Archive for evangelism

Top Tips for Men’s Ministry

By Brad Delaughter · Comments (2)
Thursday, February 24th, 2022

For many churches men’s ministry is either non-existent or the ministry consists of quarterly breakfasts and an annual cookout. I have talked with pastors and leaders from normative size churches, medium, and large churches, and all struggle to some degree with launching or sustaining a vibrant men’s ministry. Why is this the case? What makes men’s ministry so different and subsequently difficult from the rest of the ministries of the church? I have wrestled with this question, read blogs, went to trainings, and scoured books to find the answer. The answer is simpler than we might expect. Men’s ministry seems so difficult because we make it more complex than needed.

For a successful men’s ministry, a ministry that glorifies Christ, strengthens the body, and engages people, it needs to have at least three components.

Events
Yes, men like to do things. I know this may rub some of us practitioners the wrong way, but events are fun, and they allow people to connect in ways they cannot connect in a formal church setting. We are not trying to win men to an event. No event should be a stand-alone ministry. Each event should serve to connect men to the DNA of the church.

Groups
As men get older, they tend to isolate themselves more. Find ways to plug men into groups. This can be done many ways, but make sure that within these groups, men can share their lives honestly, have the confidence of confidentiality, and the opportunity to pray with one another.

Projects
Finally, a successful men’s ministry will include some type of project at some point during the year. The project can be anything from building a wheelchair ramp to helping with VBS. Projects allow men to come together and serve alongside one another. As men serve beside one another with a shared goal, a bond is created and strengthened that draws men to one another and to Christ.

Remember, there is no need to put so much pressure on yourself or your ministry. Simple is better. Get your team together and brainstorm how these ideas can be put into place in your ministry.

Written By Brad Delaughter, First Baptist Church De Soto, MO

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Categories : Sunday School
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The Problem with Group Gatherings

By Ken Braddy · Comments (0)
Tuesday, April 14th, 2020

Group gatherings. Some groups forego them altogether. A group member in Albuquerque, New Mexico, recently approached me at the end of a workshop I led at the state’s annual evangelism conference. She lamented the fact that her teacher does not believe in group gatherings and their class has dwindled because of it. In his opinion, the teaching time should be enough.

Groups do need to be together. We are seeing this during the COVID-19 crisis. Churches and groups have scrambled to find ways to keep people connected online. The church has realized the power of fellowship and gathering as the church, even if it is digitally.

But the author of It Begins with Prayer challenges us to consider the problem with group gatherings in chapter 2. Exactly how could gathering together be a “problem”? Groups organize fellowships, like picnics. People bring food. Games are played. Friendly competition takes place. People enjoy their time together. But the author asks a haunting question: “…But have we done anything that really builds community?”

We might be tempted to say, “Well of course we built community!” But a shared experience doesn’t necessarily build community. Think of it this way. If you attend a sporting event in a stadium of some sort and watch a game with 20,000 others people, did you build community? What about the last airplane flight you took? You flew with 180 people, but did you really build community? Of course you had a shared experience, but did you leave the event knowing people more deeply? Did you really build community?

Do we settle for shared experiences as groups when we really need real community? That’s the question we must answer. Shared experiences are good and needed, for sure. But perhaps what is needed more is a way for people to experience a deeper level of community. In the next blog post, we’ll answer the question, “What is real community?”

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Who are you praying for…by name?

By Ken Beckner · Comments (0)
Tuesday, April 7th, 2020

Someone once said, “If you aim at nothing you are sure to hit it!”  The same principle applies to how we pray for people.  Sometimes our prayers can be so general that we would never really know how God answered.  “God, save the lost of our community,” is a way out of taking responsibility to be ambassadors for Christ.  When we don’t know their names, we often don’t take ownership of the command to go and share the good news of the gospel. 

