The church needs more Studds!!!

Wow, is all I can say -O week went off,over 300 cards given out ,121 want to know how to be connected to Christ. Thats huge ,better still over 80% of those have been phoned ,while 100% have been sent a letter and personally invited to our BIG ASK pre christians programme we are running next week,up at the university in the college halls.

121 said they want to know how to be connected to Christ.
I have said to the team that when you go fishing with a net,and not a pole thats whats happens:poles are inclusive -nets are exclusive.

Jesus never went fishing with a pole. He fished with a net .
Its who so ever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
When you die to the dream of being a success and live for the dream of being a blessing ,you will bless more people by accident than you will on purpose.

This is why the church exsists, and until the future of the world matters more to the church than the future of the church the church has no future.

Jesus didn't die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous! The will of God is not an insurance plan. It's a daring plan. In fact, the will of God doesn't get easier. God gives us more difficult, daring, and dangerous things to do! Read Hebrews 11.

In the words of a daring twentieth-century missionary, C.T. Studd, "Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell."

The church needs more Studds!

121 that said YES to knowing how to connect to Christ
How would you love those people,how would you serve those people ,how would you bless those people in a way that would answer that question really well for them .

Interested in your thoughts

Comfort or Comfortable ?

Christians are more uncomfortable doing evangelsim ,than Non Christians themselves

Please read that again -Nice and Slowly .Wow what a disturbing trend.

What can we do to change this around -What can you do?-What are you doing?

What is God concerned with most for all lives?
Is is that we are comforted or that we are comfortable?

My own conviction is that ,God is more concerned about our comfort than making us comfortable .Jesus didn't die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous! The will of God is not an insurance plan. It's a daring plan. In fact, the will of God doesn't get easier. God gives us more difficult, daring, and dangerous things to do! Read Hebrews 11.

In the words of a daring twentieth-century missionary, C.T. Studd,
"Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell." The church needs more Studds!

The combination of Concern and Oppurtunity

One of my goals of Reverb this year is to grow our evangelism muscle.

I love what Willow Creek church say about their approach to evangelism.
If you cut us we bleed evangelism." Their evangelistic temperature is white hot
No wonder they call themselves a missionary church rather than a missions church
Huge Distinction!

And it's not about sharing our faith out of guilt. It's about being so excited about who God is and what God has done that I can't not talk about it.

I love what one writer described his personal definitions of worship and evangelism.
Worship is bragging about God to God. Evangelism is bragging about God to others.
I think evangelism is a simple extension of worship.

Let's not stop bragging about God when we walk out of church!

At the Last Leaders Life Group I spoke about the powerful combination of concern and opportunity working together

When we only presenting evangelistic opportunities to Christians, but don’t work to raise the concern level, a very small response will be the outcome. But equally so when we only work on the concerned level and don’t present opportunity to people nothing happens, as a concern always needs a cause to attach itself to.

So what comes first concern or opportunity, the chicken or the egg? The chicken of concern always comes first, and births the egg of opportunity.

This is illustrated in the Good Samaritan story where 3 people were faced with the same opportunity, but 2 had a concern deficit disorder and chose not to respond. The 3rd person the Good Samaritan, had grown his concern level enough so when opportunity presented itself, he did something about it,

Concern and opportunity working in combination is powerful

So what can you do to grow your concern level for the Lost?

Engaging Culture

Mark Conner shares some interesting thoughts on how to be relevant in the world we live in

When it comes to culture, including media (TV, movies, etc), there are three different approaches that Christians tend to take:

1. Reject Culture.
Some Christians see the world as ‘evil’ (and at times, rightly so) and therefore all culture is to be rejected. Christians are called to be ‘holy’ which means to be ‘separate’ from the world. Christians end up living in their own sub-culture – with Christian communities, Christian bookshops, Christian TV, and even Christian jewelry! The danger with this approach is that Christians end up very ‘different’ from the world but because of their isolation they have ‘no audience’ and therefore no positive ‘influence’ on the world.

2. Embrace Culture.
Other Christians go the other way – they fully embrace culture in response to Jesus command to live ‘in’ the world. The danger with this approach is that if we uncritically embrace everything in our culture, we can end up no different than the world we live in. As a result, we have no message to offer them, despite the fact that we have relationships with them. We aren’t isolated, as in the first approach, but we are so immersed in the culture that we lose our distinctiveness.

