Recommended Reading on Personal Evangelism

Our vision for 2017 is to incorporate both Corporate and Personal Evangelism in our outreach. This means that both the church and its members are committed to reaching into our community with the gospel. It is my experience that most Christians are much more comfortable engaging in corporate outreach as opposed to personal evangelism. The latter can be frightening. Therefore, I want to highlight a number of helpful resources on personal evangelism that may guide us this year.


How to Give Away Your Faith by Paul E. Little

This is one of the most accessible and easy to use guide. Little walks the reader through the ins and outs of personal evangelism. If you invest in only one resource, this is perhaps the best. It is both biblical and practical and was required reading for all seminary students at SBTS.


The Art of Personal Evangelism: Sharing Jesus in a Changing Culture by Will McRaney

This work is growing in popularity and may even be rivaling Little's volume highlighted above. It is more detailed and not as accessible but is just as helpful especially when it comes to understanding our cultural context.


The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever

This is a helpful introductory work on evangelism. Dever walks the reader through what the gospel is, why we should share the gospel, and how to practically do it.


The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman

This is another classic read by all seminary students at SBTS. Coleman's approach is to study how Jesus trained the disciples and then sent them out into the world to do the same. It is a short but powerful book.


Life On Mission: Joining the Everyday Mission of God by Dustin Willis and Aaron Coe

The "Life on Mission" track introduced us to the 3 Circles which is a simple way to explain the gospel. The idea is that it can be written on a restaurant napkin. It is the method I have used at EFBC to explain and explore the gospel with those ready to receive it. In this volume, the authors walk the reader primarily through the importance of living evangelistic lives, i.e., lives on mission.


For more:
Recommended Reading on Idolatry

January 8, 2017 | John 4:1-42

Here is the sermon from Sunday evening where we discussed a practical guide to personal evangelism. At the end of the day, we cannot find success at personal evangelism unless we do personal evangelism.

Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), ³ He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. ⁴ And He had to pass through Samaria. ⁵ So He *came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; ⁶ and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
 
⁷ There *came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus *said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. ⁹ Therefore the Samaritan woman *said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” ¹¹ She *said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? ¹² You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” ¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman *said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” ¹⁶ He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” ¹⁹ The woman *said to Him, ^"Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus *said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman *said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” ²⁶ Jesus *said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

²⁷ At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and *said to the men, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” ³⁰ They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.

³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” ³² But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” ³⁴ Jesus *said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. ³⁶ Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. ³⁷ For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

³⁹ From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more believed because of His word; ⁴² and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Audio

January 8, 2017 | John 20:19-21 - Just Win One: Vision 2017

Sunday morning we discussed what we trust God will do in our midst as individuals and as a church this year. Below you will find our vision for 2017 we entitled "Just Win One." I want to remind everyone to pray fervently for the five people you wrote down on your list to engage and reach this year.

¹⁹ So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and *said to them, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰ And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

Audio 

Worship Minimovie: A Very Special Beginning

Due to technical difficulties, we didn't get to show the following minimovie Sunday morning. Here it is anyway.

Recommended Reading on Idolatry

Sunday morning we talked a lot about idolatry in the context of the third soil in Jesus's Parable of the Soils which discussed the sinful hearer. The issue of idolatry is an important topic that Christians would do well to understand. From my experience, many Christians fall prey to false worship and obedience to a false god without even knowing it. Thus, I want to recommend two really good resources that deal with the struggle of idolatry that are accessible.


Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

One of the most important and penetrating writers of our day is Tim Keller. He is a church planter in New York whose ministry is world wide. He is a helpful voice in matters of apologetics and theology. He has been very influential to me. In this book, Keller unveils the false promises of idols and how Jesus is better in his unique style. If you only read one book on idolatry, I would recommend this one.


Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle For Your Heart

Kyle Idlman currently serves as a teaching pastor at Louisville's Southeast Christian Church. This work is probably more accessible than Keller's and is unique among books like it in that he dedicates a chapter to gluttony. But like Keller's volume, he shows that idolatry is dangerous and we must declare war against them.

January 1, 2017 | Mark 4:1-20: The Parable of the Soils, Part 2

Sunday evening we finished our exposition of Jesus's Parable of the Soils from Mark 4:1-20. You will find the audio of that sermon below.

He began to teach again by the sea. And such a very large crowd gathered to Him that He got into a boat in the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land. ² And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching, ³ “Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; ⁴ as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. ⁶ And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. ⁷ Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. ⁸ Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” ⁹ And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

¹⁰ As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables. ¹¹ And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, ¹² so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven.”

¹³ And He *said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables? ¹⁴ The sower sows the word. ¹⁵ These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. ¹⁶ In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; ¹⁷ and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. ¹⁸ And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, ¹⁹ but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. ²⁰ And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

Audio
Notes


For more:
January 10, 2016 | Mark 1:1-15: Jesus is the Gospel, Stupid
January 17, 2016 | Mark 1:16-20: The Correlation Between Repentance and Obedience, or, If Jesus Jumped Off a Bridge Would You Follow?
January 17, 2016 | Malachi 3:13-4:6: Is it Vanity to Worship God?
January 24, 2016 | Mark 1:21-28 - This Means War!
January 31, 2016 | Mark 1:29-45: Rusted and Weathered
February 7, 2016 | Mark 2:1-12
February 14, 2016 | Mark 2:13-17: God Helps Those Who Cannot Help Themselves
February 21, 2016 | Mark 2:18-22
February 28, 2016 | Mark 2:23-28
March 6, 2016 | Mark 3:1-6 
March 13, 2016 | Mark 3:7-19 - How to Change the World
March 20, 2016 | Mark 3:20-35
January 1, 2017 | Mark 4:1-20: The Parable of the Soils, Part 1
January 1, 2017 | Mark 4:1-20: The Parable of the Soils, Part 2 

January 1, 2017 | Mark 4:1-20: The Parable of the Soils, Part 1

Sunday we return to an old series exegeting the Gospel of Mark picking up where we left off last spring. Below you will find the links to the audio and notes to yesterday's sermon on the Parable of the Soils taken from Mark 4:1-20.

He began to teach again by the sea. And such a very large crowd gathered to Him that He got into a boat in the sea and sat down; and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land. ² And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching, ³ “Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; ⁴ as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. ⁶ And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. ⁷ Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. ⁸ Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” ⁹ And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

¹⁰ As soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables. ¹¹ And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, ¹² so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven.”

¹³ And He *said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables? ¹⁴ The sower sows the word. ¹⁵ These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. ¹⁶ In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; ¹⁷ and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. ¹⁸ And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, ¹⁹ but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. ²⁰ And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

Audio
Notes


For more:
January 10, 2016 | Mark 1:1-15: Jesus is the Gospel, Stupid
January 17, 2016 | Mark 1:16-20: The Correlation Between Repentance and Obedience, or, If Jesus Jumped Off a Bridge Would You Follow?
January 17, 2016 | Malachi 3:13-4:6: Is it Vanity to Worship God?
January 24, 2016 | Mark 1:21-28 - This Means War!
January 31, 2016 | Mark 1:29-45: Rusted and Weathered
February 7, 2016 | Mark 2:1-12
February 14, 2016 | Mark 2:13-17: God Helps Those Who Cannot Help Themselves
February 21, 2016 | Mark 2:18-22
February 28, 2016 | Mark 2:23-28
March 6, 2016 | Mark 3:1-6 
March 13, 2016 | Mark 3:7-19 - How to Change the World
March 20, 2016 | Mark 3:20-35
January 1, 2017 | Mark 4:1-20: The Parable of the Soils, Part 1