Gospel.com Blog

Is there room for the Gospel in a world marked by war, genocide, and terrorism? The latest issue of the Lausanne World Pulse focuses on the challenge of proclaiming the Gospel in the face of war in the Middle East and genocide in Africa.

Lon Allison’s opening essay talks about the Gospel as a source of hope in a broken world. Another article provides a case study of relief work and evangelism in Uganda, where “a 19-year war… initiated by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) against the government of Uganda has subjected its people to brutality and violence beyond imagination.” Despite the horror that many in Uganda have suffered, the Gospel is providing hope to traumatized survivors at a care center for child mothers.

Other essays talk about the plight of Christians in Iraq today, ministry in the red light districts of Kolkata, India, and media evangelism in the Middle East. Lots of good material on the theme of missions and evangelism in some of the most battered and wartorn areas in the world—give it a read and get a glimpse at the state of global mission work today.

Have you ever wondered how to respond to the increasing pluralism in today’s society? Just Thinking is a daily listener-supported radio show that comes out of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. The program “seek[s] to explore issues such as life’s meaning, the credibility of the Christian message and the Bible, the weakness of modern intellectual movements, and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.”

If you’re interested, you can find their complete archives online here. Or, search for a station near you using this page.

Recently they did a series called The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society. This presentation was formed from a series of talks by Itinerant team member Stuart McAllister, who is filling in for Ravi Zacharias. He focuses on Christian responses to an increasingly pluralistic world, and outlines how we need to begin interacting with the cultures and religions around us. His call is for Christians seek to understand the world they live in so that our defense of the gospel can be relevant. In his mind, there is far more happening on this earth than what we see from our own limited world-view.

The presentation is broken into five different parts. These links will take you to a page where you can select how you would like to listen to the broadcast:

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

“The radio outreach of RZIM is a listener supported ministry that powerfully mixes biblical teaching and Christian apologetics. The programs seek to explore issues such as life’s meaning, the credibility of the Christian message and the Bible, the weakness of modern intellectual movements, and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.”

In the 1930’s Helen Baugh hosted a dinner where the gospel of Christ was presented in a loving and relaxed manner to other women, after that first meeting the women asked if they could come back again the next week. The weekly meetings took off and soon Stonecroft Ministries was born. From those humble beginnings the ministry branched out to include Christian bookstores, tracts, and bible studies. Currently there are Stonecroft Ministries’ bible studies in sixty-three countries around the world!

Here are some informative pages from their web site:

An interesting set of videos about people’s perceptions of Christians from Stonecroft media.

Stonecroft daily news.

The main page for Stonecroft Ministries’ small groups. If you’re interested in joining a Stonecroft group they have a location finder here.

Main page for Stonecroft bible studies.

Stonecroft Ministries, “is a non-denominational organization that equips women to impact their communities with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, providing resources to enable women to connect with God, each other, and their communities.”

Looking into short-term missions? For many, a short-term missions trip serves as a life-changing introduction to serving God’s people. Face to Face International has sent 375 short-term missions teams and over 5,000 short-termers across the globe. Whether it be a local US ministry or a church in Thailand, their ministry “specializes in building world missions commitment by offering a wide variety of “face to face,” short-term mission opportunities throughout the year.” Trips are usually one to three weeks long, and they work with local ministries to ensure success and safety. If you’re still skeptical of the whole short-term model I’d recommend reading their article about short-term missions.
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Uplook Ministries is “devoted to to bring helpful information, varied ministry, and encouragement to God’s people, it continues to grow in its readership, many of these readers in Developing World countries.”

The main outlet of their ministry is publishing their magazine, Uplook, which has been regularly published since 1927! If you’re interested in more history on the magazine, read about it here. If you’d rather read the magazine, they have it available online with issues back to 1998.

Have questions about Christianity? You can find thorough answers to some difficult topics on their questions and answers page. Uplook also keeps a list of poetry and hymns as well as helpful charts and Bible study guides. I found the minor prophets chart particularly helpful at breaking down who was sent where. Uplook Ministries is committed to their online presence. So, “what you see on our Uplook site so far is just a taste of what we hope to accomplish.”

Please pray with us as we seek to stir up greater evangelistic interest, especially in North America. We are seeking also to equip young evangelists and provide helpful gospel materials for believers to use in witnessing.

Call it a savvy marketing, call it media evangelism—evangelical Christians have a history of using every available medium to get the Gospel message across, whether it’s printed tracts, radio broadcasts, or big-screen films. The Billy Graham Center has a fascinating online exhibit of one of the quirkier niches in evangelical history: classic Christian posters!

There’s a great gallery of vintage posters, from “come to the meeting” posters advertising revival meetings to somewhat quirkier posters. It’s interesting to compare posters from different parts of the world, from a stark London poster to lavishly illustrated Chinese posters.

Be sure to check them all out, and don’t miss this page of classic posters that aren’t a part of the exhibit.

A side note: Several of the posters, you’ll note, advertise Billy Graham crusades around the world. The Christian History Institute has an interesting account of Graham’s monumental 1954 evangelism crusade, if this particular corner of evangelical history interests you.

Have you ever heard the oft-repeated piece of conventional wisdom that if somebody does not come to the Christian faith by the time they turn 18, they likely never will? It’s a scary statistic, and it puts a lot of pressure on parents and youth workers to see their kids come to Christ before they turn 18 and are presumably lost forever. But a recent post at Intersect’s AlreadyNotYet blog argues that parents and youth pastors shouldn’t be so quick to use that phrase. Faith, the post says, isn’t quite as black-and-white as the phrase suggests–and there’s nothing magical about turning 18 that will keep somebody from developing faith in Christ later in life.

So don’t despair if you aren’t seeing mature faith in every 18-year-old kid in the youth group–and don’t think that “saving” somebody before age 18 will spare them spiritual difficulty later in life! Read the full post for more.

Ever noticed that an awful lot of Christian books, websites, and music is targeted… at Christians?

Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with writing material meant for Christians to read or use — but if you glance around the Christian internet or the local Christian bookstore, it’s clear that there’s an imbalance. If Christians are supposed to be sharing the Good News with the entire world, shouldn’t more of our energy be spent talking to people who aren’t already Christians?

In a thorough article about this phenomenon, the Internet Evangelism Guide calls this the “99% Problem” — as in, 99% of Christian material seems to be written for Christians, and only 1% of it is of much use to non-Christians. If you do any sort of Christian writing, online or offline, ask yourself who you’re writing for, and if there’s a way to make your writing more meaningful to non-Christian readers!

Has Christianity lost the “culture war”? Our society’s moral values have been on a steady decline for decades, and despite our best efforts, Christians seem unable to stem the tide. If Christians are losing the war of ideas, maybe it’s time for a new battle plan. A reflection from the Delve Into Jesus ministry suggests a better way to win back the hearts and minds of our culture–by following the example of the early Christians, who conquered the mighty Roman empire with their faith and ideas.

How do you do effective ministry online? What does authentic internet ministry look like? What do technological trends like Web 2.0 mean for online evangelism? These are just some of the questions being discussed at the Internet Ministry Conference, which is underway this week in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The annual conference is a core part of Gospel Communications‘ vision for doing ministry online, and training other Christians to do the same.

Even if you aren’t attending the conference, you can still follow along with much of what’s going on there at the Internet Ministry Conference blog. In the weeks to come, we’ll also be putting audio and video from the conference workshops online at the blog, so you can enjoy the conference content free of charge. If you share our passion for online ministry, stop by and follow along with our discussions at the conference blog!