Eric Hoey

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:

Taking Ownership in Evangelism

I found a 1996 Presbyterian Panel Survey that made a summarizing comment:

 Pastors and laity tend to have different perspectives on which group has major responsibility for membership growth and decline. Pastors are more likely to see laity in that role, while laity are more likely to see pastor’s in the role.

I wonder if the survey occurred today if the result would be any different? I would imagine not much has changed in 12 years. There seems to be a clear divide between who is responsible for the growth and decline of the church. We love to blame everyone else than to look at ourselves to see if we are the problem.

In our own constitution, it says, "The Church is called to present the claims of Jesus Christ. leading persons to repentance, acceptance of him as Savior and Lord, and new life as his disciples." (G-3.0300b) Evangelism with respect to church growth must be done first, and church growth will be the natural outcome of our Church's faithfulness to the evangelistic call. If we have done our evangelism, church growth would not be a problem. But it is a problem. We are declining rapidly. Membership growth through evangelism must be the call to the whole church both elders and pastors. Let's stop pointing fingers, and point more people to Christ Jesus.

Presbyterian Presence: An Outdated form of Church Growth

The other day, I was driving by a university where my host told me about the campus and what religious entities were on the campus. He told me that the Catholics has a strong presence with the Newman Center and the Presbyterians do not have any presence at the campus. If I were a proud Presbyterian, I would be thinking, “Why not, we should be leaving our mark everywhere!!!”

With new church developments of yesteryear, Presbyterians planted churches with the strict intent to be a “Presbyterian presence” in the community. We built big buildings in the most prominent places to tell the community that the Presbyterians are here! People flocked to us. However, today, everything is different. We cannot plant churches the way we used to 50 or 100 years ago. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with having such a significant influence in the society that if your church were to disappear tomorrow the whole community would mourn. What I am saying is that in an era of limited funds and lack of institutional trust, “Presbyterian presence” is NOT a good rationale for planting churches.

We must be planting churches where God desires us to participate in what God is already doing in a community. Prayer, seeing the community with God’s eyes, great demographics, and leadership with the right mix of gifts that match ministry in the context of the community, these are all aspects of ministry every church needs to consider in order to be relevant to our changing context. Once we have these mastered, the Presbyterian presence will come.

Book Review: It by Craig Groeschel

IT.
Some ministries have IT. Some don’t.
Most churches want IT. Few have IT.
When a church has IT, everyone can tell.
And when a church doesn’t…everyone can tell.
(It: How Church Leaders Can Get It and Keep It, Craig Groeschel, p. 8)

     A new book for 2008 that captured my attention from cover to cover was Craig Groeschel’s, It. Intrigued by the title and the concept, I quickly learned that he wrote a book about what every church leader is trying to find. It is a book about how to put vibrancy and health back into a congregation. It is a leadership book about seven contributing factors of congregations that have it.
     Written in a contemporary style of authenticity, simplicity, and highly illustrated with stories, and pictures, the book is about the author’s journey to put vibrancy back into his own ministry. After studying the 13 campuses of  Lifechurch.tv, he found certain characteristics in many congregations that was missing in his own church. Craig Groeschel admits that he had lost it in his ministry and what he did to get it back.
     The substance of the book is found in the seven contributing ingredients to it. Key factors include:

· Vision: You Can See It Clearly
· Divine Focus: You Know Where It is Not
· Unmistakable Camaraderie: You Enjoy It with Others
· Innovative Minds: You’ll Do Anything for It
· Willingness to Fall Short: You Fail Toward It
· Hearts Focused Outward: You Want Others to Have It.
· Kingdom-Mindedness: You Share It

     You might consider his “factors” to it as overly simplistic, but the strength of the book is the discussion questions found at the end of each chapter. I feel that every leadership team needs to read this book and take the time to assess their own congregation through the discussion questions. Read It. It is a quick and easy read. The implications for our churches could change the landscape of our denomination forever.

