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If you thought the @ChristExplored website was good…

November 22, 2011 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

If you thought the Christianity Explored website was good… then you NEED to check out their new iPhone app.

The folk at Christianity Explored are going strength to strength with their resources for evangelism and this new iPhone app is in a league of its own.

  • Its clean and fresh, with a contemporary design and format that is accessible to people used to excellence.
  • Has all the benefits of their website content on your iphone.
    • Answers to the simple question about What Christianity is.
    • Videos of people answering tough questions. Really helpful stuff.
    • Clips from a wide variety of people who’ve come to know and love Jesus for themselves. Powerful stuff.
  • This material is succinct, relevant and most importantly biblical truth!
  • PLUS easy access map to see where you can go and sign up to the Christianity Explored course.

This is just another reason why the Christianity Explored course is such a great evangelistic course to run at your church. The support resources are unrivalled. The DVDs are well produced (I like DVDs because I feel it allows people to disagree with content more and really thrash about ideas).

Anyway…

Why not download the app, use it with your friends and family and be sure to rate the app on iTunes. Show a little love to Christianity Explored, they deserve our partnership in the gospel!

Creativity, Evangelism, Ideas, Jesus, Media, Resources, Technology, Tips

New Video & iPhone ‘Way of the Master’ resources…

July 30, 2010 by hayleyneal 2 Comments

This video was released this week by Living Waters Ministries. Its a fun cartoon version of the famous Way of the Master evangelism method.

Way of the Master have also released and iPhone app to help you explain the gospel through their method – its called GM2:8 – Let the whole world hear.

Features:

  • Questionnaire | 2mins | this is a guide to the way of the master questions.

+ve – It comes with audio which is great if you are trying to share the gospel with someone with little English. It will present the questions to you in one of 10 languages.

-ve – It is a little impersonal to have the recorded voice telling you the gospel. Especially if you speak English and you are speaking to someone in English. My recommendation is to turn your volume down and speak through it yourself. And the second feature on the app addresses this.

  • Preaching Mate | you are encouraged to pop your headphones in one ear, to help guide you to speak by repeat the phrases in the other language. So it actually helps you preach. The English is always listed on the same screen.
  • Gospel Presentation  | shares the gospel story in full.
  • 10 different languages (Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish Castillian, Spanish Neutral)

I am also not 100% convinced of the Way of the Master method. It is a little abrupt. Unless, the person repents right there and then Way of the Master I think creates more enemies than friends. If I was doing this in my local area and wanted to do some gospelling with people I hope to see again, I don’t think I would use this method. Perhaps it could be suited more for university contexts, where people are more willing to have healthy debate?

I find this iPhone resource a little cringe worthy and I am not convinced by the last sales pitch on the video on the website “you don’t  have to preach, you just have to hit a button, and let them hear the gospel and you leave”.

Evangelism, Resources, Technology

iPhone Evangelism…

July 27, 2010 by hayleyneal 3 Comments

I wanted to have a tool to help me do the  “5 Quick Questions” survey evangelism more easily whenever the urge or demand arises, be able to keep the data collected and also a survey they looks like I am for real and not some crazy person…

So I went looking for an online survey service that I can access via my iPhone. After trying Survey Monkey and Survey  Gizmo I decided to go with the later. Survey Gizmo is easier to use, has a more intuitive dashboard and publish settings, plus it just looks neater and modern. Gizmo is an easy to use online survey software tool, with lots of features for not only surveys but polls and evaluations. If you have a student email you can sign up for the student edition which is free.

Check out this form for 5 quick questions. I now have a portable survey, that I can pull out at any time in my local area. I hope to use it lots in and around our mission week coming up in August/Sept.

Evangelism, Ideas, Technology

Sabbath from Technology…

April 25, 2010 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

I am more and more convinced that our generation is filling ‘the God shaped whole’ with data. Although these guys aren’t believers I think this video diagnoses the subtle idolatry that exists in our generations…. we look to data and technology to give us worth and identity, we wake with technology in our hands and we see the sun go down with technology in our hands. I wonder how many of us actually have technology creeping in for the position of God in our lives:

“Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God” – Martin Luther

I missed the National Day of Slowing Down on March 20, but the organisers created a Sabbath Manifesto with 10 principles to help you unplug. I particularly like 1-5, 9 and 10.

The Sabbath Manifesto is a creative project designed to slow down lives in an increasingly hectic world. We’ve created 10 core principles completely open for your unique interpretation. We welcome you to join us as we carve a weekly timeout into our lives.

Do you Sabbath from data?

Culture, Jesus, Technology

Website Review | Whos Jesus?

March 16, 2010 by hayleyneal 0 Comments


Christianity Works has developed this WHOSJESUS  to detail and explain the life of Jesus and his relevance.

It gives the website viewer access to the Jesus All About Life book; video answers to common questions and replys to common objections to the Christian faith.

Its an interactive and modern design for a website and looks a whole lot better than other ‘who is jesus’ websites currently out there. This website is clever in choosing the topics that appeal to our broken and selfish world as well as including stories that are of interest and perhaps relevant: Forgiveness; Shattered Lives; Healing;  Columbine High School – Rachel’s Story; What I really want?; What is Christianity and Who is Jesus?

Practically though, it is a little difficult to navigate and you can easily miss out on the goodness that is locked away. You need to have intuative navagation skills to make the most of this website I think. One thing that becomes quite annoying is that you have to open little windows for each bit you want to explore and to move on from that scree you can’t just click on something else you have to click the X.  I think I would not be alone to find this annoying  – but it isn’t the end of the world, just got to remember to click X before wanting to click something else.

