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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,400 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 40 trips to carry that many people.
Last week all who blog here (minus Tim unfortunately) plus a couple of others headed up to a ‘shack’ on the central coast to chat about being ‘determined gospelers’ in all aspects of life. It felt like we didn’t stop talking the whole two days.
We threw around the posts in each of our 4 categories – personal lives, preaching, small groups and sunday gatherings. We mainly focused on the posts with unfinished conversations & ones that stimulated the most comments. It was an extremely fruitful time and there were a few things I would like to share from our time away.
1. Where is our front door in church?
This is not a physical location type of question but where how do you want people to come into your community? The two answers are either through small group network or your Sunday gathering. This is an important question to be clear on in our ministries.
2. Evangelistic Preaching
We need to be able to speak directly to non Christians at some point in our regular Sunday preaching but just how you do this and how much of the gospel to share each week is worth ‘hammering’ out together. We threw this around for a long time over the weekend & I think we were all pushed in our thinking. I personally still like Al Stewarts answer.
3. Personal Evangelism
It was great to be able to encourage each other and hear our own best & worst moments over the time away. Keep praying!
This is something we plan to do each year. There is great value in talking face to face. If you would like to come alongnext year - numbers will be limited – let us know by sending an email to determinedgospeling@gmail.com
Dave
When you have people over to your place for lunch or dinner – do you spend anytime thinking through your home looks? Ever tidied up for them? Ever thought to yourself – ‘I’d better mow the lawn’. My suspicion is that we all do this to varying degrees depending on your personality and how tidy you want to keep everything. But most of us do something!
The same is true when it comes to the physical space in which you meet. It must be a consideration in your thinking at some point.
This point hit home to me a few months ago. I was watching some video footage of one of our bands playing (another useful exercise) and the room looked sterile. Our lighting looked like it was straight out of a big office space. We had 
tapestries hanging from the wall, it was a ‘cold’ feeling and to me uninviting. 
So, I initially turned off all the lights bar the few (weak) spotlights and put up some halogen lights that we had from Bunnings to give some more light. This gave the room an entirely different feel, in a good way – the room automatically felt warm & inviting. However, there was not enough light. People found it hard to read the Bible on their laps. This was an issue! I asked people to be patient with us while we made some changes and explained why we were fiddling with it. At the same time I was chatting to a guy from our church who has a lighting and production business. He was happy to lend his expertise as to what we could potentially do with the space which all costs money. I managed to clear $1k to spend on lighting from the Wardens which is currently unused. He also had some lights that sat on a stand that he wasn’t using. We put these up and it has solved our problem. The room doesn’t feel sterile, cold and uninviting anymore. People can read their Bibles (which is what we want!) and the room has a great feel too it. Are we finished? No. Our next stage is to put a black cloth as a backdrop to cover up, as you can see, the ugly exposed brick.
The other change we did was to take out about 100 chairs and make our break out space in the same space as where we meet. We used to go through to a room just the other side fo a collapsible wall. But it was cold with the same lighting issue
5 strangers every day. Some thoughts from steve kryger
Remember that all these posts on Sunday gatherings fow out of my original post. This is not an exercise in discovering what works best and doing whatever we can to get there. We are aiming at making our gatherings accessible to the outsider who comes into the gathering and striving to do what ‘builds up’ our fellow brothers and sisters as we gather. Hence we have talked about music, bible reading, praying and now the Introduction or Welcome.
We all know that the first impressions count for heaps like when going for a job interview or ‘judging a book by its cover’. Like this winnie the Pooh book, the title is a little too ambigious for my liking! The same applies for our Sunday gatherings. the first words we say are of great importance in setting tone and feel for the service. There are a number of different options of what to say first, let’s explore a few and then hopefully in the comments we can discuss the merits of each & why you do what you do.
OK, so there are 10 options the list is by no means exhaustive. There may be other things that your church does, the key question is why do you do what you do? Is there a theological underpinning to it?
I look forward to your thoughts.
Hi
Just recently, someone I know did something rather bold on facebook. They asked their friends: ‘What do you think of Jesus?’
Some might quickly reply with: ‘evangelism is best done in person’, ‘the internet has been a place where Christians have not expressed their views graciously’. And I agree.
However, my friend didn’t get on some random chat room (do they still exist? – you know what I mean), nor entered into conversation with people he didn’t know. He asked, politely in my opinion, his friends what they thought of Jesus. This wasn’t a replacement for more regular conversations with friends. The question itself wasn’t out of character for they way in which my friend usually speaks with his friends. It was a question that was genuinely interested with people’s answers.
Could you do the same?
