Gospel.com Blog

As the eyes of the world are on the Olympic Games in Beijing, there are plenty of amazing success stories on display: incredible athletic achievements and tales of triumphant underdogs. But athletic competition is not the only challenge facing Olympic athletes—and one ministry is highlighting the spiritual victories of six Olympic athletes as part of a ministry to the Middle East.

The organization is SAT-7, and a recent Mission News Network story describes the way they’re “>using the inspiring stories of six Olympians as a way to reach out to the Arab world with the Gospel message:

“The model of Christianity in this region is often that Christianity is only for the weak, for those who are simple and have no other options,” says SAT-7 Acquisitions Manager George Makeen. He says that these stories are important to tell in the Middle East and North Africa.

“Athletes in the Arab world are stars, and people really look up to them,” Makeen said. “So it’s important, especially for young people in this area, to see athletes who are famous and successful and are still followers of Christ.”

Read the full story for more details, or visit the SAT-7 website to see what else the ministry is doing.

Stumbled across this story via the Christian Persecution Blog about how the Chinese government is going to allow Luis Palau to distribute his book, A Friendly Dialogue Between an Atheist and a Christian, for free to athletes and coaches at the Olympics.

From the Christianpost.com article:

The Chinese government has granted an American evangelist permission to distribute a Christian-Atheist book to athletes and coaches during the Beijing Summer Olympics, the ministry announced Wednesday.

Evangelist Luis Palau will be giving a copy of his book, A Friendly Dialogue Between an Atheist and a Christian, to athletes attending the Games.

The book records a conversation between atheist Chinese diplomat Zhao Qizheng – a high-ranking Chinese government official – and the Christian evangelist. It offers both the basic beliefs of Christianity and a unique perspective on Christianity and philosophy of religion as seen from Chinese culture and beliefs.

Palau’s distribution approval comes just one month after China announced that it will print and distribute 50,000 Gospel booklets in Chinese and English for the Olympics. China said it will also print 30,000 Chinese-English New Testaments and 10,000 Chinese-English complete Bibles especially for the Games.

News of China’s seeming respect for Christianity follows contrasting reports of increase persecution of house church leaders. A report last week informed that the chairman of the Federation House Church and his wife were forced this month to live on the streets after Chinese authorities repeatedly forced them out of shelters.

Luis Palau has written close to 50 books and has shared his message about Christ to over 1 billion people. Check out his website for more on his ministry.

Quick: how many comics are sold in Japan each year?

2.1 billion

How many in copies of Korean comics Kai Hua Roh and Mahasanook are sold each month?

Over 8 million copies.

Those are huge numbers and translates into Comics being one of the most widely read and consumed mediums. That’s why COMIX35 “helps ministries and individuals produce effective Christian comics as part of an evangelism strategy and/or discipleship program for their own people.”

You can read more on their Why We Do What We Do page.

Right now they’re busy at work collaborating with people across Africa to create a comic to reach non-Christians in Africa. Right now they’ve started collecting art work and have the date of the end of 2008 to publish. Check out the main page for more information on this initiative.

If you’re at all interested in comics and evangelism, check out the different ways in which you can get involved.

This week we’re thinking once again about discipleship. What is discipleship? The call to discipleship is laid out for Christians in Matthew 28:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

That’s a pretty ambitious command—how are we to understand it today? In an overview of discipleship, Richard Krejcir elaborates on the questions raised by this Bible passage:

Is this a command, or a suggestion; does it mean we are just to evangelize and let people find their faith on their own, or does this mean we are to lead others and teach the precepts of the Scriptures and the character of our Lord? Does it require obedience and action on our part, or are we disciples just by being a Christian and being in a church on Sundays?

Read the full article for Krejcir’s answers, and his ideas about what discipleship means for the church. One of his central points is the artificial distinction Christians tend to make between evangelism and discipleship—discipleship, we are inclined to think, is just the training and education of people are already Christians, right? Krejcir argues that evangelism and discipleship are not only closely related, they’re actually just two aspects of the same activity: bringing people closer to Christ. It’s a view echoed in another article, “Why Must Evangelism and Discipleship Go Hand in Hand?” by Jerry Root.

