I just updated the “Church Steps” outreach material page on the blog
Church Steps Outreach
One of the biggest questions people have when faced with blazing a trail into a new (or old but forgotten) arena is what can this look like? If you can help people see what something can look like you remove much of the fear of the unknown that might otherwise pose a barrier to starting something new. This series of posts is intended to cast a vision for evangelism for churches large or small. This is still a work in progress and I look forward to learning from you as well.
If we are honest with ourselves many congregations have passive evangelism. We hope people will come. We hope they will be touched by the sermon. We hope they know what to do, where to go, what questions to ask and who to ask them to. Is that realistic? Is that purposeful? Most important – is it biblical & does it actually work? If not, are we willing to try a new approach?
Our new approach to outreach & discipleship:
Over the last two years we have been working on how to reach out to new people in order to help them grow into mature disciples of Jesus Christ. Usually I would give you miles of theory and background before I would describe what we are doing. Instead, I am going to lay out what it looks like and later give you some of the nuts and bolts from behind the scenes. I see it like a well made computer. If you picked it up, turned it on and used it it all seems pretty simple. Underneath the hood there are some moving parts that make it what it is but that isn’t obvious just looking at it sitting on the table. In other words we are trying to take something that could be complicated and make it simple and functional so that anyone can plug into it and do something meaningful with it no matter what their level of maturity.
Our Vision
Casting a Vision for Evangelism: What We Are Doing
Casting a Vision for Evangelism: Church Steps
Casting a Vision for Evangelism: Church Steps in Action
Casting a Vision for Evangelism: Our New Evangelistic Bible Class In Action
Our Purpose
Three Purposes of Outreach at Northwest
Changing Church Culture
It is Going to Take More Than Information To Change the Culture
Changing the Way People See Things
Church Steps Tools
Church Steps Class Template (pdf)
Explanation of the template
Motivating Outreach
Three Verses and One Question that Motivate Outreach
Results
One Month Update
There are No Quick Fixes – A post on how long it took for the lightbulb to go on with our members/change in church culture
Things are Finally Starting to Click
