Eric Hoey

New Churches = New Babies?

Planting new churches is best evangelistic strategy for renewal in 21st century

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I was there at the conference. The synergies in the room were beginning to explode when Pastor Pete James of Vienna Presbyterian Church challenged the listeners that the best evangelistic strategy for renewal in the 21^st century is to plant new churches. He told the gathering of large pastors, “If you count the cost before you start, it is dead in the water.” Another pastor leaned over to be and said, “It’s like having a baby!”

My new synthesized quote from the conference:

“Starting new churches is like having a baby, if you count the cost before it starts, it is dead in the water.”

If I counted the costs of having four children before I had them, I would have never given it a second thought. One new church pastor told me, “If I counted the cost of having children before we had ours, I wouldn’t let my wife touch me.” I believe that birthing new things has a certain amount excitement, passion, and a simple trust that this is what God wants.

The Gospel in Three Minutes

Sounds crazy right? Is it possible to explain the Christian faith in three minutes?   Check out James Choung's attempt at presenting a new approach to the tradional models of evangelism.  The Big Story is one of my favorite resources because it is a new fresh approach to the old traditional models of evangelism.

Check out the video below and let me know what you think.

A powerful video from the other side

The largest barrier to sharing my faith is me. When I am caught up with my own issues and problems, I seem to enjoy wallowing in self-pity. Every now and then, God takes a hold of me and gets my attention. I am always invited to see things from God's perspective. When I do, the world become a different place. I am no longer worried about my own issues, but God is at work in the world around me. All I need to do is listen to God's voice of how I am to respond. Let the following video see life from the other side:

Evangelism resource tools-Great Blog!

In the commitment of the national offices to be resource providers, I highly recommend the website--  www.evangelismcoach.org

Chris Walker has one of the best sites I have found on evangelism. There are more “nuggets” of information on that site than I could read in one sitting. While exploring his site, I felt like a kid in a candy store filled with excellent information on evangelism and church growth. Chris Walker has a deep passion for evangelism and has committed his life to training others in evangelism. He is big heart for God and the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is a site to which you will want to subscribe and read on a regular basis.

The Power of the Gospel

Last year, I was in a conversation about evangelism with some people who represented different perspectives of our church. A phrase was mentioned that stopped us in our tracks. “It seems like Presbyterians no longer believe in the power of the Gospel.” The more we pondered the profound significance of the idea, the more we all realized that this is absolutely true within our denomination. Evangelism had become a weakness in our church when we refused to believe the power of the gospel to transform lives.

As the director for Evangelism and Church Growth, I want to use this blog to talk about how we can “reclaim the power of the gospel” for our denomination. I hope this can become one way to resource our denomination to become equipped to share our powerful stories of transformation. We really do have a story to tell about God’s grace in our lives. It is moving, transformative and worth telling. I dream of seeding a “perfect storm” in our church where God is raining down blessing and growth upon the PC(USA), and seeing evangelism become a natural response of our churches by telling the world the transforming power of the Good News of Jesus Christ. I welcome your thoughts and comments.