“We Christians should bother [with Evangelism] because of God the Father’s love . . . . All lovers will give anything, endure anything, do anything for the beloved. That is what our God is like. And if we are children of such a God, it stands to reason that we should mirror in our own … More Why Evangelism is at the Core (not the fringe) of Spiritual Formation
Thursday is for Discipleship: What should our churches be? “I’m a house church planter, and I am trying to figure out the core essentials of who and how we do what we do.”” “I’m a traditional church planter with a small core group. What should we be focusing on as a church?” “I’ve got a … More What are the Non-negotiables We Should be Striving for as a Church?
Discipleship Our first church plant did a survey of the men at about year ten. We found that 25% of the men, (I think it was something like 24.3%), had led someone to Christ in the previous three years. Dan Spader, the founder of Sonlife Ministry and a national leader in the area of discipleship … More Twenty Five Percent of the Men Had Led Someone to Christ in the Previous Three Years
Monday’s Discussion How do we account for the fact that millions of people in America say that they believe the Bible, believe in Jesus, believe that Jesus is God, believe that the gospel is true, believe that Jesus was telling the truth when he said that he was “the way, the truth, and the life, … More American Christians Don’t Believe What They Say They Believe
Over the last month or so, I’ve written about the problem we have in the American church-related to discipleship. (see We’ve got discipleship all wrong and Penetrating Post-Christian Communities with the Gospel and in a number of other places). But the issue keeps coming up in numerous posts and in conversations with pastors. This week … More “Making Disciples” is a Unitary Act
Update: The year was 2010 and I was teaching a Church Planting class at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School when a bright student asked a very good question. This post was a result of that encounter. I was asked a great question by a future church planter today. “How do you go about recruiting for a … More Growing a Church that Does More than Cook Fish
“Christ died for us so that we would not have to die for sin, not so that we would not have to die for others.” —John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, p. 77 Quotes from Bill Hull’s new book, Christlike: The Pursuit of Uncomplicated Obedience (Comments in [ ] are my own.) “Transformation is … More Rethinking What it Means to Be a Christian
Bill Hull has Done it Again. He’s written another book that chronicles his life-long journey into understanding the topic of discipleship. There is always more to learn. This book won’t say it all but it does represent the maturing of a lifetime of discovery into what it means to be a disciple. Previous works by … More Christlike: The Pursuit of Uncomplicated Obedience
Thursday is for Discipleship Earlier this week, Michael Fast visited the blog and asked this question: “Isn’t evangelism part of discipleship? It seems like your definition of discipleship is dealing with people who are already evangelized hence the move away from interacting with people farther from God and focussing on people who are already fully … More Two Words for One Biblical Term: How dissection obscures understanding.
Missional Discussion When a church is small, house church size, (whether it intends to stay small or grow to a mega church size is immaterial to this discussion) the amount of time that a pastor/shepherd can spend on evangelism, evangelism training, evangelistic praying, prayer walking, building relationships with non-Christians, etc., is great. The larger a … More How Do Pastors Forget About Evangelism?
