You can buy the issue here

Here is a sample as the fourth of July was a few weeks ago.

Fourth of July Parade
“One of the most effective outreaches for us has been our town’s Fourth of July parade,” says Pastor Shane Frazier. “Here in our county of 55,000 people, the parade is a big deal, and 25,000-30,000 people attend. Knowing this, our church goes all out and participates in the float-decorating contest, tying it in with an upcoming message series. For a $10 entry fee and the cost of the giveaways we pass out, we’ve seen a lot of people give church a try.

“Last year, the parade theme was ‘Lights, Camera, Boone County,’ and we just happened to be launching a new series called ‘At the Movies’ the following Sunday. We made a huge rotating movie reel that showed what looked like movie scenes, which actually were pictures of Freedom [Church] attendees. We attached a large popcorn box imprinted with the date of the message series. About 50 volunteers passed out microwave bags of popcorn with an insert in them about our church and the new series. It was a huge hit! We won first place in the overall floats. Now, we have a sponsor this year.”
                                                                                               —Freedom Church, Lebanon, Ind.

Small Church Outreach is a post from: Grow Your Church Show

I was reading a great article in Outreach magazine. It was talking about how people use the words outreach and evangelism interchangeably. On this podcast I’ve been asking for your ideas on what you do to evangelize. Looking back, what I’ve been doing is asking for your outreach ideas.

Outreach is the Wii bowling league. Evangelism is not the prayer you do before you get started. It’s not the “movie night” you host at your church, or the regular Bible study on Wednesday night. Those actions are outreach. They are vehicles for you to bring people into your church (or other location) so they can meet you, and get to know you. You can start to build relationships through outreach. But outreach is not enough. You can feel good about paying for the person’s meal behind you in the drive through, but it’s not evangelism. It is a way to find something in common with people, and gently lead them to Christ.

Some define evangelism as “Joyfully sharing the good news of the sovereign love of God, and calling people to repentance, to personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, to active membership in the church, and to obedient service in the world.”

Outreach is a vital part of evangelism. We need to develop friends who are unchurched. We need to let them see that Christians are not as whacky as we are depicted on television. Outreach is a great tool for this, and it lays the groundwork for evangelism.

Without outreach, evangelism is like going up to a stranger and asking for their hand in marriage (before asking them on a date). It catches people off guard. It’s abrupt and assertive. On the other hand if you found someone you really like, you get along great, and you date for five years all of your friends will start to bug you and ask, “When are you going to get married (commitment)?. We worry about “forcing our beliefs” on someone, and end up doing outreach, outreach, outreach. It’s time to pop the question, “So what is your relationship with Jesus like?,” or “How do you feel about God?”

It’s tough pointing out to people that they are sinners and in need forgiveness. It might make them feel bad, and Satan will convince us to sit back and lay low. There is a difference between outreach and evangelism, and in the same way it makes no since to plant a garden and not harvest it, it makes no sense to perform outreach without evangelism.

Outreach Vs Evangelism is a post from: Grow Your Church Show

The Courage to Stand Up is a post from: Grow Your Church Show

This article talks about how using the advanced search features  you can filter by zip code to see tweets from your area. Thats is really cool. You can do this via search.twitter.com 

To read the article click here

More Uses For Twitter is a post from: Grow Your Church Show

Silent Night T-Shirt

God Is My Hero T-Shirt

Silent Night T-Shirt

Fearless T-shirt

Lifeguard T-Shirt

Tougher Than Nails T-Shirt

Pick Jesus 2 T-Shirt

just to name a few.

Special Pricing on Christian T-Shirts is a post from: Grow Your Church Show

The story is great and pulls at your heart strings. Tim McGraw does a great job as her husband. The best part is it depicts Christians – not as purple haired freaks that point at the sky when they sing- but as loving caring people who you might enjoy getting to know. I highly recommend the movies and we plan on making a church outing to make it a fun event.

For whatever reason the movie company won’t let me imbed the video, but you can watch the clip at you tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khtBvQdxta4

The Blind Side – Great Movie Night is a post from: Grow Your Church Show

Can you imagine if we all write down what we’ve tried to get in touch with people outside of your church? Write odwn both the ones that worked and didn’t work, can you imagine how the people that come after us would benefit from such a list? People would read an idea and take them and tweak them into better ideas, more effective ideas, and avoid the ones that didn’t work so well. Can you imagine?

I’m already committing my 2010 to making this site better, and making sure its updated on a regular basis. I hope you will work with me to spread the word of Jesus. You can call in your comments at 888-563-3228, email me dave “at” growyourchurch show “dot” com (spelled out to avoid spam), or just leave a comment on the blog.

A Huge List of Evangelism Ideas is a post from: Grow Your Church Show

Great New Resource “Fish With Trish” is a post from: Grow Your Church Show

1. Evangelism isn’t somethng that happens at 7 PM on Tuesday nights.

2. Evangelism has a goal of introducing people to the truth – not so much converting them to Christ (the holy spirit will take care of that).

In the session I took a survey that had all sorts of different questions about my preferences in different situations. Well my next small group meeting is in Janurary and I didn’t get the chance to evaluate my answers. The survey was out of the book “Got Style – Personality-Based Evangelism” by Jeffery Johnson.  The description at amazon.com states:

 ”Identify the evangelism style that suits your personality, learn from biblical and contemporary role models who employ the same strengths, and discover the joy in introducing family, friends, or strangers to the life of faith.”

So I bought the book, and will be reviewing it in the future. If you would like to read along with me you can order the book here (affiliate link)

Got Style Review Coming is a post from: Grow Your Church Show

What is true is Jesus Christ. He said he came to testify to the truth. So why not “piggy back” on all the money the studio is spending on advertising, on all the hype and “water cooler” talk, and find a place at the theater where people come when they come out and hand out flyers that ask “What if today was December 21, 2012, would you go to Heaven? Something to point them to Christ.

2012 Movie Piggy Back Party is a post from: Grow Your Church Show