Evangelism 2008: Calm Before the Storm

I haven't posted much on evangelism lately, but that should change soon.  The main reason is that I'm doing a ton of work on some strategic planning for the next two years (and beyond) at our church.  I've had some extra meetings and lots of sketchy ideas and plans that are starting to gel.  Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll have some things nailed down and can share more about my evangelism plans for the rest of 2008.  Some of them are directly tied to our church's plans.

Here are a few books I'm currently reading, rereading, perusing, etc

Promoting the Gospel by John Dickson (info here): To be fair, I haven't gotten past the table of contents.  But that's because I just got it in the mail today from Lisa at Narwee Baptist Church in Australia.  Thanks Lisa!

unChristian by Kinnaman and Lyons: Used some stats in last Sunday's sermon.  Good resource.

Love Walked Among Us by Paul Miller: A book I reread or reskim at least yearly on the compassion of Jesus.  You can get it used for about $4 at Amazon.  Well worth it.

Redeemer Church Planting Manual by The Godfather (Tim Keller): How can you NOT own this?  It's simply outstanding.  Been using it a lot for church strategy and planning, but also pulling much on evangelism, ethnographic interviews, etc.  I'll be blogging on a few things from the book soon.

Also worthy to note is the short New Church Initiatives (NCI) paper on "The Work of an Evangelist."  Check out NCI and their other resources.

I'm curious about the Mulit-Site Exposed Conferences.  I'm not a video venue kind of guy, but I'm very open to thinking multi-site if we are growing and it makes sense for our area.  Keller's approach is my favorite, with live preaching at all locations.

Comments

[Bryan Fulton]

Wow, it's the Evangecube. I haven't seen one of those in a couple of years.

[Steve McCoy]

I knew it would drive my readers to think more evangelistically. ;)

[Shawn Wood]

Steve,

If you come to Charleston for the Multi-site exposed conference hosted by seacoast I would love to connect. At Seacoast we use video, but with a 4 person teaching team (with our senior pastor taking about 55% of weekends) we really have a lot of cool variety.

Would love to have coffee!

Shawn Wood
Teaching Pastor
Seacoast Church

[real live preacher]

I had an interesting experience with the evangecube recently. I should say that normally I might have poked fun at the evangecube. But I met this young man in a very poor neighborhood who had been using one for two years. He had made a holster for it out of a cell phone case.

And you know, it worked in that context, with poor and illiterate people. And for other reasons two. So I had a change of attitude. Still doesn't work for my context, but I won't make fun of it.

[Michael Foster]

Steve, have you talked to or been exposed to how Kaleo and Harbor Presbyterian (also in SD) are doing mulit-site? I think I have some notes from them that I'll send your way if you would like them. Great stuff. Btw, bought Vampire Weekend and I'm loving them!

[Todd Robertson]

One quick warning on the evangecube. If you flip and turn the cube in the wrong order it has been known to convert folks to Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons. So for goodness sake, be careful!
See you at Whiteboard, Steve.

[Matt Redmond]

Steve,

I just picked up unChristian and I am hoping that you will post a review when you are done...so far through 2 chapters conviction has landed heavy on me with each turn of the page...