I have read a book entitled “101 Ways to Reach Your Community” by Steve Sjogren who is the founding pastor of Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati. (A full review will come later.) He is a graduate of Lutheran Bible Institute and is the founding pastor of that non-denominational mega-church. In that book there are some very unique ways to draw the community to your church.  He also wrote another book called “Irresistible Evangelism”. Both books are worth the read.  He grew his church to more than 6,000 and he kept Jesus front and center in his ministry the whole way. It … Continue reading Some Personal Views on Outreach – Multipronged Outreach

Who are the unchurched and why aren’t they there? Here are some statistics about our mission field Group Born Attend Church Builders Born Before 1946 51% Boomers 1946 – 1964 41% Busters 1965 – 1976 34% Bridgers 1977 – 1994 29% Source: Surprising Insights from the Unchurched by Thom S. Rainer , Zondervan Press 2001    The growing ranks of the unchurched are not due to problems limited to certain geographical areas Over 80% of Americans say religious faith is very important to their lives and yet less than half go to church. Less than 30% of the New Homesteaders … Continue reading Why aren’t they here???

I am making a rare Saturday post to give attention to Trevin Wax’s blog posting for today. Go to http://trevinwax.com/2009/03/21/how-scholarship-shields-us-from-the-bible/ .  It gives credence to my belief that today’s Christians are generally not doing a very good job of understanding what Jesus says in the Gospels. It looks like this was also not uncommon a hundred years ago. Will we ever learn that Jesus really does expect us to actually do what he says. Thanks Trevin.  I will be picking up a book or two by Soren Kierkegaard. Continue reading Kingdom People Blog Post.

Here is another impromptu post related to a discussion I recently had with another Christian. First of all I am a regular supporter, both with my time and money, of a local Christian shelter and soup kitchen. During my discussions with my Christian friend I mentioned that the support of our church to this mission has almost dried up in the recent months. I have tried numerous way to spur support but to no avail. My friend made the statement that maybe we should not ask people to support things like this during these tough times. My friend said many … Continue reading Fair Weather Christians

I imagine everyone has heard the term “you reap what you sow”. There is a lot of reaping and sowing going on in the Bible but I have not been able to find this reference in any of them. Are some of the bad things that happen in our lives a result of our unchristian behavior? Some of the red letters around this theme are:  John 9:2-5 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work … Continue reading Do we reap what we sow??

 For those of us who grew up with MAD magazine the title of this posting is very familiar. Alfred E. Neuman the main character in the magazine was constantly captioned to say that. I know I am giving my age away with this knowledge since Mad magazine was published in the 1950’s and that was ages ago for many bloggers. I regularly spent my 35 cent weekly allowance for a copy of Mad Magazine! If you are interested in learning more about Alfred go to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_e_newman  Little did I know then that there was a biblical basis for … Continue reading What me worry??

With tomorrow being the beginning of yet another year I thought it would be appropriate to talk a little about the concept of Jubilee. Here is some info about Jubilee from Wikipedia. a Jubilee year is mentioned to occur every fifty years, in which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest. Jubilee was an ancient Jewish tradition. It mainly mentioned in the Old Testament in Leviticus but Jesus referred to it as the year of the Lord’s favor in Luke 4 “The Spirit of the Lord is on … Continue reading Jubilee

On this blog and in my life I try to learn the Lord’s message wherever I can find it. I am just not one to cling to one particular denominational line of thought. I found some inspiring words from Pop Benedicts Christmas message yesterday. He said “wherever an increasingly uncertain future is regarded with apprehension, even in affluent nations.” “In each of these places may the light of Christmas shine forth and encourage all people to do their part in a spirit of authentic solidarity,” “If people look only to their own interests, our world will certainly fall apart.” About … Continue reading The Pope’s Christmas Message

 Here are the red letters I will concentrate on for today’s posting. Since I haven’t learned how to make actual red letters in WordPress yet they are actually in black. But, what the heck.   “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love … Continue reading Love your Enemies??

 Ok this maybe anti-American but Jesus was definitely anti-stuff.  When Jesus sent out his disciples to spread the Word he told them to take nothing with them. They weren’t even allow to take and extra pair of sandals for their long walk and they did a lot of walking in those days! And then remember the rich man who approached Jesus to learn how to get to heaven. That ended up with Jesus telling him to sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor and then follow Jesus and his ragtag team.  Of course the rich man, … Continue reading Jesus was Anti-Stuff