Next

Previous

Index

Tellout Home

Digital Evangelism Programs

Growth Programs

Here are several digital evangelism programs that I have personally used in my Christian ministry over the years, which may be of interest to churches, congregations, home groups, and individual Christians. This website details some and others found elsewhere, as indicated. ✞

Sunday School Renewal

Children Playing Jesus cared for the children he met in his ministry. In Matthew 19.14, Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." The object of Sunday School teaching is to encourage children to come to Jesus. We believe that they are already members of the Kingdom of God. This program for Sunday School Renewal is a day-long event for children's work teachers in Sunday School theory and practice. This program includes many illustrations and a new and more effective way of improving the traditional Sunday school model, using more parents as teachers. ✞

Home Meeting Seminar

Members Outside Church A Series of practical home meeting seminars for Church members helps Christians to share a personal Jesus and culminates in a community-led venture run by laypeople. Many people belong nominally to the church and keep their name or family on the membership roll but do not worship every Sunday or participate in the congregation's internal workings. These are the initial target of home meeting seminars. The actual group of committed Christians in many churches is only a tiny part of the total membership. We have devised our home meeting seminars and training sessions with a broader members' group in mind. Two leaflets support this course: Faith Journey Graph and "Group Dynamics." These leaflets will stimulate conversation, encourage new ideas, and provide a framework for a lively discussion on the Christian Faith's nature in the home meeting seminars. This Christian meeting series challenges a group of laypeople with the question, "What does it mean to be a Christian?" The broader membership may attend these meetings to talk about their faith. Those churches using this particular home meeting series have found that participants are blessed. This series seeks to stimulate conversation and interest in the congregation, and some previously nominal members will become more committed. The preparatory study course includes a role-play enactment with the lay leaders, using Faith Journey Graph and The Big Question leaflet. Discussion on integrating newcomers into the congregation, using the "Group Dynamics" leaflet, and setting up a Christian Meetings Series. ✞

Group Dynamics

Group Dynamics These Christian meetings will generally take place over two weeks. Every member will be phoned and asked to participate. Individual home meetings can be located in different parts of the parish, on various days, times, and aimed at specific age groups, whether youth, seniors, homemakers, or business people. After the Christian Meetings Series, the steering group will assess the campaign results and plan a future follow-up strategy. ✞

Sunday School Ministry

Teacher and Child This day-long series of Sunday School ministry seminars provide resources in theory and practice and includes many free sermon illustrations. The whole course is available as a free video series beginning at Sunday School Basic Training Video 1. This series offers a new and effective way of organizing the Sunday School using parents as teachers and assistant teachers. The workshops help lead your Sunday School parents and staff by analyzing their work with children. The seminars can be a significant step in flowering a dynamic, vital, and growing children's ministry. This Sunday School Discussions material seeks to fill the gap left by many Public School Systems in Religious Education. It is not a curriculum in itself but endeavors to help you get the most out of your chosen one. The day program may look like this. 1 INTRODUCTION
2 BASIC PRINCIPLES Questionnaire. Why Teach Sunday School? Basic Principles. The Aim of Our Work. Discussion.
3 THE WHOLE CHILD Meditation. Relationship Building. The Child's Reaction. The Growth Spiral. The Teacher's Influence. Developmental Goals. Our Approach. Discussion.
4 LESSON Preparation. Seven Lesson Characteristics. Lesson Analysis Exercise.
5 ORGANIZATION Traditional and Alternative Sunday School Structures. Discussion.
6 CURRICULUM Discussion. Syllabus Analysis. Curriculum Exercise. Closing Prayer. They have been developed from many years of training and improving Sunday Schools in Great Britain and Canada. ✞

Ministry to the Lapsed

Lighthouse Research tells us that there are three groups of lapsed church members. The first group of people worships less than once in six weeks, the second only at Christmas and Easter, the third only for weddings, funerals, or baptisms. Church Growth research indicates that one visit to a lapsed person's home from a concerned Church Member is often sufficient to bring that person and their family back into active participation in church life. This visitation program aims to build up and train a small core group of Christians who will visit and encourage the partially committed and lapsed members of their church to invite them into greater involvement. ✞

