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Evangelism Reader's Digest: Get Real

Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #7 – 3 Realities As Exiles

November 28, 2023 By Home Missions

This week’s post is really the culmination of the last post from Evangelism as Exiles (Exiles #6), but we thought it served as a nice, short, and crisp application of what we’ve been considering. Here Elliott Clark gives us 3 very practical realities of sharing the gospel in a world where WE are the exiles: […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #6 – Praise

November 14, 2023 By Home Missions

For a series intro, check out the first post: Intro The title of this post is “Praise,” but it will take a minute to get to that….Elliot Clark (the author) first wants to discuss the reality of the world we live in and how we think about evangelism… “We increasingly define “evangelistic opportunities” as those […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #5 – Showing Respect

October 31, 2023 By Home Missions

For a series intro, check out the first post: Intro This week continues last week’s topic of respect and honor to everyone in the name of evangelism in a world where WE are the exiles. Clark picks up on this note in the American church which, of course, hits home: “American Christians no longer have […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #4 – Respect For Everyone

October 24, 2023 By Home Missions

For a series intro, check out the first post: Intro  Let’s jump into this week’s summary… Clark offers this summary after discussing 1 Peter 3: “In this short passage we see several themes found throughout the entire letter. Peter spoke of holy women who hope in God, who don’t fear anything, and who respectfully submit […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #3 – Fear: The Right Kind

October 17, 2023 By Home Missions

For a series intro, check out the first post: Intro  Let’s dig in this week: Clark (the author) raises the question: Is fear the great hindrance to evangelism or something else… “Most Christians would identify fear as the primary reason why we don’t speak the gospel to others with more frequency or fervency. But I […]

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A “Get Real” Thought: Raise Curiosity. Get Outside the Box

September 12, 2023 By Home Missions

With Labor Day over and the school year starting, the new rhythms of the year begin again. Outward has a couple of things on the schedule for you this fall. We have a new series turning lessons from a good book on evangelism into shorter, digestible reads. Starting next week we have an interesting podcast […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #13 – Serving By Being Served

March 28, 2023 By Home Missions

Our final post in our series on the book, “Get Real,” by John Leonard. Leonard has certainly thrown cold water in our faces many times and challenged all kinds of stereotypes about evangelism. This final excerpt in a calmer way, challenges our standard thinking about serving and being served.  “Christians are always taught to serve […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #12 – Praying With The Lost

March 21, 2023 By Home Missions

Continuing with our series on snippets from John Leonard’s book, “Get Real”, we get another surprising jab to start which then leads to another helpful lesson in evangelism. Christians always lie. We don’t mean to, but we do. You’ve done it too. A friend shares a problem with us, and we say, “I’ll pray for […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #11 – Lean Into Other Religions

March 14, 2023 By Home Missions

Returning to our final few posts in this series, this week John Leonard encourages us to lean into talking about other people’s religious beliefs rather than shying away. He wants to persuade us that it will greatly help, not hinder, our evangelism and that there’s nothing to be afraid of. You be the judge if […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #10 – The Gospel Isn’t a Sweatsuit

February 7, 2023 By Home Missions

This week, John Leonard takes on the topic of contextualization—but not the controversial way it’s often used with worship. Rather, he’s talking about two different approaches to sharing the gospel…and yes, he wants to shatter a common picture of evangelism again! I love my sweat suit. No matter how much weight I gain or lose, […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #9 – When Does Your “Testimony” End?

January 31, 2023 By Home Missions

This week, John Leonard is shaking the tree on how we view “our testimony” in regard to evangelism. In the Reformed world, it’s pretty common to make the point that “our testimony isn’t the gospel.” That’s not new. But that’s not where Leonard is going with this one… “Testimonies are powerful. They are so powerful […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #8 – The Inconvenience of Sowing Widely

January 17, 2023 By Home Missions

Last week, John Leonard painted two pictures of evangelism, one an interesting and perhaps more natural way of “sowing widely.” Here he continues to expand and gives an example: “We sow widely by intentional interaction with the people around us. That is hard in a world where personal interaction is being eliminated. I’m a person […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #7 – Sow Widely

January 10, 2023 By Home Missions

Jumping back into our “Get Real” series, John Leonard likes to give us new images of things—squashing stereotypes. This week it’s a common view of evangelism and whether you have “the gift:” “Many of us don’t even want to evangelize because of the stereotypes surrounding the traditional evangelist. We don’t see ourselves standing on a […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #6 – Listen More Than You Speak

November 15, 2022 By Home Missions

We continue taking lessons from John Leonard’s book, “Get Real.” In the past couple posts, he has intentionally startled us with his opening thesis. Today, it seems like maybe he’s been with us on several occasions in our lives, maybe even hanging out with us at work or a group lunch! “It has happened to […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #5 – Who Gets Evangelized & Who Gets Discipled?

November 8, 2022 By Home Missions

If you’ve been following along with our series on lessons from former Westminster seminary prof and current PCA pastor John Leonard’s book, “Get Real,” then you know he likes to throw some cold water in our faces to start an idea. This week is no different in his chapter, “Evangelize Christians and Disciple Non-Christians”: “Conventional […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #4 – An End to Friendship Evangelism???

November 1, 2022 By Home Missions

We return to our series looking at lessons from John Leonard’s book, “Get Real.” This week Leonard opens with a jarring and pointed statement: “Friendship evangelism is not biblical! OK, that’s an overstatement. And yet, the conventional wisdom today is that friendship evangelism is the only form of evangelism.” Now, stick with him as he […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #3 – Party Evangelism

September 27, 2022 By Home Missions

In “Get Real,” author John Leonard has an interesting chapter called “Party Evangelism.” There are two sections to the chapter. The first is establishing that the western mindset has distorted the focus of Christianity to overly individualistic at the expense of the community aspect. This distortion has a significant impact on the role of the […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #2 – Be Normal!

September 20, 2022 By Home Missions

We are looking at lessons from John Leonard’s book evangelism called, “Get Real.” In his opening chapter, he poses the following story and commentary as the over-arching principle: “I have a problem,” began the young lady as she took a seat in my office. “My sister is coming to live with me and her life […]

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Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Get Real #1 – Two Pictures of Evangelism

September 13, 2022 By Home Missions

We are going to start a new series that will be interspersed with other topics and posts in the coming months. We are calling it “Evangelism Reader’s Digest.” We will take select chapters from good books on evangelism and share snippets from the chapter with our commentary and application for Reformed churches. Some of these […]

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Recent Posts

  • Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #7 – 3 Realities As Exiles
  • Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #6 – Praise
  • John Shaw Home Missions Retro – Part 3
  • Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #5 – Showing Respect
  • Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #4 – Respect For Everyone
  • Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #3 – Fear: The Right Kind
  • John Shaw Home Missions Retro – Part 2
  • Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #2 – Future Hope
  • Evangelism Reader’s Digest: Exiles #1 – Intro