Evangelism at the Speed of Light

[great pic... hat-tip, Rob Williams, Effective Web Ministry Notes]

Thursday evening I'll be leading a discussion at Crossroads Bible College, in the Evangelism 101 class. So I thought I'd jot a few notes here, and use this as a live outline for the evening.

Stay tuned...

See today's headlines in Indianapolis?

Jonathan Edwards' Resolutions (excerpt)

• 1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad's of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.
• 2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the aforementioned things.
  

Great Internet/Evangelism Resource Sites:
Web-Evangelism.com
WebEvangelism.com
Effective Web Ministry Notes
E-vangelism.com
InternetEvangelismDay.org
"Why Blog? Top 50 Reasons"
UBbloggin.com
IndyChristian.com
ChristianHeadlines.com
Blews.Network
WhenYouNeedSomeone.com
Nhood.org
ClayTerrace.org
PocketPower.org
TheWayOfTheMaster.com
TheGoodNews.org
FindJesusFreaks.com

Interesting articles...

• Study: Internet expands social contacts. [Full study: PewInternet.org]
• Google playing along with China's goal of free-speech censorship.
• Barna Report: Christians & Technologies

Subsequent Links of Interest:

• Courage to Share Blog
• BlogMinistry.com
• BloggingChurch.com
• Blog Evangelism

Can we handle this?

I regret being so slow to find any news from this protest in Washington, D.C. in December. Apparently the mainstream media didn't pick up the story. Only the internet seemed to carry the story, and then only from the perspective of the protesters.


Dr. John Perkins is led away by police.

"115 religious leaders were arrested in front of the Cannon House Office Building while kneeling in prayer to protest the immoral budget and tax agenda which slashes spending on the poor to finance tax breaks for the rich. Led by Jim Wallis of Call to Renewal, national faith leaders, clergy and faith-based providers of services to the poor held a press conference."


Reverend Jim Wallis

[Jim Wallis' article and set of pictures]

What shall we make of all this? Seeing our beloved Dr. Perkins in handcuffs should not surprise us. He has always tried to be seen standing with the poor. Reverend Jim Wallis being led away in handcuffs? No surprise either, if you've read his book, "God's Politics".

It all begs the question for the Church at large though -- can we handle this? Can we handle political dissent among Bible-believing Christ-followers? I mean, after all, for some of us it defies our Christian experience to date. Surely God wants everyone to be saved, firstly and foremostly... followed shortly thereafter by becoming good Republicans... Right?

We wouldn't be caught dead in chains. [Well, except for an occasional abortion protest perhaps.]

Personally, my economic background leads me to a different point of view than Pastor Wallis regarding the economy, taxation, and budgets. Since we 'work for the government' from January to May each year, it's hard to imagine that we aren't 'over-taxed'. And it only makes sense to me that if the major tax burden has fallen on those in the upper-income brackets, they should get the biggest proportion of the relief. And they're still by far paying the greatest percentages of taxes. [...not to mention, the sound economic theory that these business folks will be much more productive with their re-investment of these returned funds... thus producing more jobs for everyone.]

So I'm not one to begrudge how much tax relief 'the rich' are getting.

But who can't appreciate a pastor or other leader going to bat for those least able to successfully fend for themselves economically?

So right or wrong on taxation theory, I hope we can give great grace to leaders who stand with the poor.

"The poor of this world are rich in faith."

"It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

And it bears repeating: If Bible-believing churches would come together and 'be the Church'... we wouldn't need our government to help the poor.

CCDA & Tech Mission... a perfect combo !

What an awesome time we had together at CCDA Indy 2005. The folks from TechMission (headquartered in Boston) are a very special variety of CCDA type folks -- tech-capable, well-networked, driven Christians who care about the inner-city and the digital divide that exists there. Need help? Call 'em. Check 'em out at TechMission.org, and be sure to sign up for their egroup, where we all share ideas from Christian community computing centers in cities across the country.

And join some us here in Indy's inner-city each Saturday, 10:00am for free computer help, fun and comradery. Surfing. Emailing. Even 'blogging'.

Visit UBbloggin.com.