The site is also a little mysterious. We are not introduced to the voices that you are listening to and their isn’t much consistency between the media chosen. Every little section has different voice backing the video, some are more 80s than others and some are just still pictures with audio clips.

Plus, there isn’t much much opportunity to go further or to be followed up. But hopefully  if you were referred to the site by a friend you could ask them further information about how to become a follower of Jesus.

Nevertheless, the guys have built this site to keep sharing the story of Christ Jesus. Its interactive nature means you do spend more time on the website and as such sees you exploring more. I pray God uses this site to win people to him.

Creativity, Evangelism, Jesus, Media, Technology

Do It, Don’t Blog It…

October 14, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

… That moment forced me to begin reflecting on how much time I spend on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other online social networking sites. I wondered, If I spent less time online, could I be spending more time building friendships? Have I become so consumed with reading about mission that I’ve forgotten to actually engage it? As these questions arose, I started to get uncomfortable.

Don’t misunderstand me. I find blogs quite encouraging. I’ve learned a lot about missional living by reading insightful bloggers. I have even gotten reacquainted with non-Christian friends from years ago on Facebook. But in truth, the bulk of my Facebook time is spent conversing with Christian friends and other church leaders. And most of the missional discussion I read online does not include stories of people coming to faith, but theoretical definitions and debates about what being missional actually means…

read the full article

Technology

Attitudes to mission, evangelism & outreach…

October 13, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Does your church have a core value or guiding princple for evangelism or outreach or local mission?

My church is re-thinking its mission & vision for the next year and so I am curious to see how other churches place evangelism. After a quick scan of some church websites I discovered that there are not many which clearly detail outreach projects they initiate or are apart of nor are their many church websites that share their vision for local mission or if they do it is almost a side note.

I wonder how indicative this is of the churches’ attitude to missions and the place it has in their calendars, budgets and life of their church?

Can you pick which churches the following statements about outreach come from?

Missions is more than just a one-time event or an experience; rather missions is a lifestyle. This means that in our homes, neighborhoods, schools, work places and in every other area of our lives, we are to carry ourselves as ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-20; 1 Peter 2:4-9)… the Church as a whole has been called to seek the good of the city (Jeremiah 29: 5-8). We seek the welfare of the city by focusing our corporate missions efforts on improving the health, safety, education and commercial opportunities available within the city. Check who

The foreign missions work and outreach ministries of our church aim to glorify Jesus by gathering more and more worshipers. They are all built on the reality that outreach is not the ultimate mission, nor the primary end of our church. Worship is. Foreign missions and outreach ministries exist because worship doesn’t. In other words, outreach ministries and missions work is the means to glorifying God by more and more worship. Check who

We are…part of a Church that seeks to steward God’s message of freedom for local, national and global communities with personal involvement, example and generosity. Check Who

God desires all people to be saved through trusting in Christ and submitting to his Lordship, obeying him in all things. We are committed to equipping people and encouraging them to present the Lord Jesus by word and deed. (1 Tim 2:3-5, Mt 28:19, 1 Peter 3:15) Check Who

we don’t want to live in a “holy huddle”, isolated from the world outside, so we run activities and events that enable us to connect with and serve the community around us. Check Who

Church, Evangelism, Technology

Creative Gospel… 36 Parables

September 5, 2009 by hayleyneal 3 Comments

Picture 19

36 Parables… short films for your [youth group] [bible study] [family] [church] [small group]

Great free and accessible resource for you to use for your ministries. I have come across a similar concept Modern Parables and bought the DVD from Koorong. Modern Parables is an expensive resource (1 parable = $24.95 – I think I paid more like $39.95 when I purchased it) and has too much teaching embedded in the film. It would be great if they had just the retelling of the parable that allows your small group to discuss and interpret with our bibles open.

36 Parables is great creative initiative trying to make the gospel more accessible and relevant to our media saturated generation. This resource is in some ways a product I see rectifying “internal churning”... it would be great to perhaps link to videos like these on our church websites and also make sure that organisations like 36 parables have good search keywords tied to its website title and content. They even come with a free downloadable study guide.

Yet again, my challenge still stands to web/film/theologians/evangelists gurus: Jesus is worthy of a good website to explain who he is and the life he has on offer to all. If you have the technical know-how, I’d be happy to consider putting a team together to develop the content…

Let’s be like Jesus go hang where the sinners are: in our generation its on on the web!

Evangelism, Ideas, Resources, Technology

Gospel Translations

August 26, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Gospel-centered books and articles freely accessible in as many languages.

Evangelism, Media, Resources, Technology

Free Online Leadership Conference…

August 12, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

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THE NINES is a free one-day event that will take place totally on-line, offered by Leadership Network. It is designed for all church staff members who want to be motivated and stretched in their leadership.

It begins: 09/09/09 at 9:09am CST.(which works out to be 11pm Sydney time – I think!)

You will hear from 47+ speakers, who will each spend 9 minutes giving their best leadership advice.

Speakers include:
Mark Batterson :: National Community Church (Washington, DC)
Dave Ferguson :: Community Christian Church (Naperville, IL)
Reggie Joiner :: reThink Group
Dan Kimball :: Vintage Faith Church (Santa Cruz, CA)
Perry Noble :: NewSpring Church (Anderson, SC)
Ed Stetzer :: LifeWay Research
and many many more!

It’s totally free, but you must pre-register.

I think its a pretty unique way to run a conference – it will be interesting to see how it works and what the content will be like.

H/T ChurchRelevance

Technology, Training
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