Your Journey Blog

Happy New Year from the Rohrmayer Family!

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Power of Jesus' Birth

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.  Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.

Titus 2:11-12

Our dearly beloved Savior was born today.  Let us be glad!  For there isn't a proper place for sadness when we celebrate the birthday of the Life.  For this Life destroys our fear of death and brings us the joy of promised eternity.  Everyone can share in this happiness. There is the same amount of joy for everyone.  For our Lord destroys sin and death and finds everyone guilty, but has come to free us all.  Let saints rejoice at their nearness to victory.  Let sinners be glad that they are invited to be pardoned.  Let us, then, dearly beloved, give thanks to God the Father, through His Son, in the Holy Spirit.  Because of "His great mercy, wherewith He has loved us."  He had pity on us.  And "when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together in Christ," so that we can be new creations in Him.  So then, let us put off the old self with its deeds and, sharing in Christ's birth, let us defy fleshly works.  Christians, acknowledge your dignity.  As you become a partner in God's nature, refuse to return to the old, wicked behavior.  Remember the Head and the body which you are members of.  Remember that you were rescued from the power of darkness and brought out into God's light and kingdom.

--Leo I

Source: Day by Day with the Early Church Fathers

Evangelistic Training Strategy - A Well Told Story - Part 2

Equipping people to tell their faith stories well, is one of the best investments you can make in training your people evangelistically.  In his book, Evangelism Out of the Box, Rich Richardson emphasizes the importance of storytelling in our postmodern era.  “Storytelling helps follow the rules of experiential truth.”  In other words, telling stories makes sense both emotionally and experientially to our audience.  He continues, “If something rings true for us experientially and we can be authentic and non-manipulative in the way we tell the story, people will respond.” (pg 93)  There is nothing more powerful than the fresh story of a new convert. This is the first story your people should learn to share—and they should learn to share it well.  And don’t make the mistake of waiting too long before teaching your converts to tell their story.  Some sort of evangelism training should be offered on a routine basis (perhaps monthly), so that every believer learns the basics of sharing their story…and sharing THE story. 

Evangelism training should include teaching believers how to tell their faith story. Traditionally I have used a simple three-part guideline that can serve as a template to write their testimony:

• Before I made a faith commitment to Jesus I experienced…
• I realized I needed to trust and follow Jesus when...
• After entrusting my life to Christ, I have experienced…

But recently I came across the before-and-after pattern Bill Hybels writes about in his book, Just Walk Across The Room. He writes, "The promise of the gospel's transforming power is when you come to Christ, your old self is evicted and a new self arrives.  When you tell your story, the critical contrast to draw for someone is this: What difference has Christ really made in your life?  In other words, what were you like before Christ, and now what are you like after you've asked Christ to intervene?" (pg 122)  He continues, "It's as simple as this friends. Who were you before, and who are you now, as a result of Christ's passionate intervention in your journey?"

• I was striving...but now I'm grateful
• I was self-destructive...but know I'm healthy
• Guilty...but now liberated
• Fear-stricken...but now confident
• Despairing...but now hopeful

It's worth searching your heart and soul to firm up the three-pronged foundation of your story: the key word or concept that describes who you were before you met Christ; that fact that you then came into a relationship with Christ; and the key word or concept that describes who you are after walking with Christ for a time. (pg 126-7)

What would happen if every member, every ministry leader, and every staff person was equipped to share their before and after story in a compelling manner through the power of the Holy Spirit?  We encourage pastors and church planters to require a written before-and-after story for church membership, for baptism candidates, and for all those desiring to participate in a child dedication ceremony.  In the spiritual formation materials that I have developed, new Christians will have written their story at least three times by the time they finish their first ten lessons.  Don’t ignore the power of a well-told faith story!

The Apostle Paul wrote to his friend Philemon, "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ." (Philemon 1:6)

Evangelistic Training Strategy - Part 1

When we started this evangelistic journey back in May we took a close look at the Three Spheres of Outreach which included: 1) The leader and the people they connect with during the week, 2) The church and those within their sphere of influence, 3) The unconnected, those who know nothing about the church and are disconnected with your people.

