Greetings all,
Australians love summer. It’s our peak time for taking holidays, travelling and trying out new things. In fact, research from Mark McCrindle suggests it’s become the peak time Australians try to add an extra member to the family. The Telegraph also reports it’s prime time for people dipping their toes into the online dating game. In short, Summer is a time for relaxing boundaries and looking for change. Consequently it’s a great time for church plants to consider evangelistic programs that have a focus on both the family and the Australian readiness to embrace change.
Over the coming month Geneva Push will be aiming to help you get ready for Summer. A wide range of of online resources are now availabe in our Resource Library to help you connect with the unchurched Australian in these crucial months. Here are seven of the best to get you thinking in the right direction…
- Breaking into your community – How do you break into the local community with the gospel before you’ve opened the church doors? Whether its metropolitan Western Australia or holiday-oriented New South Wales, every locale has distinct markers that identify insiders and outsiders, key points for distributing information and acceptable ways of spreading it.
- Engaging your community – Church planter Stuart Starr boils down evangelism to its most fundamental concept, and shares very simple approaches to witnessing that will free your congregation up from much unnecessary anxiety over witnessing.
- Training your core group to evangelise – Andrew Heard shares his top methods for developing a culture of evangelism in your core group.
- Summer nights for city plants – Keris Hobbs from Salt Church, Wollongong, coordinated Summer Nights – a new take on holiday evangelism programs tailored to a beachside city. She shares what her church plant learnt from using their evening outreach activities to reach urban communities.
- You need a membership course – Coast EV pastor Chris Ekins talks about why membership courses were a ‘must’ for growing commitment to his church plant, and how he went about them.
- Everything you needed to know about reading the Bible one-to-one – Richard Borgonon is one of Britain’s most acclaimed evangelists, with a particular focus on one-to-one evangelism. In this series of discussions with Geneva Push, he discusses why one-to-one Bible reading is an extremely effective way of spreading the good news, and how it can be adapted by church plants to serve as a team strategy.
Happy reading – listening – watching – planning!
– Ed.
