4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism – Part 2
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4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism – Part 2


Originally posted on Christianity Matters:

Stumbling Block

In my last post, I explored ways we can build relationships with non-believers and then engage them with the gospel.

Today we continue exploring what keeps us from modeling Paul’s activity in Athens — reach out, build relationships with folks, and then engage them with the gospel where they are on a daily basis.

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism and How to Remove Them

(2) Our Idea of Christian Growth 

It’s a common idea in the church community to equate growing in our knowledge of the Bible with Christian growth. Growing as a Christian, however, doesn’t just mean growing in biblical knowledge. It is that, but also much more. It involves us growing in our love for God and others. As well as it involves us growing in our ability and desire to serve others and spread the gospel.

Since we often equate Christian growth with growth in biblical knowledge, we fill our…

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4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism – Part 1
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4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism – Part 1


Originally posted on Christianity Matters:

Stumbling Block

In my last post, I talked about the need for us to model Paul’s method of evangelism in Athens — reach out, build relationships with folks, and then engage them with the gospel where they are on a daily basis.

But often we don’t do what Paul models for us. We don’t engage people where they are on a daily basis. Why? Why don’t we do that? Well, let me offer you:

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism and How to Remove Them

(1) We Don’t Have Relationships with Non-Believers 

As Christians it is easy to focus our entire lives around the church. So much so that everyone we know either goes to our church or another church in town. When you only have relationships with Christians, however, it is hard to engage the lost on a consistent basis because you don’t know anyone who is lost. Everyone you know already…

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“He lives to heal the broken-hearted” by J.C. Ryle


Pickering Post:

Great, thanks be to God

Originally posted on Tolle Lege:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ never changes. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His heart is still as compassionate as when He was upon earth.

His sympathy with sufferers is still as strong. Let us bear this in mind, and take comfort in it. There is no friend or comforter who can be compared to Christ.

In all our days of darkness, which must needs be many, let us first turn for consolation to Jesus the Son of God. He will never fail us, never disappoint us, never refuse to take interest in our sorrows.

He lives, who made the widow’s heart sing for joy in the gate of Nain.

He lives, to receive all laboring and heavy-laden ones, if they will only come to Him by faith.

He lives, to heal the broken-hearted, and be a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

And He lives to do…

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Time to Pray to God About God


Pickering Post:

Well said

Originally posted on Messy Christians:

The first thing we notice in the Lord’s Prayer is this:

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.”

He’s our Father, not our own personal possession.

He’s a Father, perfect in all aspects of fatherhood, completely different from all earthly fathers. Discover who he is by reading your bible every day.

We are to hallow his name. What does that mean?

It’s a petition. God himself is our priority. He is not a means to any end. He is the end of all ends.

How often do we pray to God about himself?  Lamb of God

Ouch! I confess it’s rarely, if ever. I’m more eager to unroll my long list of petitions that center on me and my desires.

Hallowed means to make holy, to recognize his holiness, separation, not common.

God is unlike his created beings.

There is an unbridgeable gap between him and me and…

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“He sets our tears in His sight” by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)


Pickering Post:

Very helpful

Originally posted on Tolle Lege:

“Prayer is to be free of much speaking (Matthew 6:7), but not of much entreaty, if the fervor and attention persist. To speak much in prayer is to transact a necessary piece of business with unnecessary words. But to entreat much of Him whom we entreat is to knock by a long-continued and devout uplifting of the heart (Luke 18:1, 7).

In general, this business of prayer is transacted more by sighs than by speech (Romans 8:26), more by tears than by utterance (Psalm 126:5-6).

But He sets our tears in His sight (Psalm 56:8) and our groaning is not hidden from Him (Psalm 38:9) who created all things by His Word and who does not need human words.”

–Augustine of Hippo, “Letter 130 (A.D. 412)” in Letters, Volume 2 (83-130), Trans. Wilfrid Parsons (Washington, D.C.: CUA Press: 1953/2008), 391.

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Je ne suis pas Charlie, Je suis Charlene


Pickering Post:

Well said

Originally posted on The Wee Flea:

My latest article on Christian Today – as usual comments and responses welcome!

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/david.robertson.je.ne.suis.pas.charlie.je.suis.charlene/46107.htm

They came in their millions. Led by their political leaders, linking arms and walking down the streets of Nairobi. They were protesting against the slaughter of 2,000 people in the Nigerian city of Baga after Boko Haram went rampaging through the city killing women, children and the elderly who were too frail to flee. And they protested the death of 37 people killed by a car bomb in Yemen on the same day as the Charlie Hebdo killings. And the three people killed, two of them ten-year-old female suicide bombers, in the Nigerian town of Potiskum – one screaming in terror as she tried to run across the road before her bomb exploded.

And they came especially to commemorate Charlene. A lovely ten year old child from the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, who was not even…

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