So as we think about discipleship this week, consider that the definition we often use for it might not actually account for everything that we’re called to do as disciples of Jesus Christ. We’ll back back tomorrow with a few more good articles and links about what it means to make disciples in Christ’s name!

So often we feel like we need to go somewhere else to do God’s work, but so often God is already working where we are. Spanish World Ministries is a ministry who ministers to their native lands. Their main way to do so is through a radio program called El Camino de la Vida (The way of life).

For more information on their philosophy, check out this excerpt from The National Missionary Connection page:

Who is a national missionary? A national missionary is a person who is serving Christ while living in the country in which he or she was born or has become a permanent resident through the means of immigration or marriage. National missionaries have the same culture, language, economic status, and physical features as those to whom they minister. They eat like they eat. They talk like they talk. They think like they think. They live like they live. They are educated like they are educated. They look like they look. A national missionary understands and intimately identifies materially, emotionally and intellectually with the people he or she is trying to reach for Christ.

Here’s a great summary of what their mission:

Our confidence is that every day, somewhere in Latin America, many people are hearing that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the World.

Are you familiar with the ministry of Luis Palau? Palau, an evangelist whose ministry has preached the Gospel over the radio, in print, and at massive evangelistic events, is on the leading edge of the revival movement. He’s spoken in over 70 different countries to over 25 million people, preaching the Gospel to those who aren’t Christians and encouraging believers to revitalize their faith.

If you haven’t yet explored the Luis Palau Association website, you might be surprised to find that although Palau’s revival ministry works on a grand scale—huge evangelistic events and concerts—there are a lot of resources on the website to help you kick off a revival in your personal spiritual life. Here are a few items worth checking out:

• Palau has written dozens of articles about living out the Christian faith—many of which have become “classics” in the Gospel.com community over the years. Among the best are Five Ways God Answers Prayer, Facing Sexual Temptation, and Forgiving an Absent Dad—but you’ll find many, many others worth reading in addition to those.
• Growing Faith is a semi-regular podcast featuring Palau’s insights into many different topics, from overcoming addiction to understanding the place of wealth and poverty in society.
• Central to Palau’s ministry are the massive evangelistic festivals held all over the world. There are upcoming festivals this year in places ranging from Romania to Mexico.
• Reaching Your World is a one-minute and two-minute daily English feature that provides listeners with practical encouragement on how to share their faith. Tune in and listen online!
• And if you live in the Portland, Oregon area, the Luis Palau Association always welcomes volunteers!

The Luis Palau Association is a truly global ministry, but there’s are plenty of good resources to help you through the everyday, personal issues that come with being a Christian in today’s society. Stop by and see what they have to offer!

Interested in ministry to the Muslim world? Before Christians can witness effectively to their Muslim neighbors, they need to understand Islamic beliefs and culture.

We’ve mentioned Arab World Ministries before—they’re a Christian ministry focused on sharing the Gospel with Muslims and educating believers about Islam. As part of that mission, they’re running a training program this May called the Summer Institute on Islam in Philadelphia. SIIP 2008 is a training course designed to help Christians better understand the theology and worldview of Islam, in order to be more effective ambassadors of Christ to Muslims. The SIIP 2008 website lists the following objectives for the course:

• Understand the major cross-cultural, theological, and spiritual challenges westerners face when relating to Muslims.
• Know how to respond accurately and respectfully to the assumptions behind Muslim objections to Biblical Christianity.
• Be able to compare and contrast the Islamic faith with Biblical Christianity.
• Know how to respond to Muslims in love by speaking into their framework of understanding.
• Understand the world-view and ethos of Islam.

The deadline for course registration and fees is coming up soon (May 15), so if it’s something that interests you, head over to the SIIP 2008 site and get started on the registration process!

Internet Evangelism Day is one month away. What does your church have planned?

