Tuesday morning evangelistic smack-down, #29

Three ways to teach evangelism and compassionate ministry:

I have often wondered if there aren’t three ways to teach evangelism and compassionate ministry to your seminary students (and, by extension, to your church).

Method one: hypocritically. This means, you use your mouth and pulpit/lectern only. You don’t actually evangelize yourself, you just talk about it.

Method two: from the margins. You do talk about it, and you do it. But you don’t involve others with you in the ministry. Your teaching thus is separated from your action.

Method three: centrally. You teach and preach about it, and you do it, and you involve others with you. This is Christ’s method.

Insight – I don’t know that I have ever (with any degree of certainty) been taught evangelism by someone who did anything other than the first method.

What evangelism does for the evangelist:
“Evangelism is work, often hard work. Yet it is not drudgery. It puts a person on good humor, and makes him truly human.” (Oswald C.J. Hoffmann)

An outreach idea
AUTO-CARE (www.autocareministry.com) - Policies and procedures (call for passcode & username)

• Monthly ministry to single moms and widows
• Volunteer mechanics provide service and tools
• Services are provided on the church property or site
• Advertisement interest everybody
• Involves everybody in the church to serve
• High exposure to the community leaders and other churches

A bunch of interesting audio seminars to download.
Go for it.

Three transferable insights from John Calvin: Acts 4:1-4
Three things are to be chiefly noted in this narration.

First, that as soon as the truth of the Gospel comes to light, Satan sets himself in opposition to it by every means in his power, and uses every endeavour to crush it in its earliest beginnings.

Secondly, that God furnishes His children with unconquerable fortitude, that they may stand firm and unmoved against all the devices of Satan and may not yield to the violence of the wicked.

Finally, we must not the outcome, that however completely the enemy may appear to be dominant and in control of events, leaving no stone unturned to blot out the Name of Christ, and however much on the other hand the ministers of sound doctrine be as sheep in the mouths of wolves, God none the less spreads abroad the Kingdom of His Son, keeps alive the light of His Gospel, and looks to the safety of His children. (Calvin, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, Acts Vol. 1)