Evangelism

Jesus clearly had a goal for his three years of ministry on earth: begin the world-shaping movement of the Kingdom of God. Outcomes vs. process If Jesus had focused only on the outcomes of this goal, then he would have surely embraced the lure of the crowds, held daily rallies in various cities throughout the ancient world, and continued performing miracles. We certainly know that Jesus could gather a crowd without even trying! Yet one has to ask this question: Would following that strategy, with its focus on immediacy, have limited Jesus’ impact to the time he was on earth? Years later, would people just have had...Read more …

When God created the world, he built rest into the natural order of things: Wake and sleep. Day and night. Work and Sabbath. Seasons. Festivals. Jubilee. In order for us to be everything we’re intended to be, God knew we’d need regularly scheduled times of rest. So he built them in for us. Then, in fact, he commanded us to keep them! How’s that going for you? Somehow, it has become a badge of honor NOT to rest, lest anyone of us be considered undedicated or less than hard working. Rest, relaxation, and time for restoration have become almost synonymous with laziness. Busyness today...Read more …

It’s widely believed that Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians in 62 A.D., during his imprisonment in Rome (around the same time he wrote his epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians). The letter itself is very “evangelistic” in tone, calling the believers in Colosse back to Jesus and Jesus alone. Andy Rau, Senior manager of content for Bible Gateway, describes it this way: In the decades following Christ’s ministry, death, and resurrection, Christianity wasn’t the only religion competing for people’s hearts and minds. Pagan cults and philosophies were firmly entrenched throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. It’s understandable that early Christians—many of whom...Read more …

The twice-tolling clock, the Count explained, had been commissioned by his father from the venerable firm of Breguet. Establishing their shop in Paris in 1775, the Breguets were quickly known the world over not only for the precision of their chronometers (that is, the accuracy of their clocks), but for the elaborate means by which their clocks could signal the passage of time. They had clocks that played a few measures of Mozart at the end of the hour. They had clocks that chimed not only at the hour but at the half and the quarter. They had clocks that...Read more …

Here’s a radio-minute that aired nationally this week on Q Place’s Walk the Way: This Walk the Way. Brought to you by Q Place. I’m Jeff Klein When I was younger, I learned this little poem with hand motions to match – maybe you did, too: this is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people! But I never taught it to my own kids. How did we come to believe that the measuring stick for the fruitfulness of the church was based on see my steeple? See all the people sitting inside? We need new yardsticks!...Read more …

It is not so much the case that God has a mission for the church in the world but that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission is not made for the church; the church is made for the mission—God’s Mission. ~ J. Andrew Kirk  God could see what was coming even before creating a single atom or a piece of dirt or one star, so he made a plan. This plan, centered in Jesus Christ, is to make us whole again, to redeem the entire creation, to restore shalom. God made the world with this focus.  People...Read more …

I travel around to a lot of different churches trying to inspire people to walk the way of Jesus by getting involved in what Jesus is doing in the world. I have discovered that most believers are longing for their churches to be more like the Book of Acts. They long for God to move in power. They want to see miracles. They want to be part of and experience a life-changing movement that looks like what happened in that original, early church. They want traction. Challenging questions The desire is exciting! Yet the challenge is the gap between that desire...Read more …

Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned a select group of U.S. Army volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his friend, Second Lieutenant William Clark, to cross what is now the western portion of the United States. The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was charged with a few primary objectives: Explore and map the newly acquired territory, assess the new land’s commercial possibilities, and find a practical route across the western half of the continent that would provide easy access to the Pacific Ocean. The Expedition...Read more …

I pondered this question myself when I crossed over into the New Year—and, shortly after, celebrated another birthday. When I grew up, phones had spirally cords, we typed on typewriters, and music played on a vinyl disc called a record or on some kind of plastic tape. News came through newspapers or, in the evening, from one of our five television channels—channels that, sure, I “surfed” through, but in much more of the way an actual surfer would: by standing up! Yes, it was tough, but I did it. I would get up, stay standing, cross the room and manually switch...Read more …