A wonderfully encouraging article from Outreach Magazine (a sister publication of Christianity Today) about two New York City churches committed to multiplication and seeing the church impact the culture:

For all the wonders of New York City, the South Bronx still has a long way to go. As the country’s poorest congressional district, it is home to gang leaders, pimps and others””like Tyrone””whose main interest is simply finding a way to survive.

As a teenager, Tyrone found his identity in a gang named the Neighborhood Gangsters, and his future, like that of so many of his peers, seemed to be a dead-end street. Then one week, he went with a relative to Friday Night Live, a monthly, large-scale outreach hosted by a new, youth-oriented church named Infinity. Tyrone liked the hip-hop music, even though the words were about God. After the music, the pastor, Dimas Salaberrios””who had grown up a few miles away in Jamaica, Queens””spoke with relevance and passion about Jesus Christ.

Tyrone put his faith in Christ that night, but was still uncertain about his future. Quitting a gang could mean a death sentence, but he didn’t have to explain this to Salaberrios, who already understood the problem. Salaberrios boldly contacted the gang’s leader, asking that Tyrone’s family not be punished because of his decision. Today, Tyrone serves on Infinity’s security team, is discipled through a fellowship group and is being groomed for leadership by Salaberrios.

Tyrone’s story is common for Infinity, which began four years ago through Bible studies and community building, and formally launched in November 2006.

“Our No. 1 goal and priority is to get Christ into kids’ lives,” says Salaberrios. He also believes that God has used Infinity’s presence to reduce the murder rate to almost zero in the Bronx River Projects””a complex of nine high-rise towers which is home to almost 20,000 people as well as the new church.

Infinity’s story of success, however, can’t be told without also telling the story of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, located less than 10 miles away in Manhattan. Launched 18 years ago, Redeemer is now spiritual home to 5,000 of the city’s young professionals. […]

In an overwhelmingly secular community, Redeemer’s unique worship settings””including jazz and classical music””diverse makeup and [Tim] Keller’s intellectual preaching style have all resonated among the area’s mostly non-Christian young professionals. In fact about 15% of attendees in any given year don’t yet identify themselves as followers of Christ.

“Growth in itself though is not a goal for the church””evangelism is,” says Keller. That’s why Redeemer became a multiplying church.

“We know the only way to increase the number and percentage of Christians in a city is to plant thousands of new churches, and the only way to change the culture is to increase the number of churches engaged in it,” Keller explains.

So in 1994, Redeemer planted its first two churches, one in Greenwich Village (lower Manhattan) and another in the suburbs, both affiliated with its Presbyterian Church in America denomination. In the 13 years since, Redeemer has planted more than 100 churches””the majority non-Presbyterian””directly or in partnership with other churches, in New York City and other cities.

Enter Infinity. Thirty-three-year-old Salaberrios had fully committed his life to Christ when he was 21””a year after Redeemer planted its first two churches””and began to hold evangelistic rallies for hundreds of kids through Youth for Christ in New York City (YFC; yfc.net). But he noticed that when young people accepted Christ, local churches didn’t receive them as they were. Street manners, tattoos and baggy clothing were considered unacceptable “Sunday best.”

“I kept thinking to myself, ‘What are we going to do with all these kids who are coming to Christ?’ ” Salaberrios relates. “Romans 2:29 talks about circumcision of the heart. It’s not about changing a dress code, but making church relevant.”

Church, culture, relevancy and contextualization””Salaberrios and Keller were speaking the same language, even though their target groups were unmistakably different.

The full article is here.

It is time to acknowledge the limits of the church growth model for churches in post-Christendom Canada. Acknowledging these limits will prompt us to explore other avenues. Theologians can help us relearn the Gospel and recapture a biblical theology of the church. Sociologists can help us learn from the explosive growth of the church within its first three centuries, and the growth of the church this century in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Missiologists can help us learn how to reach the majority of the population that are not being reached by contemporary methods.

Albert Einstein said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” The church growth model will not solve the problems of the church in post-Christendom Canada. It’s time to look elsewhere.

Read it all.

Missionaries in Asia have long faced violence. A hundred years ago, American and European Christians streamed into the region to convert the Chinese and Koreans. During the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) in China, foreign missionaries were targeted and in many cases killed.

But they kept coming because Asia houses some of the world’s largest non-Christian populations. Today, Christians in Asia number 350 million, up from about 20 million in 1900, according to statistics from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. And as Christianity flourishes, more and more believers–often Asian–begin to heed Jesus’ instruction to his disciples to spread their faith across the world.

