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EVANGELISM MINISTRY
Evangelism is sharing faith with others,
particularly those who are unchurched or disconnected, and inviting them to
follow Jesus Christ as Christian Disciples. Disciple making begins with
invitation and welcoming and continues through a process of relating persons to
God and equipping and sending them forth in ministry. At Vandalia UMC,
there is a process that has been defined to help a person to visit our church,
made to feel welcome when they do, and then to nurture them to assimilate into
the life and ministry of the church. If the unchurched and disconnected
won’t come to us, then the Evangelism team must work with the Mission team to go
to them.
It is crucial that we establish our motives for
evangelism before formulating our methods. We need more than just good
ideas or wishes to perpetuate the existence of Christ’s church. Our
motives need to come from one or more of the following:
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Obedience to Christ’s command to tell all people
the message,
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Our love for Christ and a wish that others come to
know him too, a desire to see society changed for the better, according to God’s
righteous standards, and we have Good News to share and we cannot keep it to
ourselves because of our excitement.
The Evangelism Team is also responsible for developing processes that let the
community know that Vandalia UMC exists to serve their spiritual needs,
follow-up with our other in-house organizations to help our congregation get
involved personally in going out and ministering in the community, being
responsible for assuring our Hospitality Team process is functioning
properly, being responsible for recording worship attendance, following up
on members not attending worship regularly and regular attendees who have
been absent for three consecutive weeks, creating and maintaining brochures
that describe each organization in our congregation, working with the
Education team to help create focused share groups among our congregation
members, coordinating lay speakers to provide personal witness in a sermon
format, providing opportunities for each member of the congregation to
discover his or her strengths utilizing the Ministry by Strengths program,
Creating training opportunities for members of our congregation who have the
strengths necessary to be active evangelists for Christ, and Establishing
measurement criteria to determine if our efforts of evangelism are working.
Our group
meets once a month, normally on the last Thursday Morning at 10:00 AM in the
Assembly room. All adults are welcome.
If you are looking for more
opportunities to witness for Jesus, this is the group for you. Gideon's provide
a prison ministry and public school ministry among others. The Gideon's
International organization is open to all men.
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