DVDs for Your Non-American Neighbors

Probably every American can now say they know a neighbor or co-worker from another country. We need to take this opportunity to take the Gospel to the nations just by befriending the people who have come to live and work among us.

Check out these ten DVDs to see if you find a DVD in the right language group for your friend and their family. The DVDs are grouped by regions of Asia, Africa, and more. If you work on or near a campus, you might be interested in the All Nations JESUS DVD for International Scholars. This one DVD has the “JESUS” film in 16 languages: Arabic, Cantonese, English, Farsi, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish (Latin American), Thai, Turkish, Urdu, and Vietnamese. Subtitled in Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), English, French, German, and Korean.

You will want to come back to Reaching the Nations Among Us in the future to see what more they will have to offer.

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.

Modern Parables

A friend directed me to Bible study videos of Jesus’ parables. The videos and extra materials are available to purchase on disc or as downloads.

Modern Parables is allowing us to view all six of their films in their entirety for a limited time. I particularly liked The Widow and the Judge and The Sower. I enjoyed the others, too. For more thoughts about The Sower video, go to the post at the main Sower site.

These videos could be used for evangelistic purposes and are of high quality. In fact, I sent the link to Modern Parables to a non-Christian. He wrote back that he will watch the videos on his plane flight today!

If you use any of these videos evangelisticly, please share your experience with us in the comments on this post. Thank you!

Easter Outreach Ideas

I am addressing Easter cards this afternoon and plan to invite some of our neighbors for a local sunrise service and also for our church’s Easter service. As you probably know, Easter draws a lot of people to church services who otherwise would not go to church during the rest of the year.

I have given the “Jesus” film as a gift at Easter time, but realized today that I have not been that creative in using Easter as an open door for reaching people. Fortunately, I received two emails recently with a lot of good ideas that I can share with you today.

Campus Crusade’s website has an article entitled “10 Outreach Ideas for Easter“. The ideas range from gifts, to Easter egg hunts, to Facebook ads, to a strategy your church might consider (Prayer on the Porch).

Some of the items mentioned can be ordered at one of Campus Crusade’s online stores.

Our staff at our main store suggest two new resources.

1) The Case for a Creator is a new DVD based on Lee Strobel’s book of the same name. According to the email I received, “The Case for a Creator DVD is one of the most compelling arguments for the intelligent design theory useful for believers and skeptics alike.”

Click here for more infomation or to order your own copy.

2) 6 Reasons for Faith distills the essence of the Gospel into 6 points and 55 pages so you can take it anywhere. You could mail it to family or friends, hand it out when shopping, or use it for a community outreach.

Get the facts on The Golden Compass

I’ve been following the buzz on The Golden Compass. It’s very important for Christians to get their facts straight so we do not send the wrong message to people. I recommend:
• an excellent article from Christianity Today, and
• also another perspective this article from Chuck Colson’s ministry

to help you sort out fact from fiction.

Rapid Deployment Kits for the Military

Campus Crusade for Christ’s Military Ministry has many resources you can use for reaching men and women in the military and their families. Be sure to visit their website to discover more than I have time to mention here.

To highlight a few, the Military Ministry sends:
Chaplain’s Boxes with books and videos
20, 000 New Testaments and Bibles in Rapid Deployment Kits every month.

If Properly Led is a great leadership conference held in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

You might also enjoy reading my story about sending DVDs to my cousin serving in Baghdad.