The presence of South Korean Christian aid workers is one of the most visible examples of the trend toward “majority world” missionaries–those hailing from continents other than Europe and North America. South Korea, for example, sent only 93 missionaries abroad in 1979, but by 2000 there were over 8,000 and this number doubled by 2006.

Read it all..

“Church is too boring for men,” says [Ed] Trainer. “For men, I think the great outdoors can be a cathedral. Men open up when they’re out on the water. It’s a place they can share their fears, problems and vulnerability.”

For more than a decade, Trainer has operated International Fishing Ministries out of the large home he shares with his wife and ministry partner, Barbara. Their property near a marina is crammed with fishing rods, mounted fish and scores of photos of men holding big salmon, sturgeon and other fish.

Trainer said he became a “fisher of men,” a phrase based on one of Jesus’ admonitions to his disciples, because he became bored with so many ministers’ sermons.

“Church is set up like a country club for women. For me, after five minutes of a sermon, I’m off in my mind fishing on some stream somewhere. Other men are thinking about the hockey game.”

Read it all.

Presiding at the recent commissioning service of ten newly-commissioned Church Army evangelists and a 400-strong congregation in the United Kingdom, the Archbishop of York told them they have been sent out as evangelists because they have a passion for sharing the gospel.

At the July 12 service in a packed Sheffield Cathedral, Archbishop John Sentamu told the seven women and three men admitted to the Office of Evangelist they should “loiter with intent” to help people experience, explain and demonstrate what new life in Christ is all about.

In a thoughtful and wide ranging sermon given in a city that had been devastated by floods only a couple of weeks earlier, the Archbishop called upon the newly commissioned evangelists to be “all weather” evangelists not waiting for the sun to come out and shine as it very rarely does, but “getting out there in all weathers” to share the gospel through words and actions. He said the Christ Jesus they serve is alive and working in the world and cannot be constrained or trapped within the covers of any book.

“God in Christ must be accessible to all — tell others what you know and your experience will bring joy and new beginnings for those you encounter,” he added. The Archbishop also called on the church to renew its focus on mission and evangelism and share with confidence an authentic and international gospel to our communities.

In blessing each one of the evangelists he admitted to the office of evangelist within the Anglican church, the Archbishop told the new recruits to bring, joy, passion and commitment to their ministry as they had the best news in the world to share. The name and story of Jesus should be constantly on their lips, he said

At the commissioning service that was held the day before, Church Army’s Chief Executive Officer Mark Russell urged the new evangelists to show compassion and love in their ministry so that people can have hope in the Christian gospel.

“Today, we commission you to love, to show compassion, especially to those considered most unlovable,” Russell said.

He told the evangelists: “Jesus spent time with the prostitutes, tax collectors and immoral of the day. He spent time with those considered unclean. He didn’t just spend time with those people, he loved them. He showed them compassion, he became their friend. He didn’t stick his nose up in the air and avoid people that others judged. He got in amongst them. That’s your job, get alongside people and love them in Jesus name. Allow Jesus to change you, and let you see them through his eyes.”

The full article is here.

From Christian Today:

Church Army evangelists can now reach out to a new audience by featuring their videos on popular video sharing website YouTube.

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, YouTube gets almost 20 million visitors each month.

The short story videos featured on the popular website will show Church Army evangelists reaching out to their communities with the gospel. The featured videos focus on the work of a skateboarding evangelist, a former Sikh and others working in urban, inner city and rural settings.

David Coleman, Church Army’s Communications Manager comments: “For some time we have been thinking about how more people could get a glimpse into what it is like to be an evangelist in different context today, and YouTube gives us a perfect platform to do just that.”

More online videos will be available over the next 12 months, according to Church Army, while they will explore other online opportunities such as MySpace.

To visit Church Army’s page on YouTube, go to: www.youtube.com/churcharmy.

[hat tip Pat Dague]

I come now to evangelism within the Episcopal Church. And I have to confess that this part of my presentation is going to be very short. Because it is almost impossible to speak of Evangelism and the Episcopal Church in the same breath in the USA. Practically no evangelism is undertaken by the denomination as a whole, though there are churches which are a glorious exception to this sad state of affairs.