Several years ago, I served in a church with a couple that oversaw the local community corrections office.  We would pray that God would use them to communicate the gospel message to those who had been in trouble with the law.  That prayer changed dramatically, however, when I volunteered to help them.  All of a sudden when I prayed for these men and women, they were no longer the faceless lost.  To make a long story short, this is what happened to me:

  1. I began to pray specifically for each one of them by name.
  2. I could no longer pray without seeing their faces.
  3. I began to understand their unique struggles and asked God to meet their specific needs.
  4. I began to ask God to allow me to be the one to share Jesus with them and to see them get saved.
  5. I began to meet more of their friends, which I added by name to my prayer list.
  6. I saw some get saved and baptized as a result of my new awareness of who they really were, rather than just a group of people that all needed Jesus.

Flake emphasized the importance of praying by name in his later book, The True Functions of the Sunday School. He stated:

The name of every man, woman, and child in the community who is a stranger of grace should be in the possession of the church and the pastor. It is very much easier to become intensely concerned about the salvation of the souls of people when we know them personally, who they are and where they live.

Bill Smith may be only one of a hundred lost people in the community. However, the chances of winning Bill Smith to Christ are multiplied a hundredfold when we have his name, age, address, and know from his own testimony that he is a lost man.   [Dwayne McCrary (2019). (p. 12). It Begins With Prayer – eBook. LifeWay Press. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com]

Who are you praying for by name? 

Written by Ken Beckner, Sunday School, Small Groups, Disciple Making, and VBS Director, Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptist

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The Importance of Praying for Lost People Daily

By Sean Keith · Comments (0)
Monday, April 6th, 2020

The first question we often ask is, why should I pray for lost people? Maybe a better question is, why don’t I? God created, loves and cares for every human being. His desire is to reconcile unto Himself every person who will accept His gift of forgiveness and eternal life. God puts people into our lives that are lost without Christ so that we can have the chance to be a part of bringing people from death in sin to life in Christ. We have been given a precious opportunity to be a part of Almighty God’s life changing work through salvation.

The Holy Spirit is constantly working in our heart and life to place lost people in our path. At the same time, He is working in the hearts and lives of those who are lost preparing them for an encounter with God—through us. He chooses to use us to be a part of His life transforming act of salvation.

At the center of that is our prayer life. As we pray, God brings to our heart and mind those who are lost. God then prepares us for these encounters. At the same time, He prepares the hearts and minds of those He has placed in our path. Prayer is how we talk with God and ask for His guidance and strength so that we would be ready and willing when the divine appointment happens.

We MUST pray daily that God would prepare us and those He has placed in our hearts and minds so that we would not miss the privilege of being a part of God’s life changing work of salvation. Just remember, somewhere back there, someone was praying for you. God placed your name on someone’s heart. They prayed, The Spirit of God moved and you were saved.

The reason we pray for our lost family members, neighbors, co-workers, friends and strangers, is because God desires to use us in the miracle working process of seeing people receive forgiveness of their sins and eternal life with God. What greater gift could you ever give someone that eternal life. And to think, God chose to use you to be a part of that. That’s reason enough for me.

Who are you praying for today?

Sean Keith is the Sunday School/Discipleship Strategist for the Louisiana Baptist Convention

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Praying for Lost People

By Mark Yoakum · Comments (0)
Sunday, April 5th, 2020

You are sitting in a church meeting when someone says, “We should pray for the Lost”.  Now I am sure God knows exactly the names of the lost people in the world.   But often we do not as we have not cared enough to get to know them and ask if they have given their heart to Jesus.

This was made even clearer to me when I asked the members of our church to write down the names of unchurched people in our area that we could begin praying for their salvation.  Many members confessed that they did not know of anyone locally.    If we do not know their name, then it is hard to see how God will use us to share with them.

And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?.”  Mark 11:17

Here are some reasons to pray for lost people by name:

1.       It will require you to get to know them well enough to know whether they are saved or not.

2.       Someone told me not to pray about something unless I was willing for God to use me to be an answer to the prayer.   Praying for them by name will make you consider, does God want me to be the answer to this prayer.

3.       Will you be part of the answer by developing a relationship with them in an effort to share Jesus with them.

Dr. Mark Yoakum is the Director of Church Ministries for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. He has served as Minister of Youth, Minister of Music, Minister of Education and Executive Pastor in churches in Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.

Written by Dr. Mark Yoakum, Director of Church Ministries, Southern Baptists of Texas Convention

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