Filed under: Evangelism
by: Travis Maples
Charles Spurgeon:
“soul winners, try after sermons to talk to strangers. The preacher may have missed the mark, but you need not miss it. Or the preacher may have struck the mark, and you can help to make the impression deeper by a kind word. I recollect several persons joining the church who traced their conversion to the ministry in the Surrey Music Hall, but who said it was not that alone, but another agency cooperating with it. They were fresh from the country, and some good man — I think he is in heaven now– met them at the gate, spoke to them, said he hoped they had enjoyed what they had heard, listened to their answer, asked them if they were coming in the evening, and said he would be glad if they would drop into his house to tea. They did, and he had a word with them about the Master. The next Sunday it was the same. At last, those whom the messages had not much impressed were brought to hear with other ears, till by-and-by, through the good old man’s persuasive words and the good Lord’s gracious work, they were converted to God.”(The Soul Winner, P. 228)
I mean they are in our church, they did respond to an invite from someone, they stayed through worship, even though the person two rows up was dancing around, they sat through an hour sermon where the gospel was preached, you know God’s word won’t return void, and conversion is up to the Holy Spirit. I think it’s safe to say that God may be at work in their lives if they’re not already Christians. It’s a softball! Let’s knock it out of the park. Let’s introduce ourselves to a stranger this Sunday and say “Hey I’m Pete! I’ve never met you before. What’s your name?” “Well Joe…have you ever heard a message like that before?” “How does it sit with you?” “Why don’t you come on over to our place for tea & crumpets.” Or whatever it is you eat at your place.
4 Things may happen:
- They may not be a Christian, and you just had an opportunity to talk with them about the King and they become Christians.
- They may not be Christians and they blow you off. But they’ll blow you off cordially since you’re in church in the Bible belt.
- They’re Christians and you get to have some good fellowship with them as the message sinks deeper in your soul the more you interact with it.
- They’re already members, and you’ll give’em a good laugh when they tell you they’ve been apart of the church for 10 years longer than you have, and it will encourage them even more that they decided to be members of a church that loves people practically.
Filed under: News
- Bono has his good looking solutions for Africa .
- Should I give to people who beg for money on the streets?
- Predictions of the Year 2000
from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900
- In Turkey Three Christians are martyred for their faith.
- I about died when I watched this video.
Filed under: Media
by Mike Plewniak
So, I just linked some good articles on Boundless. I’ve just discovered a wealth of material on their website that is directed towards college students. Check it out:
- A homepage of article categories including college, being single, career, sex, entertainment, politics, etc…
- The section on college includes articles about: facing hostile professors, choosing a major, campus culture, and many more.
Enjoy!
Filed under: Roles and Relationships
by Mike Plewniak
I just read a great article on Boundless Webzine by Thabiti Anyabwile called “Men and Friendship”. If you get a chance you should read it.
Here are some highlights:
“Perhaps the greatest inhibition to deep friendships among men is this scary “I” word: intimacy. What man doesn’t get slightly clammy and light-headed at the mention of the word — especially when the object of intimacy is another man! The word itself has been so associated with femininity that it seems to be the direct opposite of manliness or masculinity. And yet, the Scriptures hold out plentiful examples of deep friendship between men without even the hint of the feminization of men. In other words, the problem with intimacy between men is in our heads, not rooted in reality.”
“Friends share the meaningful. They take the courageous risk of becoming transparent, sharing burdens, hopes, joys, fears, failures, triumphs, questions, and resolutions.”
“Friendship either powerfully strengthens or corrupts our worship of God. So godliness in our deep friendships is essential.”
And finally, here are some application questions at the end of the article:
“1. Is this person God’s friend? (James 2:23)
2. Can I share meaningful things with this person?
3. Is my unwillingness to share connected with a character fault in the other or in myself (fear, distrust, etc)?
4. Am I being too passive in the cultivation of meaningful friendships? If so, how will I change this pattern of behavior?
5. Am I making myself available to other men for godly friendship?”
P.S. There is also a great article on Lust and the Disintegrating Power of Evil. Warning: This article is not for the faint-hearted.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I know I am supposed to post silly, random things, but I thought I’d do something different this week.
I am an ungrateful person. Normally what my mind focuses on and what comes out of my mouth are what I don’t have, complaints, discontent, and “if only…” statements. What this reveals about my heart is that I believe I deserve certain things from God. WRONG!
What’s the truth?
I was in Charlotte, NC about a month ago and Joe Lechner was preaching on covetousness. He made the point that EVERYTHING that we experience that isn’t Hell is mercy from God. I don’t deserve the shirt I am wearing, the house I live in, the food I eat (as nasty as it can be), the friends I have, the pillow case on my pillow, my pillow, my bed, my room, my toothpaste, the church I am a part of, the fact that I can get a 2 for 1 deal on Degree deodorant at Wal-Mart right now, the ability to talk, walk, run, and the list goes on and on. I take all of these things for granted! God is not obligated in the slightest to give any of these things to the people He has created. Add to that the fact that all of us (as Gene Emerson put it at church this past Sunday) came into the world waving our fists in defiance at our Creator with our sin?! What mercy!!! God ran after us, grabbed us, set His love on us in Christ even when we were far off, dead in our sin! That gets me pretty pumped!
