100% Effective Evangelism

Reading John 7 today I kept noticing the theme of Jesus bringing a dividing line to the people he was with. They either believed in him or they didn’t. They either put their faith in him or they wanted him dead! It wasn’t really that extreme but often in John it feels that way. What [...]

Living Between the Smith’s and the Jones’

We just realized today that our next door neighbors are the Smiths on the right and the Jones on the left. We have known them for three years but somehow that irony escaped us until today. While we know both families pretty well it made me wonder, if this small thing had escaped my notice [...]

Effective Evangelism – The Difference Between Conversion and Subversion

One of the things that gets people in trouble when it comes to evangelism is trying to subert people rather than convert them. The word subvert comes from a combination of the words sub – from beneath and the Latin vertere – to turn. The word convert is similar but rather than turning from beneath [...]

God Does the Healing

My father-in-law who is a chiropractor pointed out that all the medical professions do is line things up for the body to work properly and heal. They don’t actually do the healing. God designed us in such a fantastic way to be able to heal our bodies. He knit us together so perfectly (Psalm 139:13-14). [...]

A Night of Letter Writing

Last night we worshiped God and sang about outreach. Then we got to writing. We are starting with a list of 500+ names and addresses in the neighborhood of our building. We spent time praying for them and writing notes of encouragement for each one. Young and old and everywhere in between came and wrote [...]

The Challenge of Sunday Evening Worship

Anytime we can get together and worship it is a good thing. One thing that many congregations face is the challenge of the Sunday night service. At Northwest we typically have LIFE groups 9 months of the year and take 3 months off in the Summer time. We get such a low turnout on Sunday [...]

Probably the Most Manipulative Approach to Soul Winning Ever Presented

Have a look at the post by Tim Challies outlining an approach in an old book he recently received. Craziness. Here is the link. I don’t think it gets much more manipulative and strong arming than this.

Keeping People Between the Front Door and the Back Door

When talking about retaining people church leaders often use the terms front door and back door to refer to bringing people in (the front door) but not wanting them to go out the back door (leave the church). I think this terminology needs to be examined because I think underneath it is the old facility [...]

Do Young People Really Care About Instrumental Music?

I don’t have any research to back this up but I do have a theory. I don’t know about the young people you know, especially the young adults. But one thing I have observed over and over again is that if people come to the place you worship on Sunday morning and they can easily [...]

We Can Witness Resurrections Today

If I told you that if you came by the building on Sunday you could actually see someone be resurrected from the dead would you come? If we put something in the newspaper and on the web that this miraculous event was to take place following our assembly this Sunday and that the public was [...]