Not sharing your faith like you should? A little too shy to tell your classmates and coworkers about Jesus? Whatever you do, make sure the Evangelism Linebacker doesn't overhear your confession of weakness regarding your part in the Great Commission! [I know this has been around for awhile, but I just discovered it yesterday.]

After you watch this, keeping a straight face if you can, think about how this video underscores the guilt, fear, and manipulation often used by church leaders to make people get involved in sharing the gospel with others. The fictitious narrator brags about the effectiveness of fear, pointing out that "campus evanglism nationwide is up 87%." Makes sense, doesn't it?

(HT: Guy Muse) 

A couple of days ago, I met with a young Welsh church planter who has moved his family into a hilltop "council estate" (American translation: "government housing project") that needs a tangible, relational, relevant proclamation of the gospel in their needy community. This couple has actually purchased a home in the middle of the estate, indicating the seriousness of their commitment. He's originally from Pontypool, but the last couple of years has been spent in reaching young people in a similar—but more urban—situation in Cardiff, the capitol city of Wales.

We're exploring the possibilities of working together for the foreseeable future, as part of my involvement with the Waleswide church planting initiative. I don't know yet how things will work between the two of us—the ball's in his court right now—but it's just so encouraging to see God's hand at work in this way. My new friend is teaching a group of street kids how to rap (go HERE to listen and read the lyrics), and it's opened up Read more

There's a great story, told in the first person, about a young woman in San Diego who was baptized as a child in the Mormon faith, became an atheist through her college years, and softened to agnosticism. While she was pursuing her interests in evolutionary psychology, she began listening to Dr. Laura Schlessinger on the radio and she was intrigued with the "voice of reason" so much so that she became quite conservative in her views.

God was moving in her life, but she didn't cry out to Him until a serious relationship malfunctioned, leaving her devastated and searching for answers. You can read her story, but basically her boyfriend dropped her when she refused to engage in premarital sex with him. Through her pain Read more

You've been thinking about that co-worker's spiritual condition for weeks, maybe months, but every time you get the golden opportunity to tell them you're a follower of Jesus, your hands go sweaty, your heart begins to pound wildly, and you feel like you're going to faint. Have no fear, someone says, "Just invite them to church!"

Before you act on such advice, read these excerpts by Art Rogers:

Most of the people who are adamantly in favor of inviting the lost to church—“I know that they’ll hear the Gospel preached…”—betray a worldview that is rooted firmly in the churched culture of years gone by.

It makes no sense to invite people to a place that is completely foreign to them in order that they should hear the Gospel.

You don’t have to come to culture—even church culture—to come to Jesus. Read more

The monk’s been really busy in the monastery these days! I take a couple weeks away from Google Reader and—boom!—he’s posted forty-two entries since the first of August. But I love the Monk! He likes to ask the tough questions, too; so you might want to buckle your seat belts and hang onto your copy of Calvin’s Institutes, while Michael fires a few questions our way:

Is there a relationship between what a person believes about “Total Depravity” and how they treat their lost neighbors, particularly those lost neighbors with needs in the physical and relational realm?

Can you believe in the desperate situation of lost persons as guilty, wrath-deserving rebels and still hug them, feed them, educate them and love them?

Can you stand upon the reformation diagnosis of the human condition and develop a strong response of compassion, respect and generosity toward those who are not Christians?

Can you believe “T” and love the lost in ways other than just preaching TULIP at them?

I have the impression that this is a struggle for many reformed Christians. I know it is for many that I know. Not because they are fanatics for predestination or cold-hearted intellectuals, but simply because their theological framework doesn’t provide a strong foundation for missions, compassion and generosity. (I surely thank God for those reformed churches and Christians who practice Christian compassion to the poor and the hurting as a crucial aspect of their obedience to and witness of Jesus.)

This issue goes in many directions. We need to unpack it, do a better job relating the two, and a much better job of practicing both.

What’s the relationship between the TULIP and pastoral care? Is pastoral care the same as preaching TULIP?

What does a person who believes the lost are the focus of the wrath of God say to the lost about the kindness and compassion of God? How can you have one- a focus on the wrath of God- and the other still be intelligible?

These are answerable questions, but they deserve some thought, especially as so many reformation minded younger Christians begin to feel alienated by those who believe their concerns for social/human issues are evidence of apostasy from the gospel.

In Christianity, truths are sometimes oddly juxtapositioned. Jesus reconciles these things in himself, but we still have questions because there is so much Jesus didn’t do, such as start a school and reduce his message to TULIP.

We need some Holy Spirit inspired guidance to get this right. I don’t want to give up the Gospel—and TULIP isn’t the Gospel, in my opinion—and I want to encourage reformation Christians to fill in the deficit of missional thinking that was the most glaring omission of the reformers.

Interested in reading the rest of his post? Go to “Can You Give a TULIP to the Hurting?”

In his paper, "Church Planting in India," Stanley Mehta summarizes a presentation by D. R. David at the Bless India Conference held in Chennai in January 2006. He says, "amidst all the pressures and changes, the church in India is growing more rapidly than ever before. The persecution has begun to bring together many Christian leaders who have operated rather independently of one another in the past." Most of us in the Western world have heard the incredible reports coming from China, but I was really thrilled to read Mehta's explanation Read more