How can we cultivate change in our hearts? 3 Suggestions:
1. Review the Gospel as soon as you get up in the morning and throughout the day. I like going over 2 Corinthians 5:21.
2. Think through your life as a whole or go through the day’s activities and thank God specifically for everything that isn’t Hell in your life. (That means everything!) This should give you plenty to pray about! Something that has really served me lately is to spend a majority of my time in prayer just thanking God for different stuff. Sometimes I never move on to supplication. Usually after thanking God I start ascribing glory to Him and worshiping Him.
3. Bring Suggestion 2 back to the Gospel and realize that all you have, you have because of Christ! Meditate on verses like Romans 8:32. God has given us the most amazing gift in giving us His Son, Jesus Christ, and Christ is the source of all good gifts.
What about you?
To help us help each other see things to be thankful for; what are things that you tend to take for granted? What passages do you like to think about throughout the day to keep your eyes fixed on the cross of Christ? What about quotes about the Gospel that stir your thankfulness to God? Any other thoughts to add?
Kevin
Filed under: News
- Al Mohler brings truth to light on the VT Massacre.
- MORON of the week: Thief’s fake leg falls off in escape
- Check out this guys years of arduous work to bring you computerized Blue Blocker sunglasses.
- For the lazy guy on the toilet this invention is just for you.
- Iraqi Christians flee form forced conversion.
- Whats going on in Africa? Why don’t we see this more in the headlines?
Filed under: Evangelism
by Mike Plewniak
I am currently preparing a message on evangelism for Volunteers for Christ and I came across these quotes on evangelism that stirred my soul…maybe they’ll stir yours too?
Charles Spurgeon: “The Holy Spirit will move them by first moving you. If you can rest without their being saved, they will rest too. But if you are filled with an agony for them, if you cannot bear that they should be lost, you will soon find that they are uneasy too. I hope you will get into such a state that you will dream about your child or your hearer perishing for lack of Christ, and start up at once and begin to cry, ‘O God, give me converts or I die.’ Then you will have converts.”
And here is another great one:
Donald Whitney: “We ought to have an obsession for souls, and tearfully plead with God to see more people converted, but conversions are fruit that God alone can give. In this regard we are like the postal service. Success is measured by the careful and accurate delivery of the message, not by the response of the recipient. Whenever we share the gospel (which includes the summons to repent and believe), we have succeeded. In the truest sense, all biblical evangelism is successful evangelism, regardless of the results.”
Filed under: Leadership
Kevin, all your church dreams have come true! There is now a church for men! In fact, it is the Church For Men. Located in Daytona Beach, FL, this church strives to be the right church for men.
No doubt, they have diagnosed the problem. Men don’t go to church. So, “instead of creating a little outpost of masculinity called men’s ministry, we help churches unleash the masculine spirit throughout the organization.”
The traditional model of men’s ministry has been somewhat disconnected from the church. Church often say (according to Church For Men), “Look boys, we’ve created a men’s ministry for you. Go be masculine in there. But when you come to church on Sunday, check your manhood at the door.”
There is plenty of hilarious stuff on this website! Check it out!
Filed under: Leadership
By Walt Alexander
Two weeks ago, I argued that our fight with sin is not primarily a fight at all. It is primarily about believing that in the work of Christ. It is about believing that His death not only gave us forgiveness from sins but granted us a new life.
The Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck sums it up like this:
It is of this partnership in Christ’s death and resurrection that the church must now be conscious, not only with a view to justification, but also with respect to the dominion that sin is bent on exercising on its life. [The church] has (once with Christ) “died to sin” (Rom. 6:2), or, as it is expressed in verse 6: the church must know “that our old man as crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, so that we should no longer be in bondage to sin….What he wants to teach [the church], over against the reality of sin, is beyond anything else a new basis of self-judgment in its belonging to Christ and having died and been raised with him (Paul: An Outline of His Theology, pg. 208-209).
So how does this knowledge – this new self-judgment affect our fight with sin?
Here are a couple of thoughts:
1. We start on the foundation of this new self-judgment – that we are justified in Christ. In Christ, we are forgiven by God and righteous before God. This is solely through the work of Christ.
This means we must know and live in the gospel. We must preach it to ourselves daily. We should meditate on it in every battle and in the face of every sin and temptation. By grace, this will keep us from trying to earn forgiveness.
Also, in Christ, God is pleased with us. Why? Because He is pleased with Christ (Mt 3:17) and we are in Him.
2. We fight sin aware that it has been defeated by Christ. Sin has been brought to nothing through Christ’s death (Rom 6:6). This means sin no longer reigns, because we have been set free (Rom 6:7).
This means we don’t treat sinful desires as if they still reign. We rebuke them in the name of Christ. We do not run to them any longer.
If fact, the reason we are fighting is because He fought and won. He broke the dominion and now we have a fight.
This means we run from our old pleasures and from our old desires. We catalog them, categorize them, and avoid them. We refuse to be conformed to our former ignorance (1 Pt. 1:14).
3. We fight sin aware that we have been given new life in Christ. This new life empowers us to obey God. It empowers us to please Him and live to God. We are alive in Him (Rom 6:11).
This means we fight with an awareness that our hope rests in Christ’s work. Though we fight hard, we rest in the reality that He accomplished everything for us on the cross. Through the cross, we know that He will finish what he started (Phil 1:6) and that He will conform us to the image of His Son (Rom 8:29).
4. We fight sin to please Him. Having been counted righteous before God, set free from sin, and given new life in Christ, we now live to please Him.
2 Cor 5:14-16 – For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.
2 Cor 5:9 – So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
2 Tim 2:4 – No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
We now live everyday to please Him. We live to bring Him joy and pleasure. We live to glorify God, to magnify God, and to please God.
