Canadian Evangelism

The Alpha Youth Film Series has enjoyed tremendous success since it's introduction in 2013. Originally made in Canada, by Alpha Canada, for Canada, the Series has now been seen in 49 Countries and made available in 19 languages. Thousands of young people have found  relationships with God and a faith in Jesus Christ through this resource. It has been used extensively in both youth groups, where Christian young people invite their friends to hear about Jesus in a non-threatening way, and in schools, where Christian kids have approached school staff to offer this program that has been so helpful to them personally. Because anything to do with youth becomes ancient after three years, we are working on another one. Both these videos look the same here, but in fact are two different videos. Watch them both. Here is the first behind-the-scenes look at the new production. Please pray for all involved in this new production as well as all those who will be reached by it...

I made a two-day run to Calgary last week. I've mentioned before, but I'll say again that I love Jesus, I love Alpha and I love driving, so I have the perfect job. I'm now known on a first-name basis at my local Enterprise Car Rental office. If I travel any more than about a 250 km round trip I rent a car, because it costs Alpha Canada less to pay for the car and gas than to reimburse me for mileage. (I say 'mileage' partly because I am of an age where I'm still partly mired in the imperial system of measurement and partly because the term rolls off the tongue, or the keyboard, more smoothly than, 'kilometerage.') I have a TomTom GPS that I take with me, and when I dial in my destination, it tells me what time I should arrive there (by driving at the posted speed limits no doubt.). I like to see how much more quickly I can make it, so as I drive only enough above the limit not to lose my eternal salvation, I watch the ETA go backward minute by minute. On...

The Church has a job. One job above all others. It is a job given to us by our founder, our head, Jesus Christ. He 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.” (Matthew 28:18a-20) Jesus did not say, "Attract disciples from other churches." He said, "Make disciples..." so how are we doing? I was reminded today of a church in a city in my province. It is a fairly large church. It is a church that has run Alpha in the past, but not at present. As I say, they have run Alpha but when I spoke to the pastor, I heard that they have trouble getting their people to invite, so now they are running a program purely for their own congregants. I was talking to another pastor, who knew of this church, and s...

Finally: We proclaim Christ, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. (Colossians 1:28)   As I said previously, it’s a process… Becoming mature in Christ takes a lifetime. Be patient. Who of us solved all our issues the moment we came to faith? None of us. Sanctification, becoming more Christ-like, is a life-long process. The time has passed when we as Christians could enforce our way of living on those who don’t share our faith. We shouldn’t be surprised if people who have no Christian background don’t see the point in living the way we do, or the way we think they should. We introduce them to Jesus – let Jesus change the heart.  Finally, a word of encouragement to us: In the very next verse following the above, Paul says: “To this end I labour, struggling with all His energy, which so powerfully works in me.” (Colossians 1:29)   We labour, but it is His energy, powerfully working in us. Christ’s great c...

Our Attitude: May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:5)   We are to have the same attitude as Christ – and what was that? An attitude of love and compassion; non-judgemental to those he came to save (he came not to condemn the world but to save the world) It's interesting that Jesus didn't express anger to sinners, repentant or not (the rich young ruler), nor to the Roman occupiers or their representatives (centurions), but only to the hypocritical Jewish religious leaders.  The expression, “Love the sinner hate the sin” doesn’t resonate any more outside our own Christian community. The world almost exclusively, and almost automatically, assumes that if you criticize the sin, you hate the sinner, so the expression almost has become a, “Christianese” expression. That’s why we first deve...

Now Back to our regular programming: Communicating the Gospel involves the whole person. It's an appeal to the mind: over time Unbelievers are not stupid. They’re intelligent. Don’t speak down to them, but discuss on a rational level. Here is the opening statement from my first email exchange with the young university student mentioned in a previous post: First, let me say I appreciate your questions and I appreciate that you have them.   Unlike some, I would not encourage anyone who has serious questions and doubts about specific areas of Christianity to just “Set them aside and proceed on faith.”   An honest person cannot ignore legitimate concerns and say to themselves, “Well, I have serious concerns but I’m going to subscribe anyway.”   I’m not saying that all questions have to be answered, because they never will be, (and new questions/areas of interest, study or investigation will arise for the rest of our lives) but what is necessary is that legitimate object...

I'm going to interrupt my series on communicating the gospel for an actual post. It's Sunday night and I'm sitting in my hotel room in Red Deer. It was an uneventful drive down from Edmonton this afternoon, except for the very last part when I had an argument with my GPS. It was right (mostly)but I didn't believe it. Fortunately I had that lady's voice muted or there might have been a real shouting match. My second sentence above is evidence that I eventually made it. I have at least three appointments tomorrow between 8:30 and noon, and hope to line up at least one more before I head home. The first is a breakfast meeting with the long-time Alpha coordinator from Crossroads church , a church that has been running Alpha for many years. Next is a meeting with Senior Pastor Paul Vallee of Living Stones church . Living Stones is an interesting and encouraging story. They began with a group of 12 people meeting in a hotel. From there they grew to the point where they pu...

(My 2017 Break Forth presentation continued) What needs to change is the way in which we communicate the message. But never dilute the message. Faith still comes by hearing and hearing still by the word of God. The key is to engage in a narrative, not to hold up the word of God as a club; to discuss, not lecture. Scripture can be used in two ways. We can confront authoritatively with, "The Bible says!" Or we can engage, with, “Here is what the Bible says. What do you think?" Bringing people to faith is a process: 1. It's a Process of Understanding The old model – one-off encounters, turn or burn, threatening non-believers with the fires of hell,   may still work in some cases, (God can work any way He wants) but I spoke to a young person, a Christian, in their 20’s, a Millennial, who has seen this approach and it put them off completely. They said they would be embarrassed to have any non-believing friends be confronted like this. It would be completely outside their...

All that has been by way of introduction, because in light of what seems to be today's view of truth – relativism, everybody can have their own truth, etc., I wanted to establish that what we believe IS the truth. We have to know it’s the truth. We have to be confident that what we are inviting people into, a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, is the best thing for them, because they’re not going to recognize it when we first start. Because of the points I have made, I believe, more and more, we have to rely on relationship evangelism. We need to introduce people to Jesus, all the time developing a relationship on a personal level yet over time letting Jesus look after drawing them to himself. So how do we do it? Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. (Col 4:5-6) Besides being a rather touching story, this illustrates ...

I've posted on this before, but because I included it in my presentation, I post it here again.   "Before we get to my main point – how to communicate our message, (next post, I promise)I want to look at one more thing.   (h/t Terry Stauffer for this analogy) You may have seen this example of a number of blindfolded people examining an elephant – one the trunk, one an ear, one a leg, etc., and each coming up with a different answer as to what it is. Leg = tree, tail = rope, side = wall, etc. This is supposed to be an argument for the idea that no one can have an exclusive lock on the truth. That everyone’s idea of truth is equally valid. That many paths lead to God.   It’s a self-defeating example. It disproves itself, because it requires that the observer see the whole picture – see that there is a truth -   stepping back and looking we can see that it is indeed an elephant, no matter what all these other people think, and that certain points of view can actually...