Archive for the ‘witnessing’ Category

9 Nov

“Bringing My World To Christ” local church relational evangelism workshop

Posted by Ken in church outreach, evangelism, Evangelism Coaching, evangelistic, missional living, outreach, personal evangelism, Prayer, relational evangelism, relational evangelism training, soul winning, the great commission, witnessing.

Every church tends to have a group of people that seem to naturally be better prospects for sharing the Good News. They often are thought of as the extroverts, the outgoing, or the ones that have the “gift of evangelism”, which, by the way, does not appear anywhere in the Scriptures. It seems like we believe that Acts 1:8 or 2 Cor.5 was written for just a portion of the church. What about the introvert, the shy, the feeble, the fearful, the inadequate (in their minds) are they called to share their faith and reach others for Christ? If so are we equipping them as they are, or trying to change them into something they are not? This seminar is designed to equip and motivate the 90% of your congregation that have pretty much checked out of sharing their faith. If you could energize the 90% just think how the 10% would be fired up.

Most Pastors that I know would go through the roof with excitement if they could find a way to energize and motivate most if not all of their people to be active in some role of sharing their faith. The truth is that it is challenging. We live in a world that is often more anxious to hear about Jesus than we are to talk about him.

As I look back over many years of evangelistic training I have realized there is a particular area that I wish I had spent more time teaching. I wish I had spent more time changing the way the people think before I tried to change the way they act. This seminar has been recently re-vised with that task in mind.

However it is not just the people that need to adjust their thinking. As leaders we also get caught in certain patterns of thinking that are not helpful. We often look at “our” ministry as consisting of the people that God brings into the services and programs that we so faithfully oversee. And yet that is only a portion of the congregation that we need to be concerned about. Every Pastor or Church leadership team has two congregations that they are responsible for. The first one is easily identified as they show up in the roles or records of the active ministry of the church body. They are the ones that we presently have some level of contact with.

The second congregation is the people our people know, live among, work with, recreate with, and are insiders within any group. This is our secondary congregation. They are already involved with our primary congregation outside the church, and can easily become part of our primary congregation if we can reach them. There is a group of people “out there” that should even now be on the inside rather than watching us from the outside.

Both congregations are vital parts of the ministry that we are called to. If we miss the second congregation we are in danger of neglecting our biblical responsibility. Your first reaction to having more people to think about may not be a pleasant thought for some. However the Bible is very clear that we are not the ministers at this point. Our calling as a leader is to release and train the people of congregation #1 to function in their God given role as “ministers” to congregation #2.

If we neglect this essential role of training and releasing, or mistakenly think we have to do it all and be it all, we will end up short-changing the body of Christ of their glorious calling, and will become a bottleneck who feels worn out, guilty, and trapped in an impossible role. The ensuing result is that most of the ministry will be centered on our gifts, talents, and abilities as leaders. Congregation #2 will not reached with the exception of those we can somehow persuade to come to us to check out how great we really are. Training not only releases the people, it releases the pastors, elders, and leaders!

It is time that we engage the whole church in taking the whole gospel to the sphere of influence God has given us. This seminar is designed with that in mind. We know from past experience that, if you can get your people to this training they will be impacted and you will be overjoyed to release your people to reach their ‘worlds’ with the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Advertisement

11 Jan

Pastor Jerry Moen introduces Ken at the Teaching Church

Posted by Ken in church outreach, evangelism, Evangelism Coaching, evangelistic, EvangeNews, EvangeVideo, missional living, outreach, personal evangelism, relational evangelism, relational evangelism training, soul winning, the great commission, witnessing. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

15 Mar

Is ‘change’ a bad word in your church?

Posted by Ken in church outreach, evangelism, Evangelism Coaching, evangelistic, EvangeNews, EvangeVideo, Family, God answers prayer, missional living, outreach, Prayer, soul winning, witnessing.

Leith Anderson, senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, in his book Dying For Change writes, “Change is an unavoidable part of life.  Each church member is changing while the church is changing while the society is changing.  Change is not the choice.  How we handle it is.”

For better or for worse, American people and society are changing.  Our community is changing.  Yes, we can value the past, and we must cherish our heritage; but we cannot hope that tomorrow will be yesterday.

As our society and people’s view of life changes, we as the church must adapt and change our methods also.  Our God does not change.  His truth does not change.  Humankind’s need for the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not change; but our methods for getting that Gospel to them may need to change.

Change for the sake of change is not good, but change for the sake of accomplishing our purpose is essential.  What is our purpose?  What is our mission?  If the purpose or mission of Jesus Christ while on earth was “to seek and to save those who are lost,” then how can the purpose of the church be any different?  The primary purpose of the church must be to constantly point all people of all ages to Jesus through the ministry of the Word and obedient service.

