Using Web Addresses

I had forgotten my tracts that morning, so I thought I would not talk to anyone. However, a conversation naturally opened up with Lindsay and I jotted down a web site address for her. Read more…

I have often written a web address on a slip of paper when witnessing to people, especially if English is a person’s second language or I do not have a tract with me.

Some easy-to-memorize web addresses you can use are:

For evangelism:
everystudent.com for college students

For discipleship:
growinginchrist.com for learning how to walk with Christ

These will work without the http:// and the www. Try it first, if you like, and then visit Global Media Outreach for a partial list of their ninety-plus evangelistic and discipleship web sites which you could memorize.

You can also make addresses easier by using tinyURL.com. I made one for the video presentation on my web site, which you may use:

tinyurl.com/whyjesuscame for a complete video Gospel presentation

and also two more:

tinyurl.com/whoisjesus-really for the Good News in dozens of languages

tinyurl.com/watchthejesusfilm for a film of the Gospel of Luke in hundreds of languages

If you just want to send a really short link by Twitter or texting, try using tr.im, which will assign a random shortened URL. (If you create an account at tr.im, it will keep track of your shortened URLs for you. With tinyurl.com, I have had to make my own list so I will remember them.) Of course, these really short URLs from tr.im will not be meaningful and will be harder to memorize, but not impossible.

Here’s one, ready to go for texting or Twittering:
Who Is Jesus – Really? tr.im/yboN

If you write an evangelistic blog on WordPress.com, they automatically provide short links now (wp.me), so you can send your evangelistic post easier as a text or a Tweet. Just click on “Get Shortlink” under your post title when you are writing or editting your post.

You could also write these shorter addresses on the back of tracts or make a business card with web addresses if you wanted to.

Please add your suggestions of websites you would use.

Reaching Urban Communities for Christ

“In the Bible, the word poor includes the weak the elderly, the mentally and physically handicapped, the refugees, the new immigrants, the working poor, the natural disaster victims, the unemployed, the single-parent families, and the orphans.” – Tim Keller

On Wednesday, July 22, Tim Keller, the pastor of Redeemer Church in Manhattan, joined Campus Crusade’s inner city ministry (Here’s Life Inner City) to discuss “The Gospel and the Poor: A Case for Compassion.” Tim and his congregation have a very successful urban ministry. In this video, he offers many suggestions about reaching diverse urban cultures.

You can be equipped and challenged by this interview.

Another blog with good tips

EveryStudent.com has a new blog with great help for sharing your faith. I just read the first post and liked the creative and culturally relevant idea they are trying this summer in Chicago.

Internet Evangelism Day website

Even if you are not planning an event on Internet Evangelism Day (April 26, 2009), this site has testimonies of people who have come to the Lord through the internet, stories from internet evangelists, advice on how to make your church web site more effective and more. Check it out.

Volunteer Opportunities

I am starting a list today of Christian websites letting you know how you can volunteer your time and reach people for Christ in a practical way. I will add to this list when I find more. Please include your comments if you have worked with any of these groups or know of other opportunities to share your faith through volunteering.

Here’s Life Inner City, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ
Prison Fellowship
Rescue Missions
Salvation Army

I found a very useful directory at ChristianVolunteering.org to help you find more volunteer opportunities.

Other places to volunteer could include:
• food banks
• pregnancy counseling centers
• adoption centers
• foster parenting
• hospitals

Passing Along a Blessing

“What are you reading?” The young man behind the fitness center counter asked me. I was holding a mailer from a Creation ministry that I had read while using the treadmill. Especially since he asked about it, I left the material with him. That particular mailing did not have as much content as I would have preferred, but maybe this young man looked up the website after he got off work.

Do you have Christian tapes, video, music, books, and magazines that you don’t need any more? Take the time to find a good second home instead of holding on to these things or tossing them in the trash.

Good places to donate your things may be:
Libraries
Homeschool groups
Nursing homes
Prison ministries
Inner city ministries

Through Google I found a number of ministries that will use your books to bless prisoners and third world pastors and believers. If you are unsure about donating to an unknown organization, look for:

1. A Biblically-based statement of faith
2. Disclosure of their financial status
3. An approval by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability

I found only one ministry that had all three of these on their website, Christian Resources International. They have also been in ministry since 1956, which tells me they are not some fly-by-night operation. I have not donated to them so I cannot endorse them from personal experience.

Read a story about offering magazines for a waiting room.

The Roman Road

Many Christians are familiar with The Roman Road, which explains what God had done for us and how we can have forgiveness freely through Christ using verses from Romans.

The verses are
Romans 3:23
Romans 6: 23
Romans 5: 8
Romans 10: 9 – 13

I present it here for you to use if you wish,as a narrative, quoting Romans 3: 21 – 24, Romans 6: 22 – 23, Romans 5: 6 – 8, and Romans 1): 4 – 13 from The Message version of The Bible:

“But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. . . Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners . . . and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. . .

“But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. . .

“Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. . .

“The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah, who then puts everything right for those who trust him to do it. Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy—every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story— no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?

The word that saves is right here,
as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest.

It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—‘Jesus is my Master’—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not ‘doing’ anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: ‘God has set everything right between him and me!’

“Scripture reassures us, ‘No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.’ It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. ‘Everyone who calls, “Help, God!” gets help.’”

The Four Circles

I hope you have the time to learn about The Four Circles from InterVarsity. The complete presentation of the Gospel and the cultural relevance of the presentation are fantastic! If you want to be challenged in your thinking of how we present the Gospel, I highly recommend these links:

A Christianity Today article explaining the concept behind The Four Circles.

How to present the Four Circles.

Video presentations of the Four Circles:
Part One
Part Two

James Choung’s blog, Tell It Slant , to get more information. (I particularly recommend his post on Napkin Sketching. Follow the links to see how corporations are using this effective communication technique – Dr. Bright used napkin sketching before the Four Spiritual Laws were available in printed form.)