Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Unstoppable Overflow of Jesus


"The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ." Acts 5:41-42

The power and fruitfulness of the early Church came from simple people who had experienced the personal rescue of Jesus.  They learned to abide in His power, His promises, His truth and to let Him use them.  They boldly took advantage of everyday opportunities to testify to the life Jesus Christ provides, and they rejoiced when that witness demanded the sacrifice of suffering.  But their focus was on Christ, on following the promptings of the Holy Spirit, letting Him overflow from their lives.

"We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him." Acts 5:32

So today, as with everyday, rejoice in the witness of the Holy Spirit within you.  And with the Spirit’s power, embrace the unstoppable mission of Jesus. 

Because Jesus wins,                
Pastor Luke Dudenhofer,
New Life Community Church, Bridgeport

Friday, July 22, 2011

Open-Air Preaching Workshop Notes

Marcus Constantine led this workshop on open-air preaching.


Click to download the notes from this evangelism training as a Word document.


Open-air preaching workshop notes:
"Download"

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Overcoming Fear

We experience fear so often that many learn to live with it and tolerate it, as if fear is immovable. Fear is no excuse for disobeying our Lord’s clear commission to make disciples. If we have faith in Jesus the size of a mustard seed, we can overcome the mountain of fear (Matthew 17:20). 


“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Romans 14:23 explains, “…everything that does not come from faith is sin.” When we’re plagued by fear, we must confess our sin to the Lord Jesus and receive His unconditional love anew. His perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). When we ask, Jesus will increase our faith and help our unbelief (Mark 9:24). 


All the power we need is available to us as we rely on the Holy Spirit and surrender to Him. He empowers us to be witnesses for Jesus (Acts 1:8).  We can remind ourselves of God’s promises to be with us, to empower us, and to draw near to us. When we confess fear and surrender our feelings to the Lord Jesus, we can step out in faith and bold love to witness.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Principles for Using the Law in Evangelism

What guides the content of our message? Imagine if someone came to your door and told you a guy paid a $20,000 speeding fine on your behalf. You would think they are crazy. You’d be asking, “What fine?” “What did I do wrong?” It wouldn’t make sense and you wouldn’t be at a place to be grateful that your debt was paid because of such confusion. Beyond that the person would be accusing you of wrongdoing when as far as you’re concerned… you’re entirely innocent. Similarly one of the average gospel presentations today is to begin with “You are a sinner” moving to “Jesus died for your sins” and then to “accept Jesus into your heart.” To tell the average person in America they are a sinner without explanation or clarification amounts to little more than name-calling. If your child is misbehaving you wouldn’t look at them and say, “Honey, all children disobey their parents.” In the same way we quote Romans 3:23, “All have sinned…” without any of the rest of what Scripture says about that.

Now imagine the police knock on your door and say, “On the way to work today an officer clocked you at driving 55mph in a school zone and you’ve incurred a large fine for your disregard for the law. We were going to process your crime and appropriate punishment, but someone you don’t even know paid that fine this afternoon.” It would make more sense if you were told what you’d done wrong first. To do this we use the 10 Commandments (the Law of God) to show someone their sin and need for the Savior before presenting the gospel. Consider the following; “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.” –Galatians 3:24. “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET." –Romans 7:7. “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God;” –Romans 3:19. “But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching,” -1 Timothy 1:8-10. God’s law is not a list of moral guidelines for humanity. It’s not a way to try pleasing God and hopefully get to heaven. It’s a mirror to see ourselves in truth. It is a mirror to show us that we have sinned. It doesn’t help us… it just leaves us helpless.

Consider also the following illustration: Two people on an airplane are both given a parachute. Passenger A is told the parachute will improve his flight. He believes the claim and in an experimental fashion puts on the parachute to test the claim. Eventually the parachute becomes uncomfortable in his seat and the other passengers begin to laugh at him for wearing a parachute on a plane. They make fun of him even. He becomes discouraged and disillusioned, throws the parachute on the floor, and is angry at those who gave them the parachute because he was promised a better flight and only got trials, persecution, etc. Passenger B is given the parachute and told that the plane is going to crash and he is going to have to jump. He gratefully receives the parachute and puts it on. He ignores the discomfort in his seat and withstands the mockery of those around him because his mind is consumed with the thought of what would happen to him if he jumped without that parachute. Later a flight attendant even accidentally pours hot coffee into his lap. It burns. Does the man then pull the parachute off his back throw it to the ground in anger? No he doesn’t. The coffee has nothing to do with the parachute or the jump to come. Another common thing to say in many gospel presentations is that people should come to Jesus because He will bring them peace, joy, fulfillment, and lasting happiness. Is this true? Absolutely… these things are the fruit of salvation. It’s not legitimate however to use the fruits of salvation as draw cards for salvation. Why? This usually ignores the promise of trials, temptation, and tribulation that come with salvation. “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” -2 Timothy 3:12. This makes salvation look better, but people need peace with God in salvation before they can ever experience peace because of God.

