robert Cole

Everyday Ministry

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Imagine not having access to a Bible. Imagine being unable to read it in your own language. Unfortunately these are realities for many Christians around the world. Tony Payne speaks to Robert W Cole, President of Bible League, about the extent of the need and what we can do about it. (more…)

God, sin and Christ: why we need all three

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What ever happened to preaching the holiness of God and the seriousness of sin? Martin Foord asks whether our evangelism has been rendered worthless by a loss of nerve.

One day my mother discovered a pimple-like bump on her arm. So she went to her GP for a diagnosis and was told, “It’s nothing to worry about”. However, she decided to get a second opinion from a skin specialist, and this time the diagnosis was radically different: it was melanoma, and she was under the surgeon’s knife within several days. Stories like this remind us uneasily of how perilous it is to be ignorant of bad news. If we have a melanoma, it’s critical we know, otherwise we can’t take the appropriate action. (more…)

Is church for evangelism?

Up front, Sola Panel

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Apologies for posing what, at first glance, may seem an obvious and even silly question, but it’s one I’ve been pondering lately: is evangelism a key purpose of Christian assemblies (or ‘churches’)? I am not asking whether God’s people should evangelize—the answer to that is as clear as the need is urgent. I am asking whether evangelism is a primary purpose of our regular ‘Sunday’ gatherings. (more…)

Eating, drinking and evangelizing

Sola Panel

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Over the last year or so, my husband Dave and I have been thinking about the connection between evangelism and hospitality. We’ve become more convinced that while evangelistic events and other strategies have their place, they can’t be a substitute for real relationships with non-Christian friends. And hospitality seems to us to be a key part of creating and maintaining those relationships. (more…)

Bus evangelism

Up front

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I couldn’t help but eavesdrop. The speaker was a tall, retired man in a suit, addressing a younger bearded man who may or may not have had some religious interest, but who had a great deal to say about the Pope, the Roman Catholic church, and the recent Roman Catholic World Youth Day (WYD). They were talking about the re-enactment of the route to Jesus’ crucifixion that happened as part of the WYD celebrations. The older man, who spoke broken English with a heavy Armenian accent, had this to say about it: “Jesus say after he die, three days later he wake up. I say, ‘Why you no show the wake-up?’” (more…)