The Nations... in Our Backyard

KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) -- Bhutanese refugees began arriving in the United States on Tuesday (3.25.08), the first wave of what the United Nations describes as one of the world's largest resettlement efforts. The U.S. has offered to resettle 60,000 of the estimated 107,000 Bhutanese refugees of Nepalese origin now living in seven U.N. camps in southeastern Nepal -- their home for the past 17 years. Six other nations... have offered to resettle 10,000 each. These refugees registered in refugee camps in eastern Nepal during the 1990s as Bhutanese citizens deported from Bhutan during the ethnic cleansing carried out by... →

Jan 27, 2017

The Problem of Gospel Static

Imagine a phone call with a lot of static (“noise”) on the line—so much that you are only understanding part of what you hear. That’s what the gospel of Jesus Christ can sound like to people whose worldviews are strongly influenced by non-Biblical belief systems. We call this problem “worldview noise.” And if we do not understand the worldview noise in our communication of the gospel and do not find a way to penetrate it with clarity, our evangelistic efforts will likely produce spurious fruit. There are two reasons why unbelievers do not understand the gospel. The first is something that all unbelievers everywhere have in common, to the same 100% degree—spiritual blindness. And only the Holy Spirit can lift this veil and open an unbeliever’s understanding of the gospel. But the second reason for not understanding varies greatly from unbeliever to unbeliever. It’s worldview noise. Depending on the types of spiritual influences in a person’s earlier life, his or her worldview noise may be very dense or not dense at all or somewhere in-between. →

Dec 27, 2016

Initial Contact or Relational Evangelism—or Both?

How quickly should we encourage an unbeliever to make a faith response to trust Jesus as Savior? In our initial evangelistic contact with this person? Or, should we wait until we have had multiple opportunities to explain truths related to the gospel? The Good Soil Evangelism and Discipleship Scale can help us answer these questions in a way that we can be relatively confident that we are planting God’s Word in “good soil.” →

Dec 21, 2016

Lea's Story and The Story of Hope | Part 1

"Lea, how long have you been attending our church?” missionary Steve Deal asked. "Since Lesson 7," came the reply from this young mother of a three-year-old girl. She was referring to "The Story of Hope" lessons which Mitch has been teaching. →

Dec 20, 2016

Lea’s Story and The Story of Hope | Part 2

Lea, a former Catholic, was saved in a local church plant in The Philippines after hearing "The Story of Hope" (the Gospel Story from Genesis to Revelation). Mitch, a member of the church invited her to attend TSOH Bible teaching during Sunday School. She was excited to return to her hometown three hours away and share her faith with her devout Roman Catholic husband and mother. She was given a Bible and her own copy of “The Story of Hope." Lea even started a kid’s outreach in her hometown where she taught one “Story of Hope” lesson each Sunday. →

Dec 1, 2016

Gospel Receptivity – From Closed to Open

A lot of people who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ are not receptive to it—not open to embracing it. And many who do not understand the gospel clearly are very receptive to it—are eager to know more, with an openness to possibly embracing it. Only God knows the human heart. But if we had a “tool” to help us assess where an unbeliever is in his or her receptivity to the gospel, as well as understanding of it, that could be a very valuable instrument to use in personal evangelism. The Good Soil Evangelism and Discipleship Scale was created to be that kind of tool. The Good Soil Scale is two-dimensional. The vertical dimension addresses understanding. The horizontal dimension addresses receptivity. →