More importantly this may produce “decisions for Christ,” but does it really produce salvation? When we give people the wrong motive for coming to Christ they will appear to come, but will be looking for a better lifestyle or to merely add Jesus to what they’re already doing. When they begin to experience problems and when their life doesn’t get better as promised they reject all of it and grow bitterly into what we usually call “backsliders.” These often in fact become the hardest people to witness to because they feel they’ve gone through the motions, they’ve “been there and done that,” but pragmatism prevails as it didn’t “work.” They’ll be able to recount stories of going to church, going to small groups, and attending seminars that amounted to nothing. It was all because they didn’t understand the foundation of the gospel. When people come for the right motives they will be able to withstand the hard times and the circumstances of life to press on by the strength of the Holy Spirit. They won’t reject Christianity entirely when life doesn’t go their way. They will undeniably be a “new creation” that views the world through new eyes as the Bible teaches. This kind of transformation can only come when someone understands the essentials of the gospel and comes to Christ in true repentance and faith toward Christ. “For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.” -2 Corinthians 7:10. When someone realizes the fact that they will one day die (jump from the plane), their need to flee the wrath to come, and recognize their sin as truly sinful they can say with Paul that the law was, “effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.” -Romans 7:13. This is precisely what will make the grace of the gospel make sense and the desire for the cure will be driven from motives that are informed, honest, and pure. For a further explanation on this in sermon form you can visit www.hellsbestkeptsecret.com or www.livingwaters.com.

A Survey of Contemporary Evangelism

What comes to mind when you think of street preachers, street evangelism, etc.? What do you think most Christians think of these things? For many in the Church these ideas bring to mind images of crazed arrogant people with a bullhorn and a few large signs with Bible verses on them. They imagine the presentation of such evangelism to be centered on external sins and even irrelevant issues (fornication, smoking, drinking, etc.) with a minor mention of Jesus if any. The phrases “turn or burn” or “hellfire and brimstone” may come to mind. These stereotypes are understandable. These people do exist and do head out to the streets and the front of concerts every weekend. A man was once street preaching in downtown Ft. Worth Texas with a sign that read, “…God is angry with the wicked every day…” –Psalm 7:11. This is true. This is Scripture. What was missing however was the other side of the story… the grace of the gospel. While these people have good intentions and seem to miss the mark we can’t judge all of it and say it’s wrong or that only some people are gifted for street evangelism. Anyone can do this and it will be a rewarding experience that will challenge your personality and perceptions. We can correct this stereotype without ignoring both the truth and the grace of the gospel and do so in an attitude of earnest loving concern for souls.

With that in mind, I have a question for you. Are evangelism and sharing the gospel the same thing? It's not a trick question. For much of modern Christianity while we may verbally admit they are the same... we end up denying this in our practices. We've made evangelism less than sharing the gospel in our contentment with methods that fall short of actually sharing the message. Evangelism can be more than sharing the gospel, but it can never be less than that. There are generally four ways contemporary Christianity approaches evangelism:

1) Lifestyle Evangelism (Matthew 5:16, 1 Peter 2:11-12): This is probably the most popular form of evangelism today. It’s often expressed by saying something like, “We should live in such a way that the world takes notice that we have something they don’t have.” The hope is that they would approach us and ask us about our lifestyle and our Jesus. It’s presented as a noble calling to share your faith "by the way you live." While Scripture does elude to our lifestyle having an effect on a watching world, it’s doubtful that the Lord intended us to base our evangelism in a passive hopeful expectation that unbelievers would grow interested in our way of life without us taking an active step in verbally making Christ known. At the end of the day we must admit that we don’t live as perfectly as Christ did nor do we have His fanfare. We all still sin and sometimes badly. Our lifestyle shouldn’t and ultimately can’t determine our chances to share.