I’ve never had a facebook account. But I’m often struck by how unreal it is. Friends of mine often comment (in person that is) just how ‘happy’ everyone’s lives are on facebook. A SMH article the other day pointed this out: posts are generally about something ‘fun’, rarely do you get anything otherwise.
While we might all have personal convictions about facebook, twitter and the rest - is there a way to engage with it as a Christian?
If we are trying to think through ways in which we can share the wonderful news of Jesus to our friends, have we considered all the forms of networking that we use?
Hopefully such questions like ‘What do you think of Jesus?’, will lead to fruitful conversation which, I think most of us will all agree, is best done in person.
keep praying for 5 people – and see if you can pray for someone else’s 5
tim
Here it is: ‘Go carefully read your Bible’
From here
I came across this blog a few weeks ago by Pete Hughes from Soma Church: Lifeboats and Cruiseboats. It is a helpful article about distinguishing between two different types of churches and what they do.
There are different churches and they operate in different ways. It may be that you have visited a church and you may have expected it to operate one way and it didn’t. It may be that you are a part of a church that is operating one way and expecting it to operate another way. It’s not that there are good ways and bad ways of operating, they are just…different.
The two types of churches he identifies are Lifeboats and Cruiseboats. While a lifeboat is smaller than a cruiseboat this need not be so with churches. The real difference is in the way they attract, welcome and evangelise newcomers. The cruiseboat church looks like they have something the unbeliever is missing. The unbeliever will find their own way in. The lifeboat church goes in search of people and does whatever it can to save all they can… it seeks people out. Lifeboat churches can go in all kinds of directions in their rescue efforts.
Pete recognises:
Both types of churches are good, but you can’t be both at the same time. Both types of churches are good, but they are very different. Both types of churches have strengths and problems. But knowing which boat you are is important.
This got me thinking about small groups. Can and should they exist as flotillas of lifeboats?
Our small groups (Growth Groups) at Epping Presbyterian Church are at the heart of our GROW ministry. They exist to grow people in their relationship with Jesus and relationship with other believers. They do this through prayerfully reading the Bible together, discussing Christian living and caring for one another through the joys and trials of life. They are free to go where they need to go to grow group members. And they do this well.
Are they equally free to go after the lost? I think they are! The smaller group has a better handle on who the unbelievers are not-yet-on the cruiseboat. The smaller group through individual group members has better relationships with specific unbelievers than does the church/Sunday gathering. The small group can more easily adapt to new opportunities and situations for sharing Jesus and meeting the life-needs of unbelievers.
Soma church see themselves as a lifeboat church:
At Soma we are hoping to grow to be a flotilla of lifeboats. We are still working out how that works, but we think there are people out in the world, drowning and need to hear about Jesus.
Small groups can be cruiseboats. They can be exciting places – something you just have to belong to – everyone (almost) at the Sunday gathering wants to get on board. They can be promoted and used as the core place for Christian teaching and training. Should they be a bit more lifeboat-y?
‘God loves the sinner but hates the sin’
‘God loves the sinner and hates the sinner’
Does God hate sinners? Ask pretty much any Christian if God hates sin and 80% of the time the answer is yes – the remaining seem to think of God as a traffic cop; he writes out tickets because it’s his job, not because he is personally motivated too. But in my short stint on universities, I think I’m yet to meet a student that thinks God hates sinners.
My question comes on the back of preparing seminars for a student camp (MYC) on the atonement. The camp will try to kick the usual PSA (Penal substitutionry atonement) goals while also pulling a few (hopefully) well aimed punches at the delicate sensibilities of our English brothers and their aversion to punishment.
The fist seminar that I worked on tried to outline God’s character and its implications for mankind. The study begins with the holiness of God, moves on to the sinfulness of humanity and then finishes with what happens when you mix the two together. What I found (and expected) was the justice and wrath of God. What I didn’t expect was that the verb that is most often associated with God’s wrath and justice is ‘burning’. When God wants to describe his anger, his phrase of choice is ‘burning anger’. His anger ‘burns’ against his people when they ignore him.
How should we best explain this? What are the implications for evangelism?
My seminar tries to explain God’s love and anger within the context of his character. I locate God’s love and anger within the sphere of his holiness. This already places me out of step with much modern theology which starts with God’s love and then moves to his character. The result of my approach is that I see a love and anger that is not like mine. God’s love is totally undeserved and faithful. He loves to the 1000th generation even though every single person within those generations is undeserving. He also punishes to the 3rd and 4th generation. This is also unlike me, who isn’t capable of holding onto a burning anger for that length of time. Both his love (which is immensely greater) and his anger (which is measurably greater?) are far greater than mine.