During the Decade of Evangelism the TEC took no part but instead lost scores of thousands of members. Frank Griswold whose erstwhile diocese declined by about 30,000 during his time as PB, bravely spoke of doubling the denomination by 2010, but instead people walk away in their thousands. It is often said that TEC has 2 and a half million members but this is entirely misleading. Not only do a mere 700,000 appear in worship on a given Sunday but when people leave, the churches will not transfer their membership to a non-episcopal church and instead they stay on their lists as inactive members, thus illicitly swelling the numbers reported. The PB is able to maintain that only a small minority of churches have left, though they number in their hundreds. But she does not disclose the fact that not only is there deep unrest in many who remain and feel unable to break away because of emotional links with the past, but when you start assessing the numbers of people who have departed, they are disproportionately large. Flag ship churches are leaving, with their thousands of members. For example, Christ Church Plano, a well known Evangelical Church, has left the denomination and gone to AMiA. It has more members than the whole of the PB’s diocese. And the intentional way that lawsuits are being brought against the two biggest churches in TEC, The Falls Church and Truro in Virginia shows how worrying all this is to the leaders of TEC. Those two churches between them have more than 6000 members, and they and their finances are now lost to TEC.

If we ask why evangelism is at such a discount in TEC, the answer may well be complex. One reason is that evangelism is not and never has been in the DNA of Episcopalians. TEC has been an acknowledged refuge from the enthusiasm of the Baptists! Moreover, the average age of members in the congregations is so high, up into the late 60s across the country, and this of course militates against active evangelism. The future for the denomination in sheer terms of numbers is bleak”¦ the average number in a congregation being about 75. But also there is a theological blockage. On the one hand the belief seems to be that so long as they are baptized people are automatically Christians, irrespective of repentance and faith and the gift of the Holy Spirit ”“whereas in the NT all three elements figure in Christian initiation. The other is that the policies of the TEC are inclusive, which is wonderful, but inclusive without the need for transformation, which is not wonderful. You are welcome just as you are with no need to change. All lifestyles are acceptable.

A State Governor who has had to resign because of his divorce and taking up an active homosexual lifestyle has been accepted for ordination training in TEC. Not only all lilfestyles but all beliefs seem to be acceptable in the Episcopal Church. Only the other day a woman priest who has become a Muslim claimed to belong to both faiths ”“ without any rebuke from her bishop. The influence of Jack Spong is widespread and has never been repudiated by TEC. I find that repentance and faith is rarely mentioned in Episcopal pulpits, and the name of Jesus is scarce. As for the Holy Spirit he is generally associated with the votes of the majority. The church is moving in the direction of an undifferentiated Deism. Belief in the deity of Jesus, an objective atonement and the reality of the resurrection are constantly discounted among influential Episcopalians, while the people in the pew prefer not to enquire too closely. And the PB herself has made it plain that all religions lead to God. No wonder the church leaks!

This is one of the papers presented at the Oxford Consultation. The final section contains some wonderful examples of Anglican evangelistic initiatives in North America.

Read it all here.

From here:

Held at a critical time in the life of Anglicanism this private consultation included over 20 bishops, theological educators, leaders of mission agencies, parochial ministers and evangelists. They came from Anglican provinces including Australia, Canada, Europe, the Middle East including Egypt and Palestine, Kenya, New Zealand, Nigeria, South America, Sudan and the United States. The purpose of the gathering was two-fold: reflection on the challenges and opportunities posed by Mission in the North and examination of the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant.

Delegates were assigned to one of these two ‘tracks’ but came together for two daily plenary sessions where both issues were aired and discussed. Delegates took part in daily worship, prayer and Bible study and worked in small groups. The interplay between these two themes proved very important. Those engaged in mission initiatives were reminded of the need to move forward together in one Church, while those considering the Covenant were reminded that it should be a way to strengthen the Communion’s mission.

The Covenant track, convened by the Bishop of Winchester (Michael Scott-Joynt), took place at what participants acknowledged is a critical time in the life of the Anglican Communion and immediately before the Church of England General Synod is due to debate the proposal for an Anglican Covenant. Speakers included Canon Gregory Cameron (Anglican Communion Office), Archbishop Drexel Gomez (West Indies; Chair of the Covenant Design Group), Joseph Galgalo (Kenya), Ephraim Radner (Member of the Covenant Design Group), Christopher Seitz (Anglican Communion Institute), Martin Davie (Council for Christian Unity), Tim Dakin (Church Mission Society), Philip Turner (ACI) and Professor Norman Doe (Cardiff University).

