The Resolute

So I said I’d write about this ABE/Evangelism thing… and I haven’t… sorry. Basically because it’s so nuanced I really want to make sure I say it the right way. So it will come but it might take a bit longer.

Was listening to Col Marshal¹ at college today discussing Recruiting and Training. As a side point he spoke of that missing ground in our congregations in evangelism: we know how to invite our friends to an event our church is running, and that’s great. But what about the rest of the year? How do we go at doing the evangelism all year round and not just at those big events? It got me thinking.

Think there’s lots of important answer: teaching good theology on evangelism/sin/etc, discipling, reading the bible with people, modeling evangelism, training, and many more. And we’ve got to be doing all that.

But let me also suggest something we came up with at St Andrew’s last year: Activity Based Evangelism (ABE).

Think of it like another tool in the arsenal for aiding and promoting evangelism. It’s not a silver bullet and it can’t replace all those other things I mentioned above. I also don’t think it’s the most important tool. But what it is is a tool to help those people who want their friends to hear about Christ but who struggle at doing it. Maybe they are shy, or not confident talking on their feet, or they are not one of those people who can just bring every conversation to the gospel. ABE might be for them. And everyone else.

So what is Activity Based Evangelism? Well you’ll have to wait for another blog post for that. Sorry. In fact before I get to that I think I’ll use my next post to talk a little about “big event evangelism”.

1. author of Trellis and the Vine [↩]

St Andy’s is having a Men’s Breakfast in a couple of weeks. Here’s the promo video.

Not sure that it meets all the requirements envisaged by my last men’s ministry post…

Dear Friend,

Let me tell you why I’m a Christian.

I’m a good person. Well, most of the time. Like, I don’t really do much bad stuff.

And I know that God doesn’t like that I do do some bad stuff. In fact it makes God a bit angry. So angry that he can’t be around me.

But because God loves me so much he still wants to be friends with me. So he decided he’d better send Jesus to save me.

So Jesus died on the cross, basically God got angry with Jesus instead of me. All I gotta do now is be mates with Jesus Christ.

Now J.C. and me are best mates, he’s my bro. He totally looks after me, makes sure I don’t get hurt, if I need anything, Jesus is my man.

He’s got me sorted for heaven too. It’s going to be one big party, sooo much fun. Everyone cool will be there, my mates Bill and Trev and Sal and Bazza.

Can’t wait!

Signed,

Me, Me, Me.