3. Engage Culture.
A more balanced approach, modelled exceptionally well by Jesus, is for us to ‘engage’ with our culture. We are to be ‘in’ the world, but we are also called to be ‘not of’ the world. Jesus’ used metaphors for this – ‘salt’ and ‘light’. Both of these things make an impact but only when there is proximity. Salt in the salt shaker has no affect and light only helps if it is shining in the darkness.

The first two approaches are easy - they are 'black' and 'white'. The third approach is much more difficult - even risky. It's 'grey' ... but it's well worth the effort.
Jesus spent a lot of time with people far from God and, amazingly, he never got angry or aggressive with them (‘sinners’). The only people he did get angry with were extremely religious people, especially the Pharisees who were very legalistic.

Which way do you lean? Do you tend to reject culture too easily? Do you tend to embrace culture too much? How could you engage with culture more effectively this week?

They like Jesus but not the Church

Found a great article on the website "missional church network"
Raises some good thoughts

I have been reading Dan Kimball’s new book “They Like Jesus But Not The Church.” I have found several insights from the book to be helpful. One section I found funny (in a sad kind of way) is titled “The Transformation From Excited Missionary Into Citizen Of The Bubble.” In this section of the book Kimball shares his observation concerning what happens to many believers as they “mature” in their Christian walk.

Phase 1: We become Christians
In this phase Kimball reminds Christians of the time they first placed their faith in Christ, understood the grace of God, and experienced the excitement and joy of learning new things from the Bible. He writes, “Remember that burst of understanding God’s grace and joy in Jesus as you told your non-Christian friends about your faith? Probably this occurred in a natural way, since you were friends rather than strangers. . . This is only natural because generally everyone in a new Christian’s circle of friends is outside of the church.”

Phase 2: We become part of church life
As we get involved in the life of the church, we make Christian friends and participate in all kinds of church activities with them. New believers tend to slowly lose touch with non-Christian friends and become more and more immersed in Christian activities. The reality is that the longer we are Christians the fewer the number of friends we have who are not Christians. Again Kimball writes, “Even though Christians often work alongside non-Christians or have non-Christian neighbors or sit next to non-believing students in class, we generally tend not to actually befriend them, or pray regularly for them, or get involved in their lives so they trust us and we can be salt and light of Jesus to them.”

Phase 3: We become part of the Christian bubble
“As we slowly withdraw from ongoing relationships with those outside the church and focus on relationships with those inside the church, something happens. Once, it was more natural and even exciting to share life with people at work or at school, with relatives, or with neighbors. But slowly we begin to see evangelism as something the church does, primarily through events. We get more excited about going overseas to the mission field on summer trips than about the mission field we live in every day.

We start to see evangelism as inviting people to go to a church, where the pastor will do the evangelizing and explain Christianity, instead of spending time with people and talking with them and being the church to them. . . . During this phase, we stop praying daily for those who don’t know Jesus and instead pray for our church’s latest building project or latest program.”

Phase 4: We become Jonah
After being citizens of the bubble for several years we begin to complain and point out the terrible things happening in the culture. Like Jonah we don’t want anything to do with those who aren’t following God as we are. Like Jonah, we may even have a secret sense of delight thinking about how God will one day punish all those sinners in our towns and cities. “And like Jonah, who, even after God gave him a second chance and he saw the people of Ninevah repent and cry out to God, complained about not having shade over his head and being uncomfortable, we complain about how well the church is providing what we want and grow numb to the fact that people all around us need the love and grace of Jesus.”

At this point Kimball makes reference to the Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime” when David Byrne cries out “My God! What have I done?” Or in our case maybe “My God! What have I become?”

How much of an accurate description do you feel this is?
How can we turn this pattern around?
Interested in your comments

Salvation or Sandwiches

Bill Hybles, who pastors one of America’s largest churches, Willow Creek, was asked whether he thought it was more important for Christians to provide the hungry with salvation or a sandwich.

I liked his response …

“One of the great joys of my life has been to pastor a church that is unusually intentional about reaching people far from God. For 32 years now, I have had a front-row seat to observe how lost people get found and how found people get grown up. In my experience, the sandwich question is irrefutably answered as the Holy Spirit does his sanctifying work in the heart and mind of a freshly-redeemed person. What I mean by that is in virtually every case, when I see a life get transformed by the atoning work of Christ, it is not long before that new believer sees the plight of the poor.

