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On Sharing My Faith

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I recently went door to door helping others hear about Jesus.  I grew up in a tradition that placed this as one of the highest of Christian virtues, but for the past few years had neglected this practice for a variety of reasons.  I know all the criticisms of this: people won’t listen, this is outdated, you’re wasting your time, relationships should be the priority.  But, I went (thanks to the prodding of a good friend).  Here’s a few things I learned:

  1. There are people who will listen.  I just went to one city block and spent an hour and a half.  While there were many who didn’t want any part of what we were about, there were four people who listened, gave us an opportunity to pray for/with them, and invested their time.  That was encouraging.
  2. All people in my town don’t go to church.  It seems shocking because so much of the culture of where I live is rooted in hard-working, moralistic, and doing good to one another.  But, there were people who didn’t have any connection to church and, in deeper ways, didn’t know much of the life that could be there’s because of Jesus.
  3. This practice helped fire my prayer and my worship.  My desperation for God to work and be with me increased.  My love for God in the Sunday morning gathering was affected.  The air was crisper, the fellowship deeper, the singing more glorious, all because I took and opportunity to share what God’s done in my life.
  4. This exercise encouraged people in my body.  I got comments like “that’s inspiring” and “can you teach me how to do this.”  It was a reminder that local church practices of leadership engage others.  How I live matters in the life of the people God’s entrusted to me.  In fact, God’s wired it to work that way.  Pastors who are just pastors in name only are not only not living up to their calling, but they’re failing to give people direction for living.  I recognize my weakness to live what I believe before and with the people now more than ever.

So, I know this may create more questions than it provides answers.  If you’re wondering what I shared it was simply this: the good news for all the world is that even though we’ve messed everything up (and continue to), God has remedied the mess of this world by sending His Son to live the perfect life we can’t, die in the place of sinners, rise so that they can be right with Him, and live.  Now, by banking all of our hopes and dreams in Jesus, we can really live and glorify God with our lives.  I hope this short post encourages you to engage your faith for the good of others.

 

Wisdom, Outsiders, and Opportunities

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I’m still feeling the challenge from this past Sunday’s Sunday School lesson at Crestview.  We’re working through BILD International’s Participating in the Mission of the Church.  We’ve talked about the New Testament strategy and how good works relate to that.  We got into a lesson that dealt with this passage:

[2] Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. [3] At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—[4] that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. [5] Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. [6] Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:2-6)

So, what do we make of this?  A few thoughts…

  1. Thankful prayer – interesting isn’t it?  Paul invites these believers to join his work of Gospel advance by praying prayers (continually with perseverance) of thanksgiving.  Yes, they pray that doors are opened for the Gospel mystery.  Paul wants them to pray that his speech would be clear.  But, thankful prayer, that doesn’t seem too dynamic.  Paul placed an emphasis on this, though.
  2. We’re called to walk with outsiders.  Church people have a hard time doing this.  We’re great, good friends with people who see the world, vote (by and large), and enjoy the things we enjoy.  This isn’t bad.  After all, the church is meant to be a compelling community to the world.  But, we need to walk with outsiders in life.  This is Gospel 101.
  3. We walk with wisdom.  We’re not free styling.  There’s a degree of intentionality with this walk we have with those outside.  We’re walking in ways that make the compelling storyline of Christianity attractive to the watching world.  This takes wisdom.
  4. Making the best use of the time.  The time/opportunity given to us is the time we have with others.  We get to drink coffee, work, be involved in kids sports, eat, drop off/pick up our kids with all kinds of people that we individually have an opportunity to walk in wisdom with, drawing them close with our attractive, gracious speech, enticing them to ask questions.

What would happen if we gave ourselves to thankful prayer, walking with outsiders, in wisdom, realizing that God’s given us this opportunity for Gospel witness?  It might be that “sharing our faith” might not be such an elusive thing.  So, let me encourage you to get walking and see what fruit God might give.

Mapping America…

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Darrin Patrick author of Church Planter and Pastor at The Journey in STL tweeted this NT times tool “Mapping America.” You basically can enter a zip code and it shows you the “neighborhood demographics” for where you live. When I entered the ones for our town, I was struck by the need and the “lostness” that exist here. Oh that God would allow us to reach these so that His glory is seen.

Now is the time…

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…to invite people to church…

So says Doug Wolter:

I saw this statistic today and thought it was worthy to share:

Top Five Times People Are Open To Considering Matters Of Faith…

* #5 – After the birth of a baby (28%)
* #4 – After a natural disaster (34%)
* #3 – After a major national crisis i.e. 9/11 (38%)
* #2 – During the Easter season (38%)
* #1 – During the Christmas season (47%)

Might be a time to see if others would join you to celebrate the Savior!