D. L. Moody was once street preaching and a woman approached him and criticized his method of evangelism. He asked her how she shared her faith. She admitted that she didn’t. He replied, “I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.” Often when this approach is our default we think we are obeying the Great Commission when in reality we are rarely sharing at all. It becomes more an effort at being kind than sharing Christ. If anything it translates to a brief abstract mention of church, Jesus, Christianity in general, or a Bible verse… with no clear and honest explanation of sin, hell, judgment, the reason Christ died, the resurrection, and the biblical response to be saved. St. Francis of Assisi is quoted when he said, “Preach the gospel and if necessary use words.” He founded the Franciscan Order of Friars and preachers. Francis said this in reaction to the fact that some of the preachers in his order were involved in some things a preacher of the gospel should not be involved in. He certainly didn’t intend for it to be used as it commonly is today to support the idea that words aren’t necessary to communicate the gospel. The gospel is a message and a message requires words. God chose the text of Scripture and the preaching of the apostles to pass the gospel onto us and we need not neglect using words ourselves. One of the major tenets of the Franciscan Order was “A godly life must support the witness of preaching.” The issue then for Francis and even today at the heart of this form of evangelism is fundamentally a desire for holiness. We are to live holy lives because Scripture calls us to do this. That must however be married to our proclamation of the gospel to “support” it not to replace it. If we don’t share the message we cannot call what we’re doing “evangelism” in any legitimate sense. Romans 10:14 asks, “…how can they hear without a preacher?” St. Francis also said, "Unless you preach everywhere you go, there is no use going anywhere to preach." Do we follow this advice?

2) Servant/Social Evangelism (Matthew 25:40, Luke 10:30-37): This generally places an emphasis on helping the poor, feeding the hungry, and meeting the tangible needs of the less fortunate. A common contemporary expression of this is a mission trip to build houses and do manual labor. This can extend to efforts at political and moral reform or Dominion Theology (a desire for a Christian government/one in which God is the head). A church once made a youtube video titled, “Servant Evangelism.” The video showed a pastor and a number of youth hitting the local park with coolers filled with canned soft drinks. They distributed the drinks with something to the effect of saying, “Jesus loves you” and that was all. Is this evangelism? A larger church once hit the streets of a downtown area on a warm day with cold water bottles. These bottles had a custom designed label on them with their church information (service times, address, website, etc.) and circling the top of the label a line that read, “God so loved the world that He gave…” (John 3:16). The question becomes... what did God give? Bottled water? His Son? Why are we afraid to say that? A group of college Bible students once wanted to make an impact on the surrounding community and fulfill a class assignment. One of them baked cookies. The group met together and packaged them with small cards that read something to the effect of “The students of Moody Bible Institute thank you for what you’re doing for the community” and went about handing them out to the employees at local restaurants up and down Chicago Avenue. Will this alone reach those people with what they need to hear?

The heart of Servant Evangelism when done well is needed on many fronts. There will always be those whose hearts burn for the needy and who thrive on a principal of justice and care for the oppressed. Jesus Himself said we will always have the poor among us. At Moody we have another group/PCM on campus called Frontlines specifically to the homeless on the streets of Chicago. Through all of these things however we cannot forget that the gospel must go forth. The trouble is that service projects usually begin with the goal of serving and they stop there. The pressure on participants then becomes to end the same way it began. Success on a practical level turns into how much fun you had and maybe how many smiles you got from those you served. These things must also support our preaching of the gospel, because if the temporal replaces the eternal we have lost sight of the main thing God specifically, biblically, and assuredly chooses to use to bring men and women to Himself. A man had the desire to preach under a tent one hot day. It was a large tent on the lawn of a Baptist Mega-church. The church volunteers were aiding the victims of Hurricane Katrina that we all remember so well. Under that tent as the environment resembled an outdoor flea market he caught the crowd’s attention and began to preach the message of salvation. Afterward he reflected on the experience and later wrote these words, “God forbid we clothe their backs, feed their stomachs, and send them off to hell!” May we never forget what the apostle Paul also said, “For what I received I passed onto you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” -1 Cor. 15:3. Again there is nothing wrong with helping those in need, but we can’t ignore their eternal needs and in fact should make those needs of "first importance."

