Mission
Spreading The Gospel Amid A Refugee Crisis
In other words, the key question seems to be this: In light of terror attacks worldwide, is bringing 10,000 refugees from the Middle East really a safe decision? While we shouldn’t downplay these concerns, I do wonder what would…
Halloween Is A Good Time To Share The Gospel
Jeff Vanderstelt offers helpful insight on how our culture’s method of celebrating halloween offers an opportunity to share the good news of God’s kingdom with neighbors who show up on our…
The Academic Christian
Paul Lim talks about his experience as an evangelical Christian on the campus of Vanderbilt University. He identifies ways that Christians can act as a “missional agents” in an environment that increasingly eschews religion in general and christianity in…
Avoid The Trap Of Success By Focusing On Fruit
It feels that at some point, we might have lost our way. Perhaps we became more concerned with success than fruitfulness. Jesus says we evaluate things in the Kingdom on their fruitfulness…but somewhere along the way it became about…
The Harvest Is Plentiful, But We’re Asleep
There’s a sense of urgency tied up in the word, “harvest.” Harvest also connotes hard work. Picking produce, reaping crops, and all its associated tasks are not for the faint of heart. There will be sweat. When you combine…
God Commiserates When You Are Angry At Injustice
I got angry at others who did not feel the same as me—all of those nice people on Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram, living their normal lives while everyone I knew was falling apart. I tried to poke sticks…
Public Violence Against Christians In The Middle East Opens Doors For The Gospel
The beheadings by the Islamic State in Libya have resulted in unprecedented sympathy for Egypt’s Christians, who are increasingly finding common identity across denominational lines. The martyrdoms have also allowed Copts a platform to witness to the realities of their…
ISIS Beheaded 21 People Of The Cross But The Story Isn’t Over Yet
When the day is done and last of the lights are turned out and my head hits the pillow, all I can think of is the faces of The 21 and their surrendered heads, their heads carrying the full…
And God Said, “Let There Be Laundry”
Many years ago my church was pondering how to create a “third space” in our neighborhood. A third space is a place where people can mix on a regular basis, a place that is relaxed and non-threatening. A lot…
Kingdom Work Is Not Identical With Western Development
In the video above, Brian Fikkert points out how Western notions of success are flawed and lead to a failure to promote human flourishing. In complement to the video, Joshua Butler explains in the article below that we in…
Foster Care Is A Window Into The Gospel
Opening your heart to love any child is risky and requires a loss of self. Opening your heart and home to a foster child may seem especially risky. But in losing ourselves, we gain. We grow in understanding how Jesus loved…
13 Marks Of A Mission-Minded Person
Mission-minded people are different. That’s it. Somehow they manage to see the world from another perspective. The things they do and the decisions they make are just different than what other people would usually do. You can find them…
Your Church Is Only As Good As Its Disciples
Jon Tyson explains how the church gets distracted from its mission of making disciples of Jesus. Instead, the culture is making disciples, and doing a much better job of it than the church. That’s a big…
Sunday Sermon: The Cross Reconciles Us To God AND To One Another
Is not the mission of God to see people not only reconciled to God, but also diverse groups reconciled to each other? In this video Leonce Crump challenges us to pursue racial reconciliation in light of the…
You Don’t Need A Youth Ministry, You Just Need Families
I believe that one of the essential jobs of the local church is to equip Christian parents to take the lead in spiritually training their children. Passing faith to our kids is not the church’s job – it is…
Charting A Better Course For Unity In The Body Of Christ
When the path to unity starts with the meeting/church service/ or gathering, then I think its trajectory is skewed from the beginning. I think mission is the better path to unity. Unite in the furtherance of the gospel. Unite…
5 Things We Can’t Do If We Are Going To “Be Missional”
I cannot define the word “missional,” at least not in an authoritative or definitive way, for everyone. But I can tell you why I think it must include Jesus’ mission to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). This…
Every Christian Is A Missionary | David Platt
David Platt explains how every Christian is a missionary. Christians are the people of God with the Word of God and the Spirit of God. Those are the basic ingredients for a missionary…
Alan Hirsch Explains The Problems With Discipleship
Alan Hirsch discusses the problems surrounding discipleship. Problems range from the fact that we fail to recognize its centrality to the mission of God to the fact that the Church in the West is not very intentional about it…
Francis Chan And David Platt Stay Focused On God
Francis Chan and David Platt discuss the problems with losing focus on God in favor of focusing on other good things such as mission, discipleship, productivity, etc. These are good things, but they are not more worthy of our…
Alan Hirsch Explains The Centrality Of Discipleship
Alan Hirsch gives a few simple reasons for why discipleship is the mission of the…
Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back From Making Disciples
Francis Chan shares a story about how he got a 2nd chance to talk to someone who God wanted him to talk to after he had already blown it once. His encouragement is to make sure that fear doesn’t…
Paul Washer’s Antidote To The Sinner’s Prayer
Paul Washer explains what is wrong with the “sinners prayer.” Rather than having someone pray a prayer and then tell them they are going to heaven, he says we should tell people that the evidence of their salvation will…
How Can We Decrease So That Jesus Can Increase In The Digital Age?
