BOLD Part 4 - The Power of Story

"Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!" (John 4:35)

Sometimes evangelism is just sowing seeds; but sometimes it involves reaping the harvest.  Are you prepared for that?  How would you answer if someone asked you "why is going to church so important to you?  Why do you pray?  Why do you believe?"  Would you be able to answer those questions clearly and concisely?

If not, you need to get caught up on yesterday's message in the BOLD: All Things to All Men series.  In it, we talked about the POWER OF STORY - the most powerful tool when it comes to being a witness and sharing our faith.

BOLD Part 3 - 3D Living

BOLD is back!  Yesterday's message was a very powerful one, but also practical one.  

We talked about 3 simple steps that every single one of us can take to start living a life of evangelism: Develop friendships, Discover stories, Discern next steps. This is a must listen for anyone who's ever said "I know God wants me to do evangelism, but I don't know what to do" or "I want to be a witness but I don't know what to do or say."  

If you've ever said that, then check out the video above and hopefully it'll help answer your questions.

BOLD Part 1 - The Call to Evangelism

I'M BACK!  I know I've been offline for a couple of weeks now, but I am back now and more on fire than ever.  God has really really been speaking loudly and clearly to me and I can't wait to get back on schedule (now that house is sold, Pascha week is over and week in Florida is done) and share all the good things God is doing.  

So if you thought you got rid of me....YOU WERE WRONG!

And the first thing I want to share with you today is the first message in a brand new series that I started yesterday.  It's called BOLD: All Things to All Men.  Can you guess the topic?  It's all about "evangelism" - the word that means different things to different people - and what our role is with regards to evangelism.  Trust me, it's not what you think.

Being an evangelist isn't what you might think it is.  It is something much simpler and in this message I answer the "who, what, where, when, why and how" questions with regards to evangelism.  You can check it out below.  And tomorrow, I'll resume my regularly scheduled blog posts as before.

IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!

Not Even a Hint (sermon video)

It’s 5:23 am and I am sitting at the airport waiting for my 6:20 am flight to start boarding.  I’ll be travelling for the next couple of days so I’m sure if I’m going to get a chance to write a blog post – at least for today.  So instead I’m posting a video of the sermon I gave last week at STSA – the first installment in our newest series called NOT EVEN A HINT.

This series is inspired by a verse that I wrote about last week:

“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.”  Ephesians 5:3

You can watch the rest of the videos in this series as they become available by going to our website, www.STSAchurch.org, weekly.

For discussion: I’d love to hear any thoughts, comments or feedback on the sermon if you have any.

Would You Ever Build a House without a Plan?

The late Dr. Stephen Covey, best-selling author who helped change my life with his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, used to always say that “all things are created twice.” What he meant by that is that every new idea or concept or dream must be created twice: first in one’s mind and secondly in one’s life.

For example, let’s say you want to build a house.  What do you do first?  Start digging a hole?  No.  Before you start the actual work of building a house, you sit down and come up with a plan.  You can’t just start digging and figure it out as you go.  You first create the house on paper – in as much detail as possible – and then you begin the actual work of building the house physically.

The same holds true for a dream.  Recently I wrote about the starting point of making your dreams a reality.

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What Does It Take to Be Great?

“Greatness is not given.  Greatness is taken.”That’s a line from the new Gatorade commercial starring DC’s newest celebrity – Robert Griffin III, quarterback of the Washington Redskins.

In addition to being a fan of RGIII and hoping that he is the long awaited franchise quarterback that the Redskins have been waiting for, his commercial got me to thinking: 

what does it take to get great?  What defines greatness?

What makes a great doctor or a great lawyer?  What makes a great husband or wife?  And in a spiritual sense, what makes me great as a child of God?

I’ve always believed that the measure of success in any field isn’t based on what you DON’T DO, but rather it is based on what you DO DO.  I even said that once at a retreat and it quickly became the catch phrase of the retreat:  SUCCESS = DO DO (copyright coming soon, once I figure out how to do that :)).

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