In each of these spheres we developed Three Strategies of Outreach, 1) The leader sets the standard through modeling, 2) The leader equips the church to reach into their relational spheres, 3) The church learns how to sow evangelistic seeds into the masses of unconnected people in their community.

If you are going to effectively equip your church for outreach you need to start with raising the spiritual temperate of their hearts. George Barna writes, “A church that strives to evangelize its community without saturating its efforts in prayer is like a race-car driver that jumps into his car at the starting line and discovers that the tank has not been filled with gasoline.” (Evangelism That Works, p. 128)   

How does a church planter keep the evangelism tank filled with prayer?  One way is for them to create a weekly email prayer letter to the new church family.  It doesn’t need to be long and fancy, but it should be motivational enough to encourage the development of an outward-focused prayer life.  Over the years I have collected hundred of prayer quotes, and I always include one at the beginning of my e-prayer letter.  This helps to create a culture of God-dependence. As a leader it is our job to see the hearts of our people burn with passion for those who are far from God. 

Here are a few ideas to help you equip God’s people in this area:

·         Develop at least one corporate prayer project a year. For example: 8 weeks before a major outreach campaign have people make a public commitment to pray for 5 unchurched friends or family members, for 5 minutes a day, for 5 weeks.

·         Make Prayer a Priority. Make prayer for the lost a priority in all leadership meetings, small groups, etc.  Never have a meeting without discussing and praying for those you are building relationships with and seeking to engage in some type of spiritual conversation.

·         Call a corporate fast at least once a year. Lead your church to fast for the rival and spiritual awakening in your community.  It was the job of spiritual leaders in the Old Testament to call God’s people into a holy fast, a special time for God’s people to demonstrate their dependence on God to intervene, “Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.” (Joel 1:14 NIV)

·         Engage God’s people in the discipline of prayer-walking. It is away for them to see their community with a fresh perspective and is an opportunity for the Spirit of God to light a new fire in their hearts for their community.  Just as Paul became distressed over the people who lived in Athens, so will your people become distressed over those who live in their city, as they walk and pray. (Excerpt: NextSteps for Leading A Missional Church)

Share some ideas you have used to increase the spiritual temperature of your people.

Church-Centric vs Mission-Centric Equipping

For years the church has practiced a church-centric philosophy of ministry where the goal was to create healthy members for the betterment of the church.  But in recent years there has been a paradigm shift where churches are embracing the need to be mission-centric, in that the goal for the church is to create missionaries for the betterment of society and cultural transformation.  In the early 90's I fully embraced the purpose driven model, of which I am still an advocate, because it is built on a solid missional principle know as modular training.  But I offer a small modification to Rick Warren's concentric circles model:

Community:  Those living around your church who never, or occasionally, attend. 

Crowd:  Those who attend your church regularly but are not members. 

Congregation:  Those who are committed to both Christ and membership in your church family.

Committed:  Those members who are serious about growing to spiritual maturity. 

Core:  Those members who actively serve in ministry and mission in your church.

Commissioned: Those members who are sent out of the church as missionaries, church planters, pastors and change agents in our cultural.

I fully believe that Rick Warren would embrace this modification because he wrote in the Purpose Driven Church, "A church's health is measured by its sending capacity not its seating capacity.  Churches are in the sending business. One of the questions we must ask in evaluating a church's health is, ‘How many people are being mobilized for the Great Commission?’"

Reggie McNeal reinforces this paradigm shift in his book, The Present Future  when he writes, “The first Reformation was about freeing the church.  The new Reformation is about freeing God’s people from the church (the institution).  The original Reformation decentralized the church.  The new Reformation decentralizes ministry.”  The only way we can decentralize ministry is by seeing each member as a missionary to be sent by the church into their personal mission field. 

How do you develop an equipping strategy that will create missionaries?  Stephen Covey in his book, Principle-centered Leadership, provides a simple outline. He writes, “An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.”  To build an effective equipping strategy you will need to answer the following questions:

• What knowledge needs to be imparted and embraced?
• What desires need to be championed and captured?
• What skills need to be learned, practiced and mastered?
• What opportunities need to be provided?

Over the month of December we will tackle each of these questions to provide practical ideas and probing questions to effectively equip your people in missional engagement.  Let me end this post with Rick Warren's probing question: How many people in the last year have been mobilized for the Great Commission through your church?