"Usually within months of a person's salvation experience, there is both a sincere desire to pass on the message of Christ to any and all, and an equally intense desire to do whatever is necessary in the name of Christ to eradicate injustice, relieve oppression, and alleviate suffering of any kind. Selfless service of this sort isn’t normal according to human nature; purely and simply, the desires are born out of the work of the Holy Spirit.

"My point is that if new Christ-followers were not misguided by those who force an either-or mindset to the sandwich question, I am quite sure that the Holy Spirit himself would lead them eventually to adopt a both-and approach.

"In my teaching and leadership over the past several years, I have relied on two words to help keep our congregation at Willow Creek balanced on these issues: redeem and restore. I love how those two words fall phonetically, but more important, I love how they fall theologically. There’s nothing better than to see new believers around our church begin to weave those words into their everyday vocabulary; better still is when they begin to live them out in their everyday lives.”

I love it!

Breakthrough Evangelism

I love the story in Mark chapter 2 about the 4 men carrying the person to Jesus on a stretcher

I used this story recently in a message I gave to highlight five attributes of people that bring others to Jesus. Here are some of my thoughts

Attribute 1# They understand you can't hide the presence of God
Mark 2vs 1

Jesus states our role as Christians is a transformational one Salt and Light
In the same way that salt is not designed to stay in a shaker,the church is never meant to be insular from the world .We are Gods hands and feet on the earth and we need to be seen and felt in the trenches of human experience .

God does not want his church to play hide and seek with the world where we hide and they seek us he wants us to play seek and save with the world where we seek them and he save them .

The unchurched have a deep awareness of God ,especially in a crisis.However they do not have an awareness of the church.When the unchurched think God they don't think church.To them the God of heaven has no earthy address.But the church is gods address on earth

That's why when my mate went through a painful marriage breakup,he went to his Mum for her purse ,his mates for the pub and me for prayer,because to him I am the church.

The truth is we are light ,some days you may feel you are a 30 watt, some days a 60 , or 100 watt bulb,it doesn't matter your light will shine, don't hide it

Attribute 2#They preach the gospel
Mark 2vs 2

In John 1:14 it says Jesus was full of grace and truth
Grace says I will love you no matter what, I call this influence
Truth says I will speak the truth no matter what, I call this evangelism

Jesus was the perfect combination of both and made this clear when he chose the passage of Luke 4:18-19 to describe his mission and his ministry

The Apostle Paul was as "eager to remember the poor" as he was as "eager to preach the gospel" .

By themselves grace and truth are dangerous
Grace without truth or influence without evangelism can be Christianity without a backbone, goodness without God

Likewise truth without grace or evangelism without influence can be Christianity without a heart , God without goodness.

As Christians we can influence many unchurched people but I don’t want to influence all and evangelise none. Influence is good, its necessary ,it’s kingdom, it’s salting, it’s touching people’s lives, but it’s not necessarily evangelism

No doubt there are many people in Hell who were influenced by the church but never evangelised. I don’t want to just influence my community, my work colleagues, school friends or neighbours; I also want to share Christ with them.

Be a Conducter not an Insulator

On January 21, 1930, the name of Harold Vidian became synonymous with heroism. On that day, England’s King George V was scheduled to give the opening address at the London Arms Conference.

The king’s message was to be sent by radio all around the world.A few minutes before the king was to speak, a member of the CBS staff tripped over an electrical wire and broke it, cutting off the whole American audience. With no hesitation, chief control operator Harold Vidian grasped one end of the broken wire in his right hand and the other in his left, thus restoring the circuit. Electricity surged through his body.

Ignoring the pain, Vidian held on until the king had finished his address.

I see in this a challenge for Christians. The message of the King of kings must go to the whole world. But only as we allow God’s power to pass through us can the Lord’s saving gospel be transmitted.Paul wrote, "How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?" If we are willing to serve as conduits, regardless of the cost to us, the good news will be proclaimed around the world.

In the Classic book by Dr. Seuss…Green Eggs and Ham. Sam I am wanted his friend to eat Green Eggs and Ham.If Sam had been of a "take it or leave it" type Christian than when his friend said, "I do not like them Sam-I-Am, I do not like green eggs and ham." then Sam would have said, "OK. No problem" and that would have been the end of the story.

Sam would have happily gone on his way and his friend would never have experienced the joy of eating green eggs and ham. But no, Sam wasn't content to take no for an answer. Luckily for his friend, Sam perservered and kept on trying; because he new how important it was that his friend make the decision to try green eggs and ham.

We need to be Sam I am's
We must allow the power to flow through us if it is going to do any good.