Is it appropriate to explaining God’s burning anger as hate?
Add to the mix that I think sin is ontological and the answer moves closer to the positive. Right from the genealogies in Genesis we’re told that we’re just like our fathers in our rejection of God. By the time of the new testament Paul talks about our nature as being an ‘object of wrath’ – that God’s reaction to us as we actually are is anger. And of course, you could not get more personal that Jesus’ becoming the object of God’s wrath on the cross. If the ‘answer’ to sin was the absorbing of wrath into the godhead then it’s tough to find a non-personal reason for God’s anger.
Is it necessary to explain God’s anger as hate?
Yet even if it is appropriate to demonstrate that both God’s love and his hate are personal, why would you? My idea is that it does two important thing:
Firstly, whatever you do to God’s anger you do to his love. Classical theology doesn’t leave much room for the idea of an impassable God ‘personally’ reacting to sin, but it does acknowledge the link between the gravity of sin and the victory of the cross. Downplay sin and you downplay the work of Christ.
Secondly, I wonder if it doesn’t make mortification of the flesh a little harder to sell. I’ve noticed (which screams of anecdote) that students who don’t feel the weight of God’s disgust towards their sin also don’t feel overly strongly about godliness. Sure, they’re not perfect, but then who is? If sin wasn’t that big a deal in the first place (as it didn’t so much upset God as disqualify you from membership in heaven – which really upset God), then it’s even less important now that it’s been dealt with.
So I think I’m going to at least put it out there that God ‘hates the sinner, and loves the sinner’.
Simplified as always – what do you think?
Hi!
God answers prayer.
Even though I have known this for a while, just recently I have been reminded of it. Opportunities to share the wonderful news of Jesus have come about for my wife and I (and for a number of friends of mine). I’ve been praying for this and God has graciously answered prayers. I must admit, and underline, that I feel that this has been all of grace because my prayers have been too few. However, despite my efforts, God has answered prayer. I hope that you too might be able to join me in thanking God for the opportunities He is providing. And can I encourage you to continue to be in prayer for 5 people that you know who don’t know Christ.
Recently I have been reading through 1 Peter and have been struck by this…
1 Peter 2:11-12 11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
and then
1 Peter 3:15-16 15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
It seems to me that there is a subtlety here that is worth considering. Note with me how in both passages there is a close connection between ‘good lives, ‘good deeds’, ‘good behaviour’ and either other people glorifying God, or answering other people’s questions about ‘the hope that you have’ .
Peter says that good gospel shaped lives will draw others to glorify God on the day He visits us. Now that could mean that some people will ‘glorify God’ by confessing Him on that day as the Lord of all, eventhough their lives never did. But it could also mean, and actually I take this as not an either/or option, that some will glorify God on that day because the good deeds of God’s people spoke volumes to them, raised questions for them, and in a sense, lead them to consider Christ. Afterall, it is not the Christian behaviour that gets glorified (ie it does not say ‘and glorify you, Christian with good deeds, on the day he visits us’), but the God of the Christian. Now you need to ask yourself: why would they glorify God unless God was part of the conversation. This would seem to fit well with the second passage 1 Peter 3. Did you see how easily Peter moved from encouraging Christians to ‘answer’ other people’s questions about ‘the hope that you have’ - to talking about their ‘good behaviour’, which could be slandered.
It could well be that Peter just expects there to be a link between how you live and the opportunities that you will have to share Christ. In essence Peter is calling us to live lives that attract the attention of the on-looking world, and to have an answer for your life.
Note carefully that this is not a formula for success (the Christians of 1 Peter were under terrible suffering). Nor is it a strategy to create opportunities, not precisely. Nor is it all the NT has to say about sharing our faith. But lives that attract the attention of the world, and then Christian people having an answer for that kind of living – it’s just how it is. How it should be. There’s just a natural-ness to it. It’s just so obvious that it doesn’t need to be said. Or does it?
I have wondered lately, for all the ‘strategies’ to engage with people for Christ (some of which have been very well thought through and are a gift to Christian people), have we underplayed, forgotten, taken for granted – how much gospel living can say to our on-looking world. Please don’t think I’m supporting that old saying ‘tell others the gospel… and use words if you have to’. I’m not saying that. That is untrue because the gospel is a word, a message that can not be acted out however hard you might try.
My brief on this blog was to think through evangelism from the point of view of ‘personal lives’. So, can I ask: how are you living? at work? at uni? amongst friends, housemates, family?
It would seem to me that God’s word is calling us to: Live such good lives that you attract the attention of the on-looking world, and then be prepared to have an answer for your life.
Hope this finds you well
tim
