Become one of the 1,000,000 people praying for 1,000,000 Americans to find Christ
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Those who studied the era of Hitler’s rise to power and WWII, may know the name W. H. Auden. He was one of the most influential English poets of his day. He was considered a kind of secular prophet. He was no Christian. Rather, he was an atheist, a left-wing...
There would have been no way to have persuaded the prodigal son to return home the day he walked away. He wasn’t ready. In the pigsty, broke and abandoned by his fair-weather friends, he needed no persuading. God sees where the path of sin and rebellion takes...
Love disarms us. It allows the gospel of Christ to be “the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes” (Romans 1:16). Its effect is not limited to cultural barriers. It saves both Jew and Greek. This can’t be missed. The gospel’s transforming effect demands...
Obviously, in the last chapter, I suggested some evangelism models. You need a starting point. I also suggested that you might want to study and commit to memory at least two, preferably three, of these models. That being said, it should be clear that formulas and...
Barbara and I have five children, four girls and a son. We lost one child in a miscarriage. We have twenty wonderful grandchildren. When our children began to have children, it was delightful. Grandchildren! But time flies, and suddenly our grandchildren began to have...
The late Joe Aldrich believed Christians were to be good news before they shared good news. This is called incarnating the gospel, before we proclaim the gospel. Aldrich continued, “The music of the gospel must precede the words of the gospel and prepare the context...
Much of the evangelism we have known is one-on-one, as urged by Soren Kierkegaard. One person, engaging another, presenting the gospel message and attempting to solicit a decision. There is also street preaching, revivals and crusade evangelism. Often, recent...
The ultimate connection that anchors the convert, is a sense of belonging. This is a matter of identification, and it is related not only to the church, and its Christian constituents, but specifically to the ‘name of the Lord.’ This is important. God Himself claims...
Much of the evangelism style we have used in the past is confrontational. It was sometimes contentious, not conversational. Those two approaches differ in both tone and tactics. Past evangelism addressed the ‘sinner’ from across a line, differentiating the evangelist,...
In the past, we used a version of evangelism that memorized scripture and followed a script with leading questions designed to move the subject to a “Yes” answer. “Yes, I want to go to heaven when I die.” “Yes, I believe Jesus is the Son of God, that he was crucified...
Augustine noted that the preacher’s life, known to his people, and their perception of the depth of his practiced devotion, strongly influenced their reception of what he preached. If the preacher preached what his congregation knew he did not live, they didn’t take...
After “knowing the Lord two years, the average Christian has no significant relationships with non-Christians.” In recent years, we have paid closer attention to the difference between proclaiming the gospel and incarnating the gospel. Articulating, words, are easier...
Believers across America now mourn the debility of the church; its vitality is faltering, its impact fading, its mission neglected, and its devotion to God being undercut by love for this world. Right now we are enduring the largest and fastest religious shift in American history. Its scope is greater than every previous spiritual awakening in our history combined, only in the opposite direction. Christians are being confronted by “spiritual forces of evil” (Eph. 6:12) operating from the heavenly realms that boldly infiltrate every aspect of society, even the church. These dark powers aim to 1) frustrate God’s purpose to bless all peoples on earth through Christ with countless benefits, including righteousness, peace, joy, and justice, and 2)
inflict endless varieties of misery on everyone. When spiritual decline and cultural decay prevail, God’s people rise up to seek the Lord in prayer as the fountain of every blessing, asking him to fill the earth with his glory, pour out His Holy Spirit, inspire his church, and deliver people and cultures from innumerable troubles. Now is the time to pray with desperation for spiritual and cultural renewal, for divine intervention, for the fulfillment of God’s purposes for his church and his creation in Northeast Ohio.
Christian leaders, especially pastors, have a heightened responsibility to press into God with prayer for the church. Biblical precedent shows that gathering church leaders together to engage in heartfelt prayer for the welfare of their community often initiates widespread spiritual and social renewal both in church and society (2 Chron. 7:13-14; 15:8-10; 34:29-32). New Testament accounts show that when Christian leaders unite in prayer, often in response to social and/or spiritual crises, spiritual awakening and gospel advance follow (Acts 1:13-14; 2:1-4; 4:23-31; 13:1-3).
Jesus himself instills expectation of an outpouring of God’s Spirit in response to prayer with this promise: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Our Father in heaven is especially ready to pour out upon us the blessing we most need and long for, the very Spirit of God who imparts divine life, wisdom, and virtue.
With all this in mind, now is the time for Christian leaders across Northeast Ohio to come together to seek the Lord with biblically grounded, Christ-directed, wholehearted prayer for a God-given spiritual awakening. The trumpet of God is blaring! He is calling us to pray! Join Christian leaders from across our region to humble ourselves, seek the Lord’s face, and be willing to respond through His intervening grace to any changes He calls us to make! (Psalm 110:3)
The Gathering is an extension of the nationwide PATH (Prayer at the Heart) initiative piloted recently in Northeast Ohio. Put The Gathering on your calendar: Sunday, September 24, 6 pm, Calvary Chapel of Cleveland, 709 Brook Park Road, Brooklyn Heights, OH.