Fear Not!

That video was too good not to post! Hope you enjoy it. 

Evangelism and Ministry Insecurities

Have your insecurities kept or limited you from sharing your faith or leading in other areas of life and ministry? Mine sure have. I know without a doubt that every leader you know of has insecurities and the successful ones are those that deal with their insecurities. You will never be effective in evangelism or ministry until you learn to surrender those insecurities to God. With that in mind, I'd like to encourage you to listen to this MP3, titled "Freedom From Insecurities." I hope this encouragement from God's Word will help you deal with any securities holding you back from powerful evangelism and effective ministry. Here's the MP3: 

If you'd like to check out the video of this message, please check it out below. Thanks!

Living Fearlessly (God Solution June 5th)

Listen to the MP3 of "The God Solution" show #13 - "Living Fearlessly" below! Get all our previous shows here. We are on the air Sunday mornings at 8:30 am. "The God Solution" is an interactive show that will discuss answers to humanity's questions about God and God's answers for Humanity's questions. I really hope you'll tune in and listen and share the program with friends as well. If you live in the area listen to the show on 91.9 or 93.9 FM. If you don't live in the area, feel free to check out the show online at http://kdur.org/. If you like the show please let the wonderful folks at KDUR know. You can contact them by clicking here. Thanks a ton and tune in every Sunday at 8:30 am!

Crush Fear 2011 was AMAZING!!!

Thanks for your patience the past 2 weeks (I haven't blogged since the Crush Fear project started)! It was unbelievable. 30 students from all over the US were here for 2 weeks of crushing fear to remove the bariers to all God has called them to be. These students were pretty much AWESOME!!! We did a ton of activities, had numerous training sessions each day, ate weird food, raised money for ministry to Muslims, shared the Good News and had a blast. You can also check out the CF students on the radio by clicking here! We're tired right now but also feel like we're still floating. Have I mentioned that it was an amazing time? For all you students, we already miss you a TON!!! Spending the past 2 weeks couped up in the lodge with you was one of the greatest times of our lives. Keep going hard for Jesus! Well, check out the video below for a quick view of some of what happened on Crush Fear 2011. More stories to come!!! P.S. Please click follow to the left to follow our blog! Thanks!

Persecution?

Fear is probably the biggest roadblock to evangelism. We fear rejection, slander, peoples' opinions of us, a bad reputation and failure. Most of us have never faced true persecution. The worst that has ever happened to me here in the US is having a snowball thrown at me once while sharing. Not a big deal. 2 Cor.4:17 says, "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." Remember what Paul called light and momentary troubles (2 Cor.11-12) - hard work, imprisonment, torture, near death experiences, beatings, lashings, shipwrecks, stoning, constant danger, sleeplessness, hunger, nakedness, cold, weakness and sickness. I havent faced any of that for Christ. We have so little to risk here in the US and so much to gain if we will only step out for Him, sharing the Good News with this country that desperately needs Jesus! Nearly 180,000 Christians will die for their faith in Jesus this year (see stats here). What we face here truly is light and momentary - let's not let that stop us from what He has put us here for. This is our time to take risks for Jesus!



For more on what God is doing around the world check out the MP3 below!

Break through the barriers that keep you from witnessing! (The 4 Sound Barriers)

Sharing the gospel involves breaking 4 different “sound barriers.” This concept is adapted from various CCC resources. They are called sound barriers because each involves your need to speak. Each barrier represents a real point in every conversation where you will be tempted to give in to fear and back down. It is vitally important to analyze where you are at in a conversation and trust Him to cross the next sound barrier.
 Trusting Him is the foundation. Understand these barriers but go in a context of prayer, filled and controlled by His Spirit. Then, cross each of these barriers.

Sound Barrier #1 – Meeting someone and initiating a conversation. This can be done in a natural way (ex. Ask a question of someone you are near at some location - like asking, “What’s the best item on this menu?” at a coffee shop or restaurant). 
After meeting someone, asking questions about them is a natural way to keep a conversation going. 
This can be done using various ministry tools - like a short spiritual interest survey (ex. Ask, “do you have a couple of minutes for a quick spiritual interest survey?”) or the Soularium.
 Using a tool like these naturally gets you through the 1st 2 barriers instantly. 


Sound Barrier #2 – Moving from a general conversation to a spiritual conversation. 
Once you are talking with someone about general topics (the weather, news, hobbies, etc.) it is easy to transition to a spiritual conversation by asking thoughtful questions. 
Ex. If you’re talking about the news and the bad in the world you could easily ask what their hope is. 


Sound Barrier #3 – Moving from a spiritual conversation to the gospel.
 From a spiritual conversation you can easily transition to the gospel by asking another transition question like, “what has been your experience with Christianity?”
 From there it is very easy to continue into a presentation of the gospel. 


Sound Barrier #4 – Moving from the gospel to a decision. No presentation of the gospel is complete without asking them to respond to Christ’s message. Most good tools will include this (ex. “The Know God Personally” booklet concludes Principle 4 by asking the person where they’re at and where they’d like to be and then telling them how to get there). Whatever tool or method you use, make sure to convey the fact that they have a decision to make.

Those are the barriers. Don't get duped by the 10 evangelism lies either. If you practice working through each of these barriers you will quickly find yourself sharing the gospel fearlessly and often! For more info on breaking through the barriers, check out the MP3 from the Nightvision concert evangelism workshop below and get the notes from that workshop here.



Also, here's the "Gabriel" video one more time. It kind of illustrates each of these barriers and using tools to get through them (it is in spanish though!!!).



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