How is the church going to better fulfill that purpose 2012?  That’s up to YOU, the people that make up the body of believers who gather as committed families in various churches everywhere.  I feel that the first step must be change in our own hearts.  As we grow to understand who God is and His love for us more, we will love Him more.  As we obey His commands and allow the Holy Spirit to transform our lives, we will be more like Jesus in our character and actions.  As we allow ourselves to be broken before God, and grace-giving followers of Jesus, we will see others as Christ sees them.  We will then reach out in ministry to others and be the witness He has called us to be to everyone within our circle of influence as well as anywhere He leads us.

Let’s not shun or fear change.  We MUST continue to change in order to fulfill the mission Jesus has given.  May we embrace the attitude of “whatever it takes” to reach everyone within our changing culture with the only hope – the unchanging gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ!

15 Jan

A call to become a “Missionalist!”

Posted by Ken in church outreach, evangelism, Evangelism Coaching, evangelistic, EvangeNews, EvangeVideo, Family, God answers prayer, missional living, outreach, Prayer, soul winning, Uncategorized, witnessing.

A call for Christians (committed followers of Jesus Christ) to become . . . “MISSIONALISTS” . . .
The Wikipedia world wide web Dictionary defines “Missional living”:  a Christian term that describes a missionary lifestyle; adopting the posture, thinking, behaviors, and practices of a missionary in order to engage others with the gospel message. The use of the term missional has gained popularity at the end of the 20th Century due to Tim Keller,[1] Ed Stetzer, Alan Hirsch, the Gospel and Our Culture Network, Allelon, as well as others to contrast the concept of a select group of “professional” missionaries with the understanding that all Christians should be involved in the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.

Maybe we should simply call it “Christian living” or “Biblical Living”, because that’s what it is!  The cause of Christ in our land is diminishing because “Christians” have lost focus on what’s most important:

John 3:16 (Amplified Bible)   For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

John 3:16 (The Message)  This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.

Christianity needs missionalists – and lots of them!!!

We need an army of believers who view their mission in life through the lens of Christ’s redemptive mission.

To have a missionalist school of thinking within Christianity, we need more students, professors, bloggers, strategists, professionals, workers, leaders, and moms, dads, cousins, sisters and brothers to be trained as missionalists.

We need a new generation of Christians who will think and act as missionalists rather than Christian consumers!

The Church of Jesus Christ needs Christians who will adopt missionary thinking and behaviors to strategically engage those in their sphere of influence (workplace, neighborhood, community, school, hobby/friendship group, extended family, etc) with the gospel!

I’m calling Christians around the globe to become missionalists
(Missional Living, Biblical Living people, Biblical World View)  —
to seize the redemptive mission of Jesus as their own
and to adopt missional thinking and behaviors!

A missionalist is sent by Jesus to “be Jesus” to everyone everywhere.

13 Mar

What is an Evangelizing Church?

Posted by Ken in church outreach, evangelism, Evangelism Coaching, evangelistic, EvangeNews, missional living, outreach, soul winning, witnessing.

Statistics show that evangelism in the American church has been dying a slow death.

Church growth, so many times, has been attributed to believers leaving one church in his/her area to join another new or ‘exciting’ church instead of the church growing by what’s most important … conversions.

We have been called to turn this tide.

The mission and vision of God on my life and the passion of my heart is to help pastors and churches succeed and excel in the ministry of evangelism – not just as a program, but as a whole-church lifestyle.

While there is a lot of discussion about how to define an Evangelizing Church, we at the Billy Graham Center are purposely setting our standards high according to the present benchmarks. We do so not because our approach is any better, but in looking at the present reality, the Church needs to make some drastic course corrections if we are going to see this generation brought to Christ.

With that in mind, the Evangelizing Church Project (ECP) will move your church towards certain benchmarks that are viable and practical.  Look at the ‘to the pastor’ page to see these benchmarks.

Ken Ramey – EvangeCoach
evangecoach@gmail.com

19 Sep

God DOES hear and answer prayer!!!

Posted by Ken in God answers prayer, outreach, Prayer, soul winning, witnessing.

Do you believe . . . I mean REALLY BELIEVE . . . in the truth that God actually hears the prayers and the cries of His children? And if you believe that God HEARS, do you REALLY BELIEVE that He is moved by your prayers and actually responds?

WE BELIEVE IT!!! And yet, we are just beginning to understand and experience the miraculous power of prayer!

Not only because God’s Word says it (though that is enough!), we are living witnesses of the fact that prayer is powerful AND effective!

