pat loughery

Worship was led by the Columbus Vineyard team. Full choir; one song with a young rapper; one song with kids doing hand gestures (to He reigns)
I was in and out of the auditorium and didn’t get a set list.

Plug for the KingdomRain website

Keynote: Rich Nathan of Columbus Vineyard: Being an evangelistic pastor

3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
2 Tim. 4:3-5 (NIV)

Paul contrasts gathering teachers for themselves to hear what they want to, vs. “but you” discharge allt he duties of ministry.

We can choose to follow the latest fad, or do the work of an evangelist.

He doen’t say “pray for hte gift of an evanglism”, “pray for the harvest”, “pray for an evangelist heart”. But “do the work of an evangelist”.

Just do it.

Don’t let anything stop you from doing the work of an evangelist.

I used to be in a church that was like a golden retriever puppy: we sat around licking each other. We were community but not missional community. We were a nonafiliated church evaluating the vineyard and also a community whose guiding metaphor was to be a bulwark. We could be a bulwark or a bulldozer. We can change the landscape.

So we decided to reach out. We saw a trickle and then a river of people.

What does an evangelist do?

Christ is the content of the evangel.

We need to call to decision. We need to pull the trigger. There’s no methodology, etc – but in some clear fashion, draw people to clearly mark that they’ve made a decision for Christ. Don’t muddy it up out of insecurity.

Do the work of an evanglist y makign things clear; God is the savior. If he’s not at work raching the lost and bringing them into his eternal kingdom, nothing’s going to happen. You have to risk; you ‘re asking your people to risk in the marketplace.

What do you do when you have a small church and you know everybody? Tell the people that you’re just going to practice describing the gospel. They’ll notice that you’re doing this, and start to bring fish. Teach your church to be inviters. “I promise you; most weeks we’re going to call people to the gospel of the kingdom. invite people.”

If you ‘re going to be an evanglistic pastor, model evangelism.

Model it outside of preaching.

Creative ideas: Use the internet. Evangelise through email. Email those who hate you.

Testimony video

How do we do this:
Make the gospel attractive
– quote authorities that people respect and trust
– be as inclusive as possible in my preaching (tniv… gender inclusive)
– ekklesia from athenians had to do with the first democratic, participatory assembly. it was inclusive. the early christians liked that term. it wasn’t domineering, hierarchical. they were also opennig the doors wider than the athenians did.
– use apologetics as you preach. have points that directly connect with nonbelievers to remove roadblocks.
–
Every community has boundaries; the qeustion is how does every community treat people at the boundaries? our lord died for the excluded-from-community. we christians relate differently (again, inclusive as possible)

Treat people with respect honor. Dialog. Respect when hotbutton issues. Sepraate the person from the problem, speak with respect.

Recognize that god speaks to the poor, the sick.

phil of ministry: rich believres that as we share apologetics and help them remove doubt/roadblocks, we’re modeling to the church how to shoare its faith. when you’re talkign to nonchristians who are pragmatic,

christians and nonchristians alike need to hear the gospel.

the questios peole ask are not: how can we stand just before a holy god. they dont’ have the struggle of martin luther. what they are saying is not just justification but freedom and redemption. e.g. kierkegaard’s approach in sickness unto death: we’re constantly enslavfed to our idols.

e.g. idols: anytime we take a good thing and make it an ultimate thing we’ve made it an idol.

stephen van dopp did his dmin on evangelism study at columbus vineyard.
1. everybody’s seeking something. so they use the lang of jeremiah 29:13. speak to spiritual seekers, speak to those in crisis (most people odcming to faith are in crisis)
over 50% of the people who came to christ here at vineyard columbus had a divine encounter – a sense of the presence of god.

we believe in an experiential gospel.

there comes a time when we need to call for decision, and the deicsion isn’t a true/false, butg a yes/no decision. (yes/no wil lyou follow and submit and surrender? true/false=assent of belief

DO THE WORK OF AN EVANGELIST within your contextg, your temperament, your city, … trust the gospel. it works. it makes a differnce for people.