Healthy Evangelism and the Local Church…

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Just finished reading J. Mack Stiles book Marks of the Messenger: Knowing, Living and Speaking the Gospel. In one particularly moving section filled with application on how evangelism relates the local church, he gave 16 Ways to Demonstrate Love and Unity in the Church and In So Doing Become a Healthy Evangelist:

1) Attend a church that takes the gospel seriously (Hebrews 10:25). Treat form as secondary, the gospel as primary. Incense and candles, rock band worship, liturgy, Gregorian chants, a pastor with tattoos…these are “form” and therefore secondary. Clear gospel proclamation from the leadership is primary.
2) Become an actual member of a church. I’m serious; membership shows your loving commitment to one another. This is truly radical. Go against the grain and show that you are really crazy in love with Jesus and join a church. And just think, the less cool the church the more opportunity to demonstrate real love!
3) Read C.J. Mahaney’s book Humility once a year. This book is a powerhouse of practical help for anyone who desires to be great in the kingdom of God. Mahaney gives us practical tools for demonstrating love and unity in the context of community.
4) Turn down jobs that might take you away from church even if they pay more.
5) Arrange family vacations around your church’s schedule. Or better yet, take your family on a short-term mission trip with other members instead of a family vacation. This will blow people’s minds.
6) If your church doesn’t have a church covenant, think about developing one that expresses your love for each other.
7) Move to a house closer to the church and use your house as a place of hospitality (Romans 12:13).
8) Practice church discipline. It’s biblical (Matthew 18:15-17). This is truly, off-the-charts radical. Church discipline is not usually what people think it is; the goal of church discipline is always to restore, not to punish. You may offend people, but then again you may save some from living a hell on earth.
9) Respect, even revere, the authority in the church (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13).
10) Turn heads–really practice the biblical teachings of giving and receiving forgiveness. Be quick to forgive others (Ephesians 4:32). Be quick to say you’re sorry (Matthew 5:23-24). Forgiveness may be one of the most radical ways to express love and unity in a congregation, and it’s rarely practiced.
11) Take care of people who are in need physically in your congregation (Romans 12:13).
12) Pray for each other (Ephesians 6:18). Don’t just say you’ll pray. Actually put into place some ways to pray for each and every member.
13) Sympathize with other believers (Romans 12:15). Check a critical spirit.
14) Focus on caring for one another spiritually by discipling one another (Galatians 6:1-2). Though discipling only looks like having lunch, it’s secretly and subversively radical. Over a Caesar salad ask the dangerous question: “How’re things spiritually?”
15) Share your faith together (Philippians 1:27). A loving church committed to each other will see the Lord add to their numbers (Acts 2:42-47). Involve your friends at church with your evangelism.
16) Read Mark Dever’s 9 Marks of a Healthy Church.

J. Mack Stiles, Marks of the Messenger (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), pp.107-109

Which of these things need to be applied into your life? Let’s show the world we’re Jesus’ disciples by practicing active love and demonstrating unity toward one another.

Weekend Recap – Proclaiming Christ

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I thought we had a great Sunday yesterday. My sermon was on Colossians 1:28 entitled Proclaiming Christ. This text really compelled us to be those who are speaking truth about Jesus (as opposed to simply “living a life that tells something” whatever that means). Specifically, we are told to speaking words of warning, instruction and communicate with purpose.

We ended by “proclaiming the Lord’s death until He comes” in the Lord’s Supper. It was a fitting way to say something about Jesus.

Hope you all had a great Lord’s Day as well.

DeYoung on Reaching People…

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I really resonate with Kevin DeYoung’s honest assessment of his heart as he seeks to reach out to others:

There have been times as a pastor where I’ve been discouraged by the slowness of growth in my congregation. I’ve thought, “Why is that church over there so successful? Why did they go from 150 to 1500 in three years?” I’ve even been borderline snippy at times, “Lord, if I get to heaven and find out there was some secret musical style or movie clip or new program I was supposed to use in order to be successful, I’m going to feel pretty bummed.” But in my saner moments I’ve come to see two things: One, it’s more my sin that wants success than my sanctification. And two, the secret is that there is no secret.

He is in the middle of a series on reaching younger people. Here are the five suggestions he offers:

Grab Them With Passion
Win Them With Love
Hold Them With Holiness
Challenge Them With Truth
Amaze Them With God

Not Called?

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“Not called!” did you say? “Not heard the call,” I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world. (William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army)

(taken from the latest issue of HeartCry Magazine, Vol 62, p.3)

This volume also features some amazing quotes by Spurgeon on evangelism as well as a sermon from him entitled The Missionary’s Charge.

Why Be Involved in Missions?

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…according to Rick Cornish…

1) Because missions is God’s passion
2) Because the need is great.

I thought we had a great day yesterday and were challenged throughout the day to be about God’s business. I also thought this tied really well with the emphasis we’ve seen in Luke 15:1-32 and also in our Sent small group study.

Hopefully yesterday left you encouraged and motivated to honor God by being involved with missions.