Evangelism | TLG Christian News

Andy Stanley: Please Relent or Step Down from Pastoral Ministry

26/12/2016 0 Comment

If anyone has not heard by this point, Andy Stanley, being infamous for making some foolish statements about the nature of the church and the scriptures, has done it yet again. Yet the interesting thing here for those paying close attention, is that the recent debacle over him making the claim that Christianity doesn’t hinge off of the biblical account of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, is really just the outworking of his previous statements. Incidentally, it also mirrors the decent into libe..

WCF 15: Repentance Unto Life

26/12/2016 0 Comment

Concerning how we understand repentance, Bible-believing Christians should be wary of at least three major errors. First, the Roman Catholic Church has turned repentance into a sacrament, where in the sacrament of penance, it is believed that penance is actually a meritorious work by which sinners make real satisfaction for their sin (add to the work of Christ). Second, and similarly, Arminianism believes that repentance is a work on the part of the individual that is a necessary precursor to re..

How to Respond When People Say ‘No’ to Jesus (Part 1)

22/12/2016 0 Comment

InterVarsity evangelist offers words of encouragement

Getting up the nerve to share Jesus with others around us takes all the courage we can muster. We pray and ask God for wisdom, we review what we’ll say in our minds and perhaps a few Bible verses, and with palpitations in our chest, we begin to share Jesus.

For many Christians, it is the hardest thing they do. Sharing Jesus with others puts us at both God’s mercy as well as the mercy of those with whom we share. One of the most challenging ..

Why Your Church Should be Doing Bridge Events Instead of Outreach Events

21/12/2016 0 Comment

Churches that have a desire to use an outreach event aimed at reaching their community for Christ struggle with strategies that are effective.

Over the years I’ve seen churches (including mine) use big events that require a lot of time, money and volunteers, only to find that they were relatively unsuccessful at connecting unchurched people into their congregation.

Of course, there’s no silver bullet when it comes to using events to reach people. However, there are some guiding principles of w..

7 Steps from Student to Missionary

18/12/2016 0 Comment

You’ve come to Christ through a campus ministry. You’re excited about your faith. You’ve read Radical or Don’t Waste Your Life or Let the Nations Be Glad. After some discipleship, you feel a called to serve long-term in a culture not your own. What should you do next?

My primary aim in this article is to offer guidance to college students considering missions, and to those discipling them. Yet these things could be applied to anyone desiring to serve in cross-cultural ministry.

Here are seven ..

The Collected Best Christian Books of 2016

16/12/2016 0 Comment

For the past couple of weeks my RSS feeder has been humming with list after list of the best books of 2016. It seems that just about every avid reader I follow is eager to share his or her picks for the year that was. I love these lists and decided I’d compile them to look for patterns and repeats. Here, then, are the collected best Christian books of 2016. Each one of these is from a blog or web site I read regularly.

We will begin with 7 titles that found their way onto at least 3 best-0f lists:

None Like Him by Jen Wilkin (5)
A Peculiar Glory by John Piper (4)
You Are What You Love by James K.A. Smith (4)
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance (3)
Making Sense of God by Tim Keller (3)
The Fractured Republic by Yuval Levin (3)
The Whole Christ by Sinclair B. Ferguson (3)
If you are looking for something to read or something to buy for a gift, you probably can’t go wrong with any of them!

And now here are each of lists of the best Christian books of 2016. You can visit the sites to read the..

Theology & church growth

16/12/2016 0 Comment

Canadian researchers conducted a study of mainline Protestant churches (Anglican, Presbyterian, Uniting, and Evangelical Lutheran [the liberal denomination, as opposed to the confessional Lutheran Church of Canada]), comparing traits in congregations that were growing and those that are not.
They found that congregations that were theologically conservative are growing, and those that were theologically liberal are not. (Go here for the complete study.)
After the jump, religion columnist Terry M..

Why the Mainline Shrinkage?

16/12/2016 0 Comment

It might be time for these researchers to have a conversation.
FIRST: In the Dallas News, David Millard Haskell writes:
Those who don’t attend church regularly but are scouting for Christmas services this year might be surprised to find fewer mainline Protestant churches around these days.
Across the English-speaking world the numerical decline of mainline Protestantism is accelerating. The largest mainline Protestant denominations in the United States are the United Methodist Church, the Evange..

Stand and Share: My Interview with Outreach Magazine

12/12/2016 0 Comment

The Decline of Christian Evangelism … and What We Can Do About It

Ed, you study the big picture of evangelism in America today. Give us a snapshot.

American Christians have moved away from a focus on sharing the gospel. Historically, there are seasons to this, where people emphasize gospel proclamation for a while, then emphasize gospel demonstration for a while. Right now, we’ve been moving into a season for about the last decade where our emphasis has been on gospel demonstration. I believe ..

Disappointing Worship Services

11/12/2016 0 Comment

Some of my favorite memories are times in worship when everything just works — the surroundings are inspiring, the people are welcoming, and the sermon sends me out with a hope-filled outlook for my future.

But for every thrilling memory, I have ten memories where things didn’t work quite right, and I departed from church disappointed. Perhaps the surrounding vibe didn’t reflect my preferences. Maybe the people were unfriendly. Or perhaps the sermon didn’t leave me feeling ready to conquer the..