Ministry
Ministry is an ongoing and evolving process in any Christian’s life, so I feel like I’ve only begun my work. One of my reasons for combining my Accounting major with a Vocational Ministry major at Harding was to explore an important topic that was quite unfamiliar to me, a Christian who hasn’t attended church his entire life.
Obviously it’s not necessary to have a degree in Bible or Religion for a Christian to make a difference, so my goal with this part of the site is to make my still-comparatively-scant Bible knowledge and resources more accessible to everyone. This will be an ongoing project for me, so keep that in mind while this section of my site is more bare bones than it is meat.
If you’re not a Christian or are turned off by Christians/Christianity, I still encourage you to give these resources a try. After some study, you’re likely to find out that Jesus acted very differently from the way most Christians do. He’s a very inspiring figure, and He was a remarkably wise historical figure, regardless of your personal beliefs. If you’re already a Christian, I hope you can use some of these resources to further educate yourself, improve your walk, and affect the lives of those around you.
The Resources
Relationship Evangelism
My first resource is a Powerpoint presenation that I completed as an honors “contract” for the capstone class in my Vocational Ministry major. I presented it in December 2005. Its focus is on methods of reaching unchurched people, and I hope you’ll find it interesting. If you’re looking for ideas about how to approach someone you care about with your faith, perhaps it will spark some ideas for you. The full presentation has previously been hosted on this site, and it will be back soon when I can get it converted into a usable format.
The Willow Creek Model
Next is a paper I wrote for the Strategies for Evangelism class that I took in the Spring 2006 semester, which was my last semester at Harding. It examines the Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago and their business-like approach to outreach. This church and their founder, Bill Hybels, are considered church growth pioneers, and for good reason. The Willow Creek website is here, and my paper will be viewable again here soon.
Faith – An Invitation
I presented these thoughts as an invitation at East Brainerd’s evening worship on January 25, 2009.
Other Links
Downloadable sermons from Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan
Bible Gateway: My favorite online Bible search resource, with lots of searchable Bible translations, including the most popular ones.
Oneinjesus.info: Very well-written blog by Jay Guin on issues facing the church (specifically the Church of Christ) today.
Google Custom Search
I have also created a custom search engine using Google’s “co-op” service. It searches a few of my go-to resources and seems to be a good way to find quick answers about a Bible-related topic.
Christian Chronicle
The Christian Chronicle is a publication “for members of Churches of Christ,” the technically non-denominational fellowship to which I belong. They published a list of their top 10 stories of 2007 (and 2008), which I found to not only be a review of the year’s news, but also a repository of current thought processes in the church. While these are written with more of a news orientation, I found the articles on Richland Hills’ addition of an instrumental service and the church growth study to be fascinating, especially since I had not read the site regularly.