3) Relational Evangelism (Acts 8:27-39): This is usually expressed in the form of Friendship evangelism. Someone desires to build a relationship with a person and once they’ve developed credibility to then discuss spiritual things and/or share the gospel. For some out there this is the best way to reach them. Some have so much animosity toward anything close to Christianity or even religion in general. Perhaps they’ve been burned by a church or see most “Christians” as hypocrites. These things can over time form a hardened exterior that can often best be broken down over a longer span of time and regular contact. This is most easily accomplished when working or going to school in a secular environment that brings us in the vicinity of the same non-Christians regularly. Moody Professor Clive Craigen who teaches Introduction to Disciplemaking makes this emphasis his primary method of evangelism, but makes a timely point when he says, “You can be relational without having a relationship.” Very often we believe we need to build a friendship before we can ever share the message they need to hear. This usually degenerates to a situation where we develop many friendships with non-Christians and some of them for years without ever discussing the hard question of where they will go when they die. They may know we are a Christian and try to curb their profanity when in our presence, but they may not know how they can be saved as well. The fact remains that the longer we leave it the harder it gets. Colossians 4:5 says, "Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity." There must be bottom-line urgency in our efforts. May we fear the Lord enough for our wisdom to begin and may that wisdom motivate us to share, for our listener may not fear the Lord.

We can develop a fear of offending someone or losing the friendship and time goes on and on. A man once worked in a high rise building and he worked near the same woman each day. He tried and tried to work himself up to sharing his faith with her, but just couldn’t do it. One morning as he walked up to the building he found that this very woman had been overcome with depression and had jumped from her high level of the building only to meet the pavement below before his very eyes. He never shared with her. We must admit that death is possible for anyone at any time. We don’t know the future and if we really do care about the eternity of a person we can build a relationship in a few minutes. Philip did witness relationally with the Ethiopian Eunich, but he didn’t wait a year to share with the guy! One of the ways Student Outreach does this is to do 1-2-1 witnessing. We offer a gospel tract and begin a spiritual conversation with someone on the streets. This will be discussed in detail later. Once again the point is that the gospel goes forth. Our goal should not simply be to get to know the lost (while we should be genuine in that also), but to share the actual message of salvation.

4) Confrontational Evangelism (1 Cor. 9:16, 1 Cor. 15:3): The word “confrontational” is used out of convenience, but it usually has a negative connotation. It would be more accurate to call it Active or Intentional Evangelism. This is the kind of evangelism that is direct and purposeful in going out to share. This is where you’ll find Student Outreach (another ministry group at Moody) lands out of the four. We are primarily a proclamation ministry. While we have incorporated various aspects of some of the others mentioned above from time to time (and are open to new ideas and anything you would bring to the table), we primarily focus on sharing the message. We do of course have conversations (some of which can last well over a half hour). We don’t restrict anyone or force them to end a conversation prematurely. There are precautions taken however and we do remain responsible to see that everyone arrives back on campus safely.

We aren’t just advocating a “hit and run” kind of evangelism where we have a monologue, shake their hand, and leave. The context in which we minister is usually one in which you see different people each week and don’t have a lot of time with them (while that isn’t always true of course). This is what we’re training others to be able to do so you can share the gospel in a reasonably short amount of time, with anyone you meet, at anytime you meet them, and in a clear concise way. This is also one of the most challenging forms of evangelism because it forces you to leap out of your comfort zone, speak to strangers about the truth of God’s Word, and enter the night not knowing who you’ll meet or what questions you’ll be asked. In this we want to encourage you to pray for an urgency in reaching the lost. Don't let fear or popularity determine your evangelism. When our perspective is truly informed by the reality of Hell, the severity of sin, the fate of the lost, and the offer of the cross it will influence our methodology. Regardless of how you’ve shared your faith in the past we want you to have the urgency and zeal of the apostles and the early church who could not but testify of what they'd seen and heard. (1 John 1:3)

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Reaching Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons - Evangelism Training Session MP3s

Nick Romero led sessions on sharing the Gospel with Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.

Click to download MP3 audio files of the sessions.

Witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses:
"Download"
Ministering to Mormons:
"Download"


Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Moody Radio - Witnessing in the CTA Subways

Mark Elfstrand interviewed Matthew Rivera on Moody Radio about open air preaching and evangelism in the C TA subways with Student Outreach.
Moody Radio Student Outreach spot Mp3:

Friday, April 22, 2011

Relevance: worthy ideal or contemporary idol?

by John Clark, instructor of theology at Moody Bible Institute

      If our Christian witness is to be credible and compelling, we must adapt to our cultural context but never adopt our cultural context. 
      We ought not to look for common ground upon which to identify with our culture, for our identity is found elsewhere. Rather, we ought to look for strategic points of contact with our culture, points at which the Gospel might address the specific issues and predicaments of our day so as to critique, challenge and, by the mercy and might of the Spirit, overturn the unbelief and error of our non-Christian contemporaries. When Christians do not adapt to their culture in such a way, they fail to communicate. When Christians adopt their culture, they obscure or even forfeit the substance of the Gospel. 
      As a case in point, consider the contemporary church’s prevailing preoccupation with so-called relevance. To be sure, relevance, rightly understood, is a good thing. So is our desire to be timely and pertinent. Then what is the problem? Listen carefully to current Christian sermonizing and song writing. Look closely at current Christian literature or at the current state of the church in general. The problem is that we, like our non-Christian contemporaries, tend to associate “relevance” with the cutting edge and the latest trend. That is, we tend to adopt contemporary culture’s misguided understanding of relevance, and thus we uncritically pursue an unworthy ideal. Worse still, we tend to believe that this so-called relevance will grant us legitimacy with our non-Christian culture, and thus we faithlessly forge a contemporary idol.
      Yet relevance, rightly understood, bears little to no resemblance to contemporary culture’s concept of it. According to the Latin term relevāns, relevance describes something which relieves, something which lifts or lightens a burden. What are the burdens of our day that need to be lifted or lightened? Ironically, one such burden is our misguided understanding of relevance, which saddles us, under the guise of significance, to the tyranny of the transient, the trendy and the trivial. Most importantly, however, we need to be relieved of fear, shame, alienation and meaninglessness—those pervading byproducts of sin which incessantly lap at our lives. 
      Therefore, that which is most relevant to our contemporary culture is that which has eternal significance: namely, the Gospel, for the Gospel acquaints us with and conforms us to the living Lord—Jesus Christ—who confronts and overturns the idols of this and every age.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Dr. John Fuder leaves 17-year legacy of urban evangelism at Moody Bible Institute

With a vision for outreach and a zeal for equipping the saints, John Fuder, Moody Theological Seminary (MTS) professor of urban studies, leaves a legacy of 17 years. In the fall, Fuder will transition to teaching as an adjunct professor. He explained that his current program of urban studies will be combined with the intercultural studies major as part of a curriculum merger with MTS-Michigan. “The overall challenge is the economy,” he explained. “We needed a core curriculum to apply to both campuses.”


Serving with Moody since 1994, Fuder initiated the urban studies program on the graduate level. It evolved as he connected graduate students with ministry internships in the city. He noted, “I saw the need for urban outreach and thought, ‘God really wants us to have broken hearts over these people.’”


In 1996, the Summer Olympics were in Atlanta. Fuder and Michael McDuffee, professor of theology, saw the opportunity for ministry. With 30 students, they began a five-week endeavor to evangelize on the streets of Atlanta. They received training to preach in the open air and engaged people in conversation. Fuder recalled the group was born out of a desire to “provide output after having received so much input from our classes.”


From this team of students developed Moody’s Student Outreach group, whose focus is to share the gospel and equip believers in evangelism. Alongside Fuder, many of these students initiated the annual event known as Service in the City, which is meant to expose students to different cultures and intentionally partner with churches. “God gripped hearts and bent students toward a greater sense of compassion for the city,” he said. “They were gaining a broader understanding of justice, speaking up for those who couldn’t speak for themselves.”


Fuder and his wife will be working for a non-profit organization, equipping the body of Christ for justice and compassion ministries. He will also be training believers at Park Community Church in Chicago and engaging in ministry with various campuses.


Fuder most clearly saw the Lord at work during his service at Moody through “witnessing the impact of students applying the Word of God,” he said. “God’s heart still breaks for those that are hurting. He wants to do greater things in our city.”

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Living Truth - Marcus' Blog


I want to share my blog with you also.
I've loaded several writings related to evangelism and Gospel sharing!
"Grace, mercy, and peace, which come from God the Father and from Jesus Christ—the Son of the Father—will continue to be with us who live in truth and love. How happy I was to meet some of your children and find them living according to the truth, just as the Father commanded" (2 John 3-4).