If you’re not familiar with Internet Evangelism Day, there’s still time to learn about it and get your church community involved. Each year on IE Day (this year, it falls on April 27), churches are encouraged to focus on a massive missions field that we interact with on a daily basis, but which often goes unmentioned by the church: the internet! It’s a day for churches to educate themselves about the evangelism opportunities that the internet makes possible, and to pray for the ongoing evangelism work taking place online every day, all around the world.

If you and/or your church aren’t overflowing with technical knowledge, don’t worry—the IE Day website has some excellent, user-friendly materials available for free download to help you learn about internet evangelism and share what you know with your church community:

• An explanation of why the internet is an excellent missions field, and a discussion of whether or not internet evangelism achieves results.
• Free resources and ideas to help you set up an IE Day service at your church—anything from a full church service focused on the topic to a small group discussion. And IE Day isn’t just for churches; all Christian groups and organizations are encouraged to take some time on or around IE Day to give some thought to the ways that the internet can be used to share the Gospel.
• Strategies for making effective evangelistic websites, and for improving your church website so that it actually speaks to non-Christians.

There’s much more to explore over at the IE Day site, so take some time to look around. There’s still a month to go, so you’ve got time to plan something (big or small) for your church, small group, or ministry. Mark down April 29 on your calendar!

Sometimes we needn’t look too far into the past to glimpse amazing faith, and in some respects being able to see the successes and failures of what happened in the recent past can do wonders for our understanding of the present.

Take, for example, Billy Graham, who is a man that needs no introduction in Christian–and many non-Christian–circles. He has tirelessly preached the good news of Jesus Christ to countless millions of people throughout his life. His legacy is one to be admired not because of some empire he built, but because he is a man that took up Jesus’ offer to take up his cross and follow him daily.

Here’s a sermon from 1955 at the All-Scotland Crusade.

And if you’re ever in Wheaton, IL check out the Billy Graham Center Museum. They have an overview of the history of missions and of Billy Graham’s life that will force you to think deeply about evangelism and missions.

Also, from the Christian History Institute we have a bunch of stories of missionaries and Christians from throughout the 20th century. You can find a list of them here.

And here are a few select ones:

Marianna Slocum

Corrie Ten Boom

Ecumenical Church in India

J. Edwin Orr

Have you ever looked around, taken stock of the spiritual apathy and confusion in our culture, and wished for a nationwide religious revival? If so, you’re not the first Christian to do so. If you’re despairing that a society-wide revival could ever take place, you might be surprised to learn that just a few hundred years ago, that’s exactly what happened!

I’m talking about the “Great Awakening” that swept through America in the 18th century, sparking great church growth, renewed missions work, and inter-denominational unity. Sound far-fetched? Here are a few resources to introduce you to the Great Awakening and the evangelists who helped spark it:

• First, read a brief overview of the Great Awakening—who started it and what it meant for an America increasingly affected by spiritual malaise and the humanist philosophies of the Enlightenment.
• Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan preacher who, distressed by what we saw happening (or not happening) in America’s churches, began a preaching tour that kickstarted a great spiritual revival. His 1741 sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (link goes to an audio reading of it) is one of the most famous sermons in all of Christian history. (You can listen to many more of his sermons at Sermon Index.)
• George Whitefield, a British evangelist and friend of Ben Franklin, was another major figure in the Great Awakening. Greatly upset by the “lukewarm Christianity” he saw all around him, he did all he could to shake Christians out of their stagnant spiritual state. Read more about Whitefield’s evangelistic work, or check out some of his many sermons. For a shorter sample of his teaching style, see this brief Whitefield excerpt on the importance of “frequent and devout prayer”.
• Revival didn’t end with the Great Awakening— it wasn’t long after that a Second Great Awakening was sparked, with an even greater impact on American society.

The preaching of Edwards, Whitefield, and other evangelists had a profound effect on their society—and if you take the time to read some of their sermons, you’ll be amazed at how relevant they are. Some of them feel like they could just as easily have been written in 2008! So next time you’re tempted to despair at the all the religious confusion we see in society around us, remember the Great Awakening, and be reminded that what seems impossible to man is quite possible for God.