CoJourners

Greetings from Krasnoyarsk! 

Last week I sent you some information about different types of evangelism as found in the New Testament.

This week I am I wanted to direct your attention to CoJourners which falls into the “lifestyle evangelism” category.   The information on the website is fairly self-explanatory, so I won’t go into detail here. 

If you have questions, please write me and I will do my best to find answers for you!

Delegating to develop future leaders

In Exodus 18:13-26, Moses is given a large task of caring for the 600,000 Israelites plus their families.  The main part of this passage is how Jethro (Moses’ father-in-law) saw that the responsibility in ‘ministry’ that Moses was carrying was too much and that he was not serving the people well. Jethro asks Moses, “Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?"  In verse 21 Jethro advises, "select capable men from all the people-men who fear God, trustworthy... and appoint them as leaders...".  What Jethro suggested was delegation and the art of sharing leadership.

You may not be able to relate to Moses who could have been responsible for leading up to 3 million (counting women and children) Israelites in the wilderness.  You may be thinking, ‘I would be so grateful if there were 10 people to lead in this ministry!’  Your need is more to learn how to help develop others into leaders who will lead with you in your local ministry on campus and who will carry on the ministry after you graduate.  I think Jethro’s advice of delegating to share leadership works just as well in helping to develop new leaders for your local ministry as it did in helping Moses not to burn out in carrying out the overwhelming task that God had called him to do.

One simple way of developing new leaders or involving people new to your group or ministry is through delegation.  Delegation helps to increase the commitment level and the vision of others for serving the Lord and serving the ministry. Delegation is about helping to develop others to lead.

Here are some thoughts and questions to keep in mind as you think about developing new leaders:

·         Who are some students that seem faithful, available and teachable? (Look at 2 Tim. 2:2)

·         Do these students sincerely want to walk with the Lord, even though they may be spiritually young?

·         What are some activities that you could ask others to be involved in? (hanging up posters, coming early to help prepare the room for a meeting or Bible study group,  bring snacks, be in charge of an icebreaker game, go out to do surveys and share the gospel, help to lead a prayer time, etc)

·         What are some areas of strength/giftedness that these students seem to have?

·         Think through the ministry activities you have for each week.  What can you ask another believer in your group to do in order to involve others?  Challenge them to do it, give them some overall direction and watch to see how faithfully and how well they carry out their responsibility. 

Try challenging some students to some specific activities now if you aren’t already doing so.  As they follow through on those things, ask them to do more and begin to involve them in the greater vision of the ministry. As they contribute to the ministry, their ownership and commitment to the mission on campus usually increases.  And new leadership is raised up to continue the vision for the building of the movement for years after you leave.  You will have left a continuing legacy and God’s work of bringing the gospel to the lost students at your campus will be carried on!

Model for Evangelism

What’s the best approach of doing evangelism?  You may get different answers from each person you ask.  I heard Keith Davy, a co-worker who did a study on the Biblical Model of Evangelism, speak on this topic and was surprised and encouraged by what he said.  He said that the New Testament talks about 3 main categories of evangelism:

1. Lifestyle, or relational evangelism - The Natural Witness (John 1:40-51; 4:28-42; Luke 8:38-39; Colossians 4:5,6; 1 Pet. 3:15)

2. Our witness as a Body of Christ - The Body Witness (Acts 2:42ff; John 13:34-35; 17:22-23; 1 Corinthians 11:26)

3. Intentional outreach - The Ministry Witness (Mark 1:38, 39; Luke 9:1-66; 10:1-17, Acts 5:41-42; 8:5ff, 26ff; 11:19-21; 11:22-24; 13 and on).

There are people who say that the only way to share the gospel is through building relationships with someone and ‘earning the right to be heard.’  Others focus mostly on ministry evangelistic activities.  And others believe that it’s through our actions, not so much through our words, that win people to Christ.

In the midst of talking about this, the speaker asked those of us in the room to raise our hands who came to faith in Christ through the witness of a close friend.  About 1/3 of the people in the auditorium raised their hands.  Then he asked to raise their hands those of us who came to Christ through the context of a community of believers and noticed the difference in their lives.  Again about 1/3 raised their hands.  And lastly he asked for those who received Christ as Savior and Lord to raise their hands if that happened in the context of a ministry event.  I joined the last 1/3 who raised our hands.  The speaker says that whenever he speaks on this subject it never fails that the room is generally evenly divided between the 3 categories or modes of evangelism.

It would be a good idea to think about including something from each of the 3 categories in your personal evangelism.  My personal preference is the ‘ministry witness’ and so that’s what I do most of the time.  I don’t mind approaching strangers to share the gospel and I like to put on evangelistic events.  The area that is least comfortable for me is the ‘lifestyle or natural witness’, but being less comfortable doesn’t give mean that I shouldn’t try to build relationships with my neighbors and friends and take a risk to ask them questions that will make them think about Jesus.  It also doesn’t mean that I should ignore how I ‘walk before others’.

Think about this as well as you plan your ministry’s strategy for evangelism.  What are ways that you can help and encourage one another share the gospel with your friends and classmates?  What sorts of evangelistic outreaches will you do this semester?  Don’t forget to think about how you relate to one another as a body of Christ – are your relationships and is your passion for Christ something that draws non-believers into the Body?

I will continue to send resources your way that fall into all three categories.  Please tell me about things you have done so that I can share those ideas with others, too.  Right now there are student believers in 45 cities in Russia who are receiving this рассылка – pray for one another as you are trusting God together to do something on your campus that will change the spiritual destinies of students for eternity!

Breathe life, Holy Spirit

Leonid  (Lyonya) Novikov, the main speaker at this year’s Winter Bible Conference, made a very powerful point that will stick with me for a long time.  He was speaking from Ps.100:3 where God says that it is He who made us – we did not make ourselves.  Because He is our Creator, He is also our Master and Lord and He is the One who directs what we do with our lives.  Our response to God should always be, ‘how do I align myself according to His purposes?’  He is King and I live to serve Him.

At the end of his first talk, Lyonya gave each one of us a piece of clay and told us to fashion a person.  We were to bring back our ‘person’ to the next talk.  It was interesting to watch how every one of us went to work fashioning our person!  There were some extremely gifted sculptors at the conference. .. I was very impressed.

The following night, Lyonya continued to speak about God being the Creator, Owner, King of our lives and how we are the created, we are made to serve His purpose.   He had us take our masterpiece, our ‘creation’ and hold it up.  Lyonya then commanded us to breathe life into the person we made with our own hands.  People started laughing at the ridiculousness of the idea that we could breathe life into our clay figures!  I admit that I even attempted it just to remind myself that only God can create life and I am totally incapable of turning something I made into a living being.

The point was so visual and so powerful that it led me to thinking about other ways this could be applied in my life.  I thought about how, when I feel confident in my abilities to do something, I forget to do things in God’s power and rely instead on my own strength and wisdom to serve Him.  I thought about how relying on myself rather than on God is like me trying to breathe life into a plan or a strategy or activity.  When I pictured myself trying to blow the breath of life into my clay person, I made myself visualize trying to blow life into a plan or activity “in service to God” but done in my own strength.  When I’m doing that activity in my own power, I am unable to give that activity eternal value or impact.  But when we’re filled with the Holy Spirit and relying on God’s wisdom and power, then it’s He who breathes life into our strategies and plans – only He is able to do that.

So how do you allow God to breathe life into your service to Him?  The Holy Spirit booklet explains just how to allow Him to empower you, to blow His life into the plans He has given you to bring the good news to your campus.