Renewed Confidence

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Comments: 0

Dear Pastors

Renewed Confidence In The Gospel

Let me start with a few quick fire questions today.
On a scale of 1 – 7 where 1 = low and 7 = high.

  1. Your confidence in the Gospel to change a life?
  2. Your ability to share a gospel witness
  3. Your readiness to share a gospel witness?
  4. Your personal and intentional efforts in connecting with at least one not-yet-Christian person/couple?
  5. Your expectation that unchurched people will attend your church?
  6. Your reference to and invitation for people to say ‘Yes’ to Jesus in your Sunday gatherings?
  7. How well equipped are your people to share and testify for Jesus?

To be honest my responses to these questions are nothing to be proud of. Yes I am a 7 for Q1, Q2 and Q6 (when I was pastoring I extended an invitation most every Sunday), but sadly not to flash on the others. So I feel a little conviction around my own questions right now.

I love the fact that more pastors are not only concerned about the issues of the day but actually attempting to do something about it. My Gospel and Culture blog on Monday has come about precisely for that reason. So I want to applaud that. I want to cheer lead all the community facing ministries that gospel-centred local churches up and down NZ have started and are engaged in. I want to acknowledge and affirm all the para-church ministries in NZ that are doing fabulous work to communicate the gospel in relevant ways and who are supporting local churches to do likewise. All of this is great stuff.

Imagine if this army was ‘open for business’ 7/24

But I have a worry. How confident and competent and passionate are all Christians attending gospel-centred churches in NZ? Perhaps 200,000 teenagers and adults all up (out of some 400,000 reasonably regular attenders incl. kids). Imagine if this army was ‘open for business’ 7/24. Imagine if we prayed and determined we would get ‘up close and personal’ with one not-yet-Christian person year in and year out. Imagine? Lets say God would grant us a 10% conversion rate every year. That would be 20,000 new Christians every year. Let’s say 2000 of the approximately 3000 local churches are gospel-centred, then that would be about 10 new Christians on average a year per church. Wow….think about that for a moment. It wouldn’t be very long before we would see a resurgence perhaps a renewal maybe even a revival of transformed lives. Just imagine the impact of that on individuals, families, schools, communities and neighbourhoods not to say anything on our very sad and rapidly deteriorating social statistics.

Imagine!

Blessings
Alan

P.S. To that end please take a moment to read this ad. Do you know anyone?

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) is looking to hire an Administration Assistant starting September 2021 on a part time basis then moving to full time at the start of January 2022. This contract will run until January 2023. Some travel will be needed but predominantly you will be working from your home in Auckland. Reporting directly to your manager you will be responsible for managing calendars, booking travel, setting up meetings with different stake holders and churches across NZ. Other duties will be required from time to time which might not be covered in the job description.

You will be someone that can multi-task, work well under pressure and be professional at all times. You will need to represent BGEA to different church groups, denominations and to pastors and ministers.

Please send resumes to chrisj@billygraham.org

Comments RSS feed for comments on this page

There are no comments yet. Be the first to add a comment by using the form below.

Search