It's All in the Relationship!

I'm currently a car salesman. I'm in the process of getting back into the ministry this summer and have a couple of possibilities -- I have to decide which way to go. But, as I wrote in my last blog, evangelism is something I have really studied the last couple of months.

In my car training, you meet someone, greet them and develop some type of relationship. The better the relationship, the more likely you can sell them a vehicle. Relationships are key to evangelism as well. The better your relationship with someone, the more likely you can win that person to Jesus Christ. Work place relationships, family relationships, and community relationships -- they all play into this.

As convinced as we are that lost people will suffer for eternity away from God, we should be willing to work hard on these relationships and see our friends/family come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Ineffective Evangelism

I've been studying a lot about evangelism. What's effective & not effective.

NOT EFFECTIVE: Build it and they will come. I am puzzled that we still think that if we build it nice enough and pretty enough, people will still come to our event. New church plants are often meeting in store fronts or shopping malls. Not trying to be churchy, but Christly.

EFFECTIVE: Friendship. Make friends with them and they will listen to you more quickly. Invite a stranger, they'll look at you like you're crazy.

NOT EFFECTIVE: Mass evangelism. Even Billy Graham was effective because people invited friends. THEN they heard and listened and believed.

EFFECTIVE: Event evangelism. "Hey, we're having a movie at our church and they're giving a prize to the person who brings the most. I need one more -- can you join me?"

NOT EFFECTIVE: Door to door evangelism. Face it, the cults have ruined this for us.

EFFECTIVE: Heart to heart evangelism. I read this week: Love them until they ask "why."

Just a few ideas. What do you think?

God's Position on Sin

I know I often blog about funny things that my family does. This is an exception.

I have been impressed over the last couple of weeks about Jesus' response to sinners. I have though long and hard about this and the only people that Jesus got harsh with were the Pharasees of that day. All sinners who came to Jesus weren't criticized, they were loved! From the prostitute to the Tax Collector -- all received compassion.

A verse of scripture that I believe outlines the message and method of the church is when Jesus rebukes the Pharasees and tells them he came, not to the righteous, but to the sinner. It's the same place he said "we don't call the doctor for the healthy, but the sick."

The church has to be on task of being the hospital for the sick. We need to do what the people of Jesus' day did -- bring the sick to Jesus feet. That's our job. Our job isn't to heal them, it's to bring them to the healer.

Many churches miss our calling. We think we need to heal the sick. We DON'T need to heal the sick, forgive people's sins or straighten people out. We need to just bring them to Jesus, one at a time, and let him heal them! And whatever HIS version of healing is, we need to accept that they are healed and love them just the same!

What's That Song?

My phone has a cool feature on it -- you can play a song on the radio or cd, it will listen to it, compare it to a computer bank of songs and tell you the name of the song, the name of the artist and the album. It also gives you the option to buy the song from iTunes.

I was explaining this to my daughter last night in our car. We were watching "Cars" and a song was playing in the background. I turned on the feature on my phone and it gave me all the information of that song that was playing in the background of the movie. My daughter then took my phone and started singing to it. Thinking it would pick up on her song and tell her who the artist was etc.

I guess you had to be there.

Thinking Outside The Box

I read something the other day that made me think. I know, rather unusual for me to do.

A Music Minister friend of mine wrote "trying to figure out how to go to the next level." Someone wrote back "nothing is normal" and "think outside the box." Since then, I've done some googling on "thinking outside the box."

Thinking inside the box is being satisfied with the status quo which is where I wonder if most churches are today. Thinking outside the box means throwing away the template of what's been done before and doing it differently than it's EVER been done.

My goal is, from today forward, to think outside the box. Be revolutionary. Make sure that an idea isn't shot down because we "haven't done it that way before (where have we heard THAT one before?)" I will try to ask all the deep probing questions and try to come up with answers that aren't status quo!

Animal Fiasco

My wife and daughter have begged to bring a new animal into the death chamber called the Mateer home. Understand, our reputation for animals hasn't been stellar and they usually die an untimely and unusual death. Example would be the dog that died in the pool, hermit crabs (and yes, that's plural) that die from lack of water, and on and on the list could go.

I finally consented to a Hamster, thinking a rat was just too gross. They proudly brought home Gizmo and showed him to me. I was like, ok, I can handle this.

On Thursday of last week, I asked casually, is the varmint still ok or have you all even looked at him today. Oh, no, I was assured, he's fine and we play with him every day. On Friday, I got "the call." Gizmo's dead. Dead? He was fine yesterday. Well, fine isn't really the truth. He was losing hair, but my wife didn't think I should know that. Then the truth came out. Gizmo was free (this fact I didn't understand when they brought him home). He was free because his mother and father were brother & sister (West Virginia jokes are NOT appropriate at this time, William!) My wife, who I consider as smart as most vets as far as small animals go (I've heard her personally have to tell the vet what the next treatment step should be), said that she knew there were going to be problems as there were definite genetic problems. Great! My daughter is crying hysterically over a dead animal that had known genetic disorders.

Now the pleading comes back for a rat. No, no, no! I will not have a rat in my house. Only, I say, if I can get a snake that will eat the rat.

Then the research starts to get a new exotic pet. Yes, lets get a short tailed possum. Yep, you heard me right. Possum! After pleading, cajoling, promising, etc, I said, go ahead.

However, a 9 year old shouldn't be responsible for her own animal, so she left the door open to her room and the cats decided it would be fun to play with the possum. We came into the room Sunday morning to find cedar bedding strung from hither to yon, cage totally in disarray, and no possum. Now, I'm NOT happy! The family skipped Sunday school to look for this blessing, to no avail. They locked the cats in the bathroom and just hoped Gizmo II would come home(no, we COULDN'T come up with an original name).

The good news is that the cat led us to the dryer where underneath was crouched a thirsty, hungry, but otherwise fine Gizmo II.

Anyone want a cat?

Pass the Butter please