The Twelve Days of Christmas

Hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas! To celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas this year, the EA team will be attempting to bring you some evangelism support and training in the form of twelve common objections you might encounter while witnessing to someone and a possible answer you could give. They won’t be perfect, they might not even be great, but we’ll do our best. Hopefully by January 5th you’ll be feeling so much more confident that you can counter some objections that you’ll get out there and faithfully share the gospel throughout 2008!

Okay, so we’ve missed the first day, I know. We’ll catch up if you bear with us!

Get Equipped

As Christmas approaches, is your church starting to get ready to share the gospel with people who only come to a church for Christmas and Easter? I hope so, it’s a good opportunity. Let’s try and make sure that we share a faithful presentation whenever we get the chance.

I am reminded of this as I have recently heard some real stinkers. One was emailed to me by a dear friend. The other was at a church event designed as outreach. ARG!

Know the gospel, share it faithfully. Please!

If you’re not sure what the gospel really is, please read your bible carefully and in context and then check out freeoffer.wordpress.com for some ideas on ways to share it.

Sharing the gift of the Gospel this Christmas?

Christmas is a great time to catch up with family members and old friends you have not spoken to for a long time. You might be the only Christian in that group or you might be a Christian family with a sibling/child who is now a committed atheist.

6 tips to get you going

1. Do your homework on the last key objection your family member had. Did they get stuck on “All religions are the same” or “Its arrogant to say that Christianity is the only way to God?” Well do some research now. Get ready to help them through it. If you raise the gospel in a conversation with them chances are they will resort to the comfort zone of the same objections.
2. Pray - lift up the people you are likely to meet. Don’t forget that Salvation is only possible through the work of the Holy Spirit.
3. Send a gospel tract in your Christmas cards.
4. Commit to turning around in every shopping queue and give out a gospel tract to the person behind you.
5. Invite family and friends to your Christmas services.
6. Watch your life witness - are you going to sin through debauchery or loose talk?

Well there are 6 good suggestions; do you have any more? Please leave a comment

Questioning Evangelism (some things that have struck me)

A few months ago I ordered Questioning Evangelism by Randy Newman. It arrived recently and I have found it to be full of intelligent fresh ideas on the task of personal evangelism. While I waited for it to come, I was so excited by a chapter extract on Amazon I did a short post about it. Well I’m now almost half way through the book. The writer is concerned about what we can do in evangelism. He is not from a reformed position, but his idea of using questioning in evangelism is quite robust and well put forward in this book. For now, I just want to share some great take-away quotes:

“Responding to a question with a question paves the way for a concept that the questioner might not otherwise consider …Jesus’s conversation with the woman at the well fits this pattern. The woman’s notions of righteousness, sin, and worship had to be challenged before she would accept Jesus’ way of seeing those concepts.”

“On a practical note, answering a question with a question might alleviate some hostility. When people ask questions that are really attacks in disguise, responding with a question reflects the heat. People usually don’t like the temperature and tend to adjust the thermostat accordingly, which helps create a more productive conversation.”

Four lessons from Solomon:

1. 1. Avoid and argument
   2. Recognise a fool
   3. Remember that people are people. “…conveying content is only a small part of communication process. Being sensitive to a person’s heart comprises a much larger portion” (Prov 20:5)
   4. Remember the power of the tongue. “…somewhere between total silence and non-stop talk lies wisdom”

Gift of the Gospel “the question of ultimate importance”

Here is the question of ultimate importance!

Who is Jesus?

Is he the promised one that He claims to be?

Is he the anointed One of God that has come to liberate those in spiritual bondage?

Is he the Son of God?

Or

is he just Joesph’s son?

Is he just a teacher with eloquent comforting words?

Every Idle Word - On The Wagon

 

Is entertainment, fun and play hurting your walk???

Like every other Christian who is reading this, once becoming born again I was put on a path of cleaning up my life, “the sanctification wagon” could be a good term.

It is called the process of sanctification, getting all the sharp edges knocked off, all the pot holes filled in, get all my selfishness, addictions, time wasting , evil desires, lusts, greed, anger, vengeance, lying, etc… all turned down, filled in, rubbed off and replaced with love, peace, joy, hope, faithfulness, obedience, patience and love.

In other words becoming more and more conformed into the image of Christ every day.

HE has NOW…Reconciled

What I am about to say right how is very familiar to most of you…

We are travelling over very familiar territory right now….

And here is a sad fact of human nature. this is absolutely an effect of the fall…

“we get familiar with things”

 

In fact we get “overly familiar with things”

so we get “used to things”

And as we get “overly used to things“ they lose their “effect on us”

Reformed Calvinistic techno music???

Would you ever think that a quote from John Calvin could be turned in to a song? What about Mark Driscoll talking about Idolatry worked in to a techno thumping sound track?

“No!” you say?
Well then keep reading!

Would you like to have the best parts of sermons preached by the likes of:

Mark Driscoll
John Piper
Joshua Harris
Rick Gamache

And then have the Gospel and reformed/Calvinistic theology worked in to modern smooth techno rhythms?

If so, then welcome to…

www.1031sermonjams.com

Their hearts bear witness…

I was listening to way of the master last week and was very taken by a section sent in by a listener to WOTMR, sent in this quote from “Hope Lutheran church - C F W Walter”

“There is a difference between the Law and the Gospel. All religions contain PART of the Law. Some of the heathen have advanced so far that they have even perceived the necessity to have a inner cleansing of the sole. Purification of thoughts and desires, but of the Gospel not a particle is found except in the Christian religion.

The Law is written in their hearts, Their consciences bearing witness to them, but not the Gospel, this is why we need to go to the ends of the world. Had the Law not been written in men’s hearts, no one would listen to the preaching of the law. Everyone would turn away and say “That is too cruel, no body can keep the commandments, such as these!”

But my friends do not hesitate to preach the Law, people may revile it but they only do so with there mouths, but what you say to them is the things that there conscience is preaching to them everyday! [Unless God has let them go, and that is a terrifying thought…] Nor could we convert any person by preaching to him unless we preach the law to him first. It would be imposable to convert any one if the Law had not been written in men’s hearts.”

A Jesus Category

I was reflecting on a recent conversation with my wife. She had been a part of a talk we had with someone and and I was shocked when she told me that I had not made explaining Jesus a big focus. I also came to think about the categories that we give posts on this blog - we don’t have a Jesus category. Well that has to change. When I think about it, it is often easier for me to explain what Jesus has done, instead of who Jesus is.

…the prism through which all light concerning God is reflected is Jesus Christ. This means that Christology is the beginning and the end, better, the starting point and summary, of all Christian thought. Christology is Paul’s theme when he writes, “For it is the very God who said. ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6)… Christology is the subject of theology. More precisely put, Jesus Christ is the subject of theology.