The mission track (convened by the Bishop of Maidstone, Graham Cray) focused on mission within contemporary western culture in a context of social disintegration and decline church attendance. The consultation heard insights from John Drane (formerly University of Aberdeen) and Sara Savage (University of Cambridge), and people working in UK-based local mission and from people involved in developing new forms of church.

There were first-hand accounts from Continental Europe (Rosie Dymond, the Netherlands), UK inner-urban areas (Cyprian Yobera, from Kenya working in inner Manchester) as well as North America (Michael Green). This was enriched by input from people doing mission in parts of Africa (Bishop Ben Kwashi, Nigeria), Latin America (Bishop Bill Godfery, Peru) and the Muslim world (Bishop Mouneer Anis, Egypt). Bishop Cray, Stephen Croft (Fresh Expressions) and Richard Sudworth (Faith to Faith network) addressed questions of Christian lifestyle (discipleship) and how to equip Christians to engage confidently in a consumerist, post-modern culture.

It is hoped that some of their ideas be of value to the Lambeth Design Group and the Lambeth Conference itself.

Daily scripture readings (given by Chris Wright, Margaret Sentamu and Adrian Chatfield) focused on Ephesians 1-3 and the call for “unity within the bonds of peace.”

Consultation papers will be posted on the websites of the conference hosts within the next 10 days (addresses above). Summaries of the small group discussions will be posted no later than Monday 3rd September.

Throughout the gathering there has been a keen sense of privilege at hearing of God at work throughout the world, of being part of a worldwide family that spans so many cultures, and of the joy of being able to form good friendships and relationships where: “in Christ we are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:22).

Through [Samuel] Crowther’s consecration in Canterbury, the apostolic succession was assured. Apostolic succession, however will be ineffective and irrelevant if it is not followed with apostolic focus and success. The Bishop with apostolic succession must follow in the steps of the apostles as a leader in mission, ministry and community development, as a teacher and pastor. As Archbishop Peter Akinola would say at the consecration of bishops, “the days of ceremonial bishops are over!” Through Crowther and his successors has come the vital passion and drive for mission and evangelism today. The demonstration of the power of the gospel runs through our veins from head to foot. In Nigeria other great African Bishops and Archbishops have followed in the wake of Crowther, down to Archbishop Olufosoye in 1979 and Archbishop Adetiloye in 1988, and now our present primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola. In their time the Church of Nigeria has grown, and grown beyond human expectation. It has developed from being a part of the Province of West Africa, to being the Province of Nigeria, then three Provinces and now ten Provinces. From just a handful of dioceses, we now have 121 ”“ and more are on the way! The creation of missionary dioceses was an inspiration from the time of the Decade of Evangelism and has proved its value and effectiveness. Anglicanism in Nigeria is only Anglican in its true sense when it is missionary, evangelical and socially active in community development and community transformation. It was not actually an Anglican, but a Roman Catholic missionary to Africa who summed it up so well:

“Mission is the meaning of the church. The church can exist only insofar as it is in mission, insofar as it participates in the act of Christ, which is mission. The church becomes the mission, the living outreach of God to the world. The church exists only insofar as it carries Christ to the world. The church is only part of the mission, the mission of God sending his Son to the world. Without this mission, there would be no church. The idea of church without mission is an absurdity.” (Vincent J Donovan Christianity Rediscovered, London SCM 1978, p.102).

Read it all.

From a Virginia paper, the Stafford County Sun:

FAIRFAX – Despite the major split in the Episcopal Church over the ordination of gay ministers, a spokesman for the breakaway Anglican segment insists they must focus, not on the ongoing legal battles, but through continuing Christian service.

According to Jim Oakes, vice-chair of the Anglican District of Virginia, “?our churches will remain as committed to fulfilling the Great Commission through service as they are to holding steadfast to orthodox Anglicanism and honoring the historic teachings of the church.”

The Anglican District of Virginia is planning approximately 30 trips with 100 to 200 Virginian missionaries in 2007. Its focus is aiding people’s practical needs. Each trip will last one to two weeks. One church may sponsor the trip while members from other congregations can join it.

Fairfax and Falls Church missionaries have been making trips to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

“There are tens of thousands still homeless down there and we need to help them,” said Oakes, a member of Truro Church – an Anglican church in Fairfax.

This summer, Truro is again sending its team to work in Anglican Rev. Jerry Kramer’s flooded city. The Anglican Church is also sending teams to Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya in East Africa to provide help with schooling and provide educational services. Locations are chosen based upon the church’s historical tie with the region.