Church Member Visitation

Church Interior The Church Member Visitation program trains and establishes a team of visitors who can effectively build relationships with families, friends, and lapsed church members and others in the community. The aim is to draw them back into active participation in Church life. The visitation materials are from the ministry to the Lapsed Program (LEAD Ministries) from New York. I have added my own experiences with numerous programs in the United Kingdom and Canada. There are two training sessions followed by a pre-arranged Sunday afternoon or evening visit in the parish. The group then gathers to discuss their findings and invites contacts to a special guest service on a Sunday morning. After the ceremony, there is a free luncheon or evening dinner, and a straightforward Gospel message and invitations are hand-delivered to each family. The visitation team can systematically work through the church's membership list on subsequent occasions. ✞

Seminar Contents

Visual Aids Opening Worship. Course and Personal Goals. The Message from Research. The Dropout Track (Dr. John Savage). Overview of Conversational Skills. Role Play. The practice of Conversational Skills. Bible Study Jesus and the Woman at the Well - Encountering a personal Jesus in John 4:4-14. ✞

Expressing Feelings
Language
The Phone Call
The Visit
Role Play Discussion - What Keeps Members Active

Gift Discovery Workshop

Fisherman Statue A spiritual gift is described as a "charism" or "charismata" in the Greek of the Bible and is an extraordinary power given by the Holy Spirit. Spiritual gifts are listed primarily in 1 Corinthians 12 Romans 12 and Ephesians 4 1 Peter 4. An example of one list of spiritual gifts occurs in 1 Corinthians 12.8-10. Saint Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12.4, described the different kinds of gifts. This seminar leads a group of Christians by discovering their gifts using the "Ministry Discover Exercise." It then explains what these 25 plus individual spiritual gifts, man skills, and many talents mean to us and applies them to our situations. The Fuller Theological Seminary developed material for this seminar and Dr. C. Peter Wagner's research and other sources like The Alban Institute.✞

Discover Develop Use

The "Gifts Discovery" program seeks to help Christians to discover, develop, and use their spiritual gifts, skills, and talents in and beyond the church. In 1 Corinthians 12.1, Saint Paul wrote "Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers, and sisters. I do not want you to be uninformed."✞

Full Membership Ministry

The "Full Membership Ministry" evangelism program sets out to train and set up a team of capable visitors who can visit members' homes and talk about their faith in the community.✞

The Diagnostic Clinic

"The Diagnostic Clinic" is an evangelism program designed to help a Church fully understand the meaning of evangelism, analyze the local community, the attendance of various age groups, and set growth goals to reach out to them. These principles come from the words of Jesus in the Great Commission in Matthew 28.19-20, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and 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." William Carey (1761-1834), the British Missionary, made this famous in his book entitled 'An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians.' Carey translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, Hindi, and two other Indian languages. His motto was, "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God."✞

Assess Your Congregation

Ron Meacock The Diagnostic Clinic Seminar helps understand the meaning of church growth and evangelism. The seminar produces three documents 1) Church Growth History. 2) Worker Analysis. 3) Community Setting. These are required to set growth goals for the congregation extending out ten years. The Diagnostic Clinic is based on the Fuller Theological Seminary model and adjusted for ministry in Canada. The clinic takes a church's leadership team through the basic church growth principles, the diseases limiting its ministry, its recent history, people resources, and its community potential. The plan then ensures continued future growth. It has been used successfully by myself with over 30 congregations in a Canadian setting.✞

Steering Group

Step 1 happens eight weeks before the Diagnostic Clinic. An all-ages steering group was formed to represent the congregation.
Step 2 occurs six weeks before the clinic. The production of two study documents from local sources is
Step 3 takes place three weeks before the seminar. The steering group conducts an unannounced survey of age/sex at an average Sunday morning service for reference purposes. The steering group initiates a study and discussion of the three prepared documents and discovers the diseases that hinder growth. Members of the congregation fill out personal questionnaires. A group consensus gathering and some goal setting take place. The steering group meets to assess the clinic's effectiveness, act on congregational goals, and implement changes and programs. There is a follow-up after a year.✞

Home Meetings Seminars

Palestine House The Parish Home Meeting program is a series of practical training seminars in a home for the members of a Church to train Christians in evangelism and share Jesus in a group. It comes from the words in Acts 2.46-47 "Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the people's favor. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." We aim to add daily to our numbers. The series culminates in a home meeting blitz in the community-led and run by trained laypeople.✞

Top Page