After six parts to the ‘because the cross was made of dogwood’ series I’ve racked up quite a few questions about what the whole dogwood thing has to do with evangelism. Well, today you find out. As many of you know, I have a company that I co-operate with fellow minister Randy Wray that we…
Category Archives: Culture
Because The Cross Was Made Of Dogwood – Thoughts On Evangelism, Part 5
Thanks for hanging on with us as we’ve covered some of the ramblings of my mind. The comments and feedback have been great. If you haven’t, please check out the other posts in this series and let us all know what you think. We’re going to turn the direction of this series a little and…
Because The Cross Was Made Of Dogwood – Thoughts On Evangelism, Part 4
I know this looks a little long, but there’s a story at the end that you’ll want to hang around for. Thanks again for dropping by! The feedback on this series has been great. I know you’re not all commenting, but please feel free to jump into the discussion by leaving comments below. I won’t…
Because The Cross Was Made Of Dogwood – Thoughts On Evangelism, Part 2
Married to the idea of getting people to ‘come to church’ is the idea that ‘coming to church’ is synonymous with behavior modification. It’s sort of like we think church attendance is the silver bullet for all kinds of moral ills. This is an error that churches and Christians have made for some time. We’ve…
Because The Cross Was Made of Dogwood – Thoughts On Evangelism, Part 1
One of the popular topics Among church leadership has to do with evangelism and it’s effectiveness. I speak with church leaders regularly about church growth and church health, and I’m convinced that 90% of the time when a church leader says they want to evangelize what they are really saying is that they want the…
Redeeming the Time…
The last several weeks have been crazy for us. Our third-born child turned 13 this week. My brother in law had surgery yesterday. The appelant brief in my niece’s custody hearing were filed. In just a few short weeks, our oldest graduates high school. In Michigan that means that you have to throw an ‘open…
The redemption of hugging
A few days ago I blogged about an incredible revelation I had while walking my dog. That post was one of my most popular ever! Thanks for the great feedback! I’ve been trying the Sadie Experiment for about a week now, and I already have some observable outcomes to report on. First, just like Sadie,…
Redeeming Christianity
Is that a presumptuous title or what? For the last few years I’ve been engaged in some separate studies that have come together in a surprising way. One of the great benefits of being in full time ministry is the time I get to spend in study and research. The pressure to present it adequately…
The Right Way To Do Church
Before I really get started on some church organization stuff, I want to clarify my position on what is the right way to “do church”. If we’re honest, what we do as churches today is mostly created by us. We like to claim that we use a biblical approach or that we do things the…
Bringing the Good News
As any of you who’ve taken just a bit of Greek or has listened to a preacher who has tried to use it, you’ll know that we get the English word "evangelism" from the Greek word "euangelizo". This is a compound word in Greek, formed by the prefix "eu", which means good or excellent, and…