The reasoning goes something like this… If I know I have important things to say and I am going to get others to listen to me, then they have to want to listen to me. In order for them to want…
Alan Hirsch’s Vision For The Five Fold Ministry In America
Missiologist, Alan Hirsch, talks with Ed Stetzer about the future of Christianity in America amid its increasingly secularized culture. They also discuss the importance of recovering a vision for the 5 key gifts Christ gave to his Church from…
How The Good Samaritan Critiques Our Busy Lives
The story of the Good Samaritan is easily the most famous parable that Jesus told. A priest and a rabbi refuse to help someone hurt along the road, but a Samaritan, the one hated by the Hebrew people not…
Sunday Sermon: Your Family & God’s Plan, Part 2
Dr. Rob Rienow shows how the first command to humans to be fruitful and multiply is still in effect. The primary means by which this happens is through families passing on faith from generation to generation. The Great Commission…
Don’t Ask People If They Want To Be Saved, Let Them Ask You How To Be Saved
Dr. John Perkins is a prominent voice in reconciliation ministry. When he speaks, people listen. So, listen to his explanation of why we should stop asking people if they want to be…
Many Evangelism Methods Are Presumptuous, So Do It Differently
As I handed the change back to one of the young girls, she handed me a tract with a very sweet smile – and I froze. My entire feeling changed. When they first came up to me at the…
5 Things That Bring Unity To The Church
I’ve come to believe that instead of being a bunch of churches separated by music style or building, God sees one bride and one city church. In my experience, we are a divided, fighting, graceless, defensive mess. If your…
Alan Hirsch Explains Why Evangelism Can’t Be Our Main Focus
This is part 1 of a two-part series of video posts on Alan Hirsch’s presentation on discipleship. See part 2 here. Alan Hirsch explains how traditional evangelical thinking that we must evangelize first and then disciple second is flawed.…
Alan Hirsch Explains How Consumerism Affects Modern Evangelism
This is part 2 of a two-part series of video posts on Alan Hirsch’s presentation on discipleship. See part 1 here. You can’t make disciples out of consumers. You can’t consume your way into the Kingdom. It doesn’t work like…
Considering The Role Of Listening In Evangelism
I breezed through an article on the Huffington Post’s religion section last night before I went to bed and it gnawed at my conscience all night. It’s called “How I Kissed Evangelism Goodbye,” and it is a REALLY GOOD article. But, I think…
How To Lead Your Children Into A Missional Mindset
Paul Tripp shares his thoughts about how parents can lead their children in a process of becoming mindful of God’s mission and purposes so that they can be aligned with that mission and purpose. In other words, this is…
4 Flaws In Selling Heaven As The Reason For Following Jesus
I’ve watched over and over as people who signed up for Christianity because of the promise of Heaven grew disillusioned by the unfulfilled guarantees of certainty, weary under the weight of the religious bait-and-switch, and left the faith altogether. Tell me,…
5 Questions To Keep You On Mission
Every Christian and ministry faces the slow, subtle, suffocating pressure of the ordinary. The creeping clutch of worldly concerns confronts us all. We settle into routines and ruts. Our zeal cools as we have our minds and then our…
8 Things To Know Before Going On A Short-Term Mission Trip
My husband and I live in Guatemala and host short-term mission teams throughout the year. We have both seen the good, the bad and the ugly of short-term missions. And we continue to feel this tension with the short-term mission…
Counting The Cost Of Apostleship
Many churches seem to have forgotten the two most basic impulses of an organism: reproduce and adapt. Or to use more Biblical language: We have forgotten how to be an Apostolic movement. Key to understanding what the Church is…
One Family’s Story Of How They Stay On Mission Together As A Team
Ed and Mel Zwyghuizen have three children—Gabe (19), Christian (17), and Greta (15). Together, they are known as Team Z. We always knew we wanted to invite our kids to participate in God’s big story for the world, but as…
A Story Of How Muslims Are Becoming Fishers Of Men Through Storytelling
Oral story telling is proving to be one of the most effective means of communicating the gospel, and specifically the biblical narrative. For many Muslims, the Bible is considered haram (i.e. forbidden) because it is believed that Christians have changed…
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