Steve's Writings
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Evangelastic: When Exaggeration Undermines the Gospel Let’s be honest. Many ministries under the banner of “evangelical” Christianity are guilty of a subtle but dangerous habit: “evangelastic” storytelling—the tendency to stretch or inflate numbers, outcomes, and spiritual wins in order to sound more faithful or fruitful than we really are. We’ve all heard it (and maybe…
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I’m listing a few days worth of thoughts on mistakes I’ve made in the area of outreach. I’ve made plenty! I’ve had to pare the list down to just ten for this blog. As you look it over maybe you will save yourself some energy by not repeating my misfires. #1 Mistake: Didn’t go fishing…
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Words of love need to be connected with deeds of love. Human nature being what it causes us to gravitate to serving others when we reach out in Servant Evangelism but then clamming up before we explain WHY we are serving. Unless we verbalize the essentials of the Gospel of Christ we miss out on…
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There is negative thinking that influences us regarding outreach. We can self-justify a serving-only approach to evangelism that bypasses vocalizing the Gospel with thoughts such as: “There are so many hypocrites circulating who talk too much…I’m just bringing balance.” “I’m not really enough of an extrovert to speak up in a meaningful way…” “We have…
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One of my ongoing frustrations in Servant Evangelism has come in seeing people verbalize the Good News. The tendency of human nature is to speak little in the context of serving others. It is rather easy to recruit people onboard with the serving part of the equation (the “S”). The evangelism (the “E”) is more…
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Ready For A Nervous BreakThrough?! A good friend of mine recently related to me how God has been on the move in his life. It was a little difficult to figure out if he was going through good stuff or bad. Creative ideas were hitting him in the middle of the night so he was…
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#16: Look for More There is something that is very real that commences once we breathe our last breath in this life. Been there, done that. Jesus’ people have been looking for and experiencing, more than the here and now, for thousands of years. Since the days of the Early Church, God’s people have been…
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#15: There Are Reasons For Hope In going through a death one’s hope tank is emptied. Afterward, there is a reason for hope again. God is faithful to touch us afresh. He sparks us with a new reality including the following truths: God is present still. God will go before me. I don’t walk forward…
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#14: The Thing In Your Hand Is Powerful We tend to underestimate the power of the simple that has been going on around us. This is true throughout history. Moses thought he had little to offer to the cause of God. Just to clarify this arrangement God decided to use the most common item imaginable…
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#13: Saying Yes Brings Life Life is difficult after going through a time of death. One of the fastest ways to make forward progress is to practice saying Yes. Literally, say Yes! We need to get into the habit of telling God Yes. There are plenty of forces at work around us that conspire to…