Allow these verses from God’s Word to sink in. Ask the Holy Spirit to enable you to believe enough to begin a disciplined and obedient prayer life: (New Living Bible)“I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you.” Matthew 18:19“You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it.” Matthew 21:22“I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.” Mark 11:24“You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.” John 14:13“But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!” John 15:7“You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.” John 15:16“At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything. I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and he will grant your request because you use my name.” John 16:23
“If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” James 1:5

I don’t believe that any ‘earthly man’ has written it better than the great man of prayer, E.M. Bounds:
“How vast are the possibilities of prayer! How wide is its reach! What great things are accomplished by this divinely appointed means of grace! It lays its hand on Almighty God and moves him to do what he would not otherwise do if prayer was not offered. It brings things to pass which would never otherwise occur. The story of prayer is the story of great achievements. Prayer is a wonderful power placed by Almighty God in the hands of his saints, which may be used to accomplish great purposes and to achieve unusual results. Prayer reaches to everything, takes in all things great and small which are promised by God to the children of men. The only limit to prayer are the promises of God and his ability to fulfill those promises. ‘Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it’.”
“Prayer is a direct address to God. ‘In everything let your requests be made known unto God.’ Prayer secures blessings, and makes men better because it reaches the ear of God. Prayer is only for the betterment of men when it has affected God and moved him to do something for men. Prayer affects men by affecting God. Prayer moves men because it moves God to move men. Prayer influences men by influencing God to influence them. Prayer moves the hand that moves the world.”

I trust that by now, you understand the passion of our hearts and the call of the Gospel:
“Jesus is the Answer!” and the only way for EVERY need for EVERY person;
Every human being MUST receive Jesus Christ by faith as his/her Savior in order to receive the free gift of eternal salvation and enter into personal relationship with God while alive on this earth;
The ‘call’ of Jesus upon every believer is to be ‘fishers of men’ and be effective and powerful witnesses who reach people with the salvation message.
My heart and desire is to help you, motivate you and implore you, as well as the church, to return to the basics of the Gospel and make your daily obsession to bring men and women, teens and boys and girls to the cross of Christ!

The first step is prayer! I challenge you right now to ask God to give you at least 1 person you are close to who does not know the Lord Jesus as his or her Savior to come to Him very soon! Right now, will you bow your head and pray for that person?! Will you commit to pray every day until he or she receives the Lord?! Will you send us the name of that person so we can join you in prayer for their salvation?! This will be exciting and you will see just what God can do! Don’t worry about the ‘how’, just concern yourself with prayer. The ‘how’ will come on the journey. Will you, right now, bow and ask the Lord to enable you to bear the ‘fruit’ of 1 lost soul for His glory?! It will change your life!!!

E.M. Bounds: “Prayer possibilities open doors for the entrance of the gospel: “Withal praying also for us that God would open to us a door of utterance.” Prayer opened for the apostles doors of utterance, created opportunities and made openings to preach the gospel. The appeal by prayer was to God, because God was moved by prayer. God was thereby moved to do his own work in an enlarged way and by new ways. Prayer possibility gives not only great power, and opens doors to the gospel, but it gives facility as well to the gospel. Prayer makes the gospel to go fast and to move with glorious swiftness. A gospel projected by the mighty energies of prayer is neither slow, lazy nor dull. It moves with God’s power, with God’s radiance and with angelic swiftness.”

This is just the beginning. As the Lord allows, I want to help you step by step, learn to be used of the Lord to reach lost people you know, who will absolutely go to hell if they die without Jesus!

Prayer is the beginning. Prayer for yourself and your relationship with the Lord and then prayer for the lost – specifically naming those who you want to see come to Him before it is to late. Will you pray? Will you allow us to pray with you? It will be exciting to see what God will do!!!

We need to share with you the answer to your prayers on our behalf. Once again, the Lord miraculously, and in the last hour, provided for rent. The Lord moved upon many people’s hearts and they obediently responded and sacrificially gave in order that this need would be met. O how we praise the Lord! Some gifts were large and some were small, but all were significant and such a blessing!!! The Lord is truly giving us our ‘daily bread.’ Friends in our church have provided food, our neighbor has shared from her garden, another neighbor has given food and money and checks have come in the mail – even one came by FedEx from back east! This is all in answer to fervent prayer! Thank you!!!
The Apostle Paul cried out in Ephesians 6:18-20, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”

Please keep praying for us! Pray that we would be effective witnesses each day as well as a loud voice to the church as we make every effort to call them back to the priority of the gospel!

O Lord, Glorify Yourself at our Expense,

Evangelist Ken & Diane Ramey

Home address:
14400 SE 270th Pl
Kent, WA 98042 Phone: 425-495-3723