Yesterday, I posted thisvideo of Jeff Vanderstelt explaining what God is doing through him and Soma Communities up in Tacoma, Washington. I came across another video, as well, in which these two college students are on mission where God put them in Austin, Texas.
I thank God for these videos, and more importantly, these communities that are putting on display a new vision of what missions is supposed to be.
“One of the most powerful apologetics (defenses) of the Gospel is when a group of people love one another, live in unity together in the midst of a dark and depraved world…” – Jeff Vanderstelt
Hey guys, here’s the list of articles that I mentioned in the sermon. Check it out when you have time. One suggestion I would make is that as you’re reading through these, have somebody that you know in your mind so that it’ll make it more personal for you.
Recently, I read an article by Ed Stetzer on his blog titled, The Biggest Sin In Your Church. Naturally, being the type who’s easily enticed by interesting titles like that, I read the article in its entirety. This article has shaken me, to say the least. For example, here are some excerpts from the article:
If I preach about gay marriage, everybody cheers. If I preach about sin you can hear the amens ring. But those aren’t the real problems. I tell people that the biggest sin in our church is you sitting there doing nothing and still calling yourself a follower of Jesus.
…
The elephant in the evangelical room is that we’re not making disciples. People are still struggling through how to do that. We studied 2,500 Protestant church attendees and did so again a year later and the spiritual development was shocking and frustrating.
And so, what I have resolved to do this year (much akin to what Steve McCoy did in 2008), is I wanted to make this year about not only studying, but also learning how to make evangelism and telling people about the Gospel a regular, normal part of my life.
At the end of the day, like what Ed Stetzer wrote above, what it must boil down to for us is this – how can we call ourselves disciples of Christ when we are afraid/ashamed of doing what he has called us to do, namely to “go… and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that [Christ has] commanded…” (Matthew 28:19-20)?
And so for all those interested in joining me on this journey, I have compiled a quick reader of blog articles that will hopefully get us more acquainted on the subject. If you have any other good books or articles that you would like to suggest, please pass them along. Thanks.