Change: From Comfort to Wellness

At a recent hotel stay, I was given the keycard for my room in a folder that promoted the hotel’s BrainBodyFitness program. The purpose of the program was to offer its guests throughout the hotel opportunities to exercise their body and mind. Inside the folder were puzzles for the mind and exercise routines for the body. Everywhere I went, I ran into some aspect of their BrainBodyFitness program. Even the coasters for the drinking glasses had puzzles to emphasize their commitment to help me live a healthy life. Gone are the days where this particular hotel chain emphasizes that it will cater to my every need and become my home away from home. In this program, if I think about a healthy lifestyle, I am to think about this hotel. This is a radical shift in marketing. To a certain extent, I was envious because they had made the shift in from luring me with comfort to luring me to a place that is best for my needs. They want to change my life! In the same way, the Presbyterian Church needs to learn from this. We must make a severe paradigm shift in our thinking. The church is no longer a place where one can feel comfortable being with other Presbyterians, but a church that is faithful to the calling of Christ upon our lives and ministry. We must become a church that is relevant and offering better spiritual health for those outside the church walls.

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.

Book of Order: Look What I Found Here!

As was reading about The Church’s Calling from G-3.0300, I marveled how much I had forgotten how explicit our constitution is on the role of the church in the world:

1. To tell the good news of salvation by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. (G-3.0300a)
2. To present the claims of Jesus Christ leading persons to repentance, acceptance of him as Savior and Lord, and new life as his disciples. (G-3.0300b)
3. To be Christ’s faithful evangelist

Then I read G-3.0400, and it hit me with a ton of bricks, stopped me in my tracks, and brought tears to my eyes.

“The church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond themselves to the new reality in Christ”

When was the last time you heard of a Presbyterian church that ventured out with the gospel of Jesus Christ at the “risk of losing it life?” I am afraid our churches are much more into self-preservation than losing its life for Jesus. Maybe some of our churches need to take some risk. What have they got to lose?

Lighting Our Future

Sometimes when I am brave enough to face the cold dark weather in the early mornings of KY, I will walk the streets of my subdivision with my headlamp. I noticed that when I walk with the light pointing down directly in front of me, I am only able see 2-3 feet in front of me. I miss all the beauty of the early morning. But when the headlamp is pointed 8-10 feet ahead of me, my walk is greatly enhanced. I am able to see everything with a larger perspective. The morning is much more beautiful and my walk is more enjoyable with the light shining ahead of me instead of directly in front of me.

The church is similar. If churches only focus upon the pitfalls directly in front of them, I believe they will miss the greater opportunities of growth God has for them. When the vision of the church is set toward future direction, churches will enjoy the journey from a much different perspective. Instead of the usual maintenance and damage control, the church becomes future focused and more intentional in everything that it does. May God grow the churches of the PC(USA).

Facing the Decline of the PCUSA Head-On!

I often receive letters of concern about what the Evangelism and Church Growth ministry area going to do about the decline of the denomination. There are some things we can do, but in reality, the bulk of the responsibility of growing our denomination falls upon the faithful work of each of our congregations. If every Presbyterian could share their faith with one person within the next 4 years, I believe we could easily stop the decline of our church. Here in the offices of Evangelism and Church Growth, we are committed to providing resources to our congregations and presbyteries in the following ways:

1. INSPIRE our denomination to share their faith. We are committed to telling the stories throughout our denomination of faithful evangelism and church growth efforts. We plan to offer models of evangelism and church growth that are working well to inspire our churches to grow.
2. INSTRUCT our denomination with tools on particular church growth issues. Many of our offices offer seminars to help congregations ultimately grow in a variety of ways. (See our website www.pcusa.org/churchgrowth)
3. INTERCONNECT our denomination through collaborative networks, funding sources, and others who are addressing the same issues of growing our churches across the country.

God is at work in the national offices of the Presbyterian Church. We are deeply committed to offering the world a visible witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Is God at work in your church? I would love to hear about it.

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.