“We look for relationships and existent structures with which we can work versus just blunder in and about in these places,” Oakes said.

Oakes has personally been on eight African mission trips. He has never felt danger.

“Our hosts are looking out for our welfare and will never let us go into dangerous places,” he said.

In Kenya, the church’s “Five Talents Missionary” will set up small micro-businesses. Africans will be lent $100 in start-up money to buy tools, for instance. The goal of the mission is to teach basic business skills.

The Lakota Sioux in South Dakota are also being helped.

“They are very needy,” said Oakes. “We will provide food, training, coats, encouragement and Bibles. In South Dakota it gets very cold during the winter months.”

In Ohio, mission teams will be building houses, in undisclosed locations, for battered women.

Although the mission trips are moving forward, the church’s ongoing legal battle is still an issue.

The rest is here.

Ripon, England, (PRWEB) July 5, 2007 — Holy Trinity Church Ripon has launched an online ‘church’ for people who are not already engaged with the Christian faith, and who are looking for answers, but may not feel ready (or be able) to walk into a church building. Its goal is to help people discover if God is of relevance to them today, providing a safe and self-directed way to find straightforward answers to questions about Christianity. Longer-term, the goal is to encourage them to find a local church where they can feel at home.

Very few churches exist purely online, and Church on the Net (www.church-on-the-net.com) is unique because it is evangelistic, rather than designed to serve believers or any pre-existing fellowship. The team behind the project says that as well as agnostics, atheists and seekers, however, the online church may be useful to new Christians afraid of asking ‘silly’ questions, Christians who have slipped away from an active faith, and those who find it difficult to meet together (such as the housebound, carers, and those in remote areas or who face persecution).

“As odd as it may seem to Christians, who have all the advantages of fellowship through belonging to a traditional church, there are huge numbers of people who are accustomed to being part of online communities, whose ‘friends’ they may never meet face-to-face,” says Mark Tanner, vicar of Holy Trinity Ripon. “The idea of doing things online feels safe and attractive to them, so why not introduce church into that lifestyle?”

Church on the Net is divided into three sections:

· a reference section, with 85 articles offering explanations or perspectives on many issues relating to God, church and Christianity, including common and difficult questions

· a weekly article, updated every Sunday, exploring the Christian faith and how it is lived out on a daily basis. The launch address has been provided by the Rt Revd John Packer, Bishop of Ripon & Leeds

· an interactive community area, where visitors can engage with the site and one another through forums and blogs.

The full article is here.

From Christianity Today:

Despite long separations when Graham was on the road preaching, Ruth, who died Thursday at age 87, remained his bedrock, often speaking up to offer advice, yet just as often staying silent so that he could focus on his mission.

“There would have been no Billy Graham ”¦ had it not been for Ruth,” said the late T.W. Wilson, a key member of Graham’s staff, in A Prophet With Honor, William Martin’s biography of the evangelist.

Graham was the first to acknowledge his wife’s importance. “Your counsel, advice, encouragement and prayer have been my mainstay and at times I have almost clung to you in my weakness, in hours of obsession, problems and difficulties,” he wrote in a 1963 letter to Ruth from Los Angeles, according to Patricia Cornwell’s biography, Ruth, A Portrait.

In a statement issued Thursday, Graham, 88, praised his wife as his “life partner” and said “we were called as a team.”

“No one else could have borne the load that she carried. She was a vital and integral part of our ministry, and my work through the years would have been impossible without her encouragement and support,” he said.

Read the whole thing and consider praying for and thanking the clergy spouses you are in touch with–it does not happen enough–KSH.

Diana Butler Bass knows all the gloomy statistics about declining mainline Protestant churches but believes in their future. She studies mainline churches that are thriving to see what sets them apart from those that are dying.

Her findings contradict some popular theories about church growth, and she is sharing them at a three-day conference at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in East Liberty.

Successful congregations cultivate spiritual practices in daily life, promote tradition without using it as a fence to keep people out and offer a quest for wisdom, not pat answers, she said.

“When all three of those things are knit together, I call it the architecture of vitality,” said Dr. Bass, currently senior fellow at the Cathedral College of the Episcopal Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

From 2002 to 2006 she studied congregations that were experiencing renewal in the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ. They ranged from 35 to 3,500 members and covered all demographics and most would not describe themselves as evangelical.

Americans are looking for new ways to experience religious community. Thriving congregations have been able to change the way they do ministry to create those communities, she said. Those that keep offering conventional church programs from the 1950s wither and die.

Read it all.