Dear Fellow Laborers In The Gospel,
Thom Rainer (PhD Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and President and CEO of LifeWay) has given us an incredible tool for understanding the formally unchurched and ways to reach them. I've just begun reading the book and I am hooked! The book and his research are incredibly insightful and informative.
Here are a few quotes: "The formerly unchurched in our study left little doubt as to the importance of personal evangelism in reaching the unchurched. Over one half (53%) indicated that someone from the church they joined shared Christ with them." "While the building of relationships with the unchurched is critical, we heard repeatedly that an evangelistic visit even by a stranger from the church, had an eternal impact."
Should these insights surprise us? No! The Bible teaches us that the power of God unto salvation is the Gospel. Did you realize that for every 85 church members in America there is only 1 convert annually! What does this tell us? It tells me that those who profess Christ do not evangelize the lost. God save us from religion and help us to focus on the Gospel and actively pursue a lost and dying world.
In Christ,
Jimmy
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This is Bill Roller posting 3 opportunities to share the gospel this past week. First, I have a young girl on the Jenks golf team whom the doctors say have until the end of this month to live, dying from cancer. I emailed him that I was praying that God would intervene miraculously to cure his cancer, but if God's will would be that his life not be spared, is his trust in Jesus Christ and his saving work on behalf of sinners. I used the diagnostic question, "In your opinion how does a person get to heaven" and then I answered the question, "only through trusting in the atonement of Jesus Christ" I await his answer.
ReplyDeleteMy second encounter was with a woman who came to our door, who needed a jump. She attended a charismatic church in this area, and when I asked her the question of how she understood a person gets to heaven, she said "Repent" and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior" She then went to her car and gave me several charismatic books on people who said they had been to heaven, on book on a man who said he spent 38 minutes in hell. In thinking back I wish I would have probed more on her answer.
My third encounter was this Sunday after morning worship, I was giving blood and talked to a girl who from the blood institute who was drawing my blood. She said she did not attend church regularly because she worked on Sunday, but when she did she went to Cowboy church. I again asked her the diagnostic question, her answer was believing in Jesus, who died for my sins. I asked her why she did not worship, this Savior on the Lord's day, she said because she worked. I asked her if she was regular in other disciplines, prayer, bible reading... she said she was. I thanked God tonight that He is making me more aware of inquiring into the lives of sinners like myself, whom I providentially encounter as to what their trust in eternal life is in. Thanks be to God, for the ministry of faith, a practical way of encountering the world with the Good News.
Bill