For years, we have invited people to come to church. Successful evangelism has consisted of persuading our friends and family to join us at church. We have run special and exciting meetings with professional bands and gifted speakers. Even many of our simple/house churches have had this same mindset; invite someone to church, and pray… Read More
Category: Church planting
Neil Cole likes to define the DNA of house/simple/organic church as: Divine Truth Nurturing Relationships Apostolic Mission Most of our simple/organic churches have the first two—we base what we do and teach on Biblical truth, and we have a depth of community based on family relationships that others envy. But many new churches, especially… Read More
Are we willing to sit in the smoking section? (Neil Cole) Many of us believers are so busy with our Christian friends or with church related activities that we have no time to make friends with other people. Not only that, some have an inbuilt fear that we will somehow be contaminated by rubbing… Read More
I recently reread the book, "destined for the throne" by Paul Bilheimer. The main premise of the book is based on a quote by John Wesley: "God does nothing except an answer to prayer." Bilheimer goes on to explain that God has chosen to limit himself in order that we might get on-the-job… Read More
Here are some reasons why we may not see the kind of harvest we long for: We are so involved with other believers we do not have time for friendship with those who do not yet know Jesus. We are fearful of being "contaminated" by too much contact with the world. Lack of the… Read More
Although Jesus sometimes dealt with individuals, in the book of Acts, there are only two examples of individuals becoming disciples. In Acts 8, Philip leads the Ethiopian eunuch to the Lord, and in Acts 9, Saul is converted on the road to Damascus through Jesus' supernatural intervention. Other than that, all the examples given show… Read More
Continuing the topic of church planting: I immediately went through the Gospels looking at every reference to fishing. There were several. Even though in Mongolia, I did not have a concordance, it became apparent that several different methods of fishing were described. Sometimes the disciples threw or cast their nets into the water (e.g. Matthew… Read More
It may have been the salty yak milk tea, but I had a vivid dream one night when we were in Mongolia. In the dream, I was with a small group of people. I handed them a book saying, "This is a book on how to be a commercial fisherman." The clue that this… Read More