Outward OPC

Engage | Connect | Reach

...

Hidden Gems – Part 3

By

We introduced this series that we are calling “Hidden Gems.” After 5 years and 250 posts, we have detected several that had a distinct influence on people but maybe didn’t get the attention or circulation warranted. So we are sharing those on occasion over the next few months. Around 3 years ago, we did a […]

5 Years & A Hidden Gem

By

This week marks 5 years of Outward OPC. How do we measure those 5 years? Well, there are numbers–20,000 visitors to the site, 60,000 post views, and 16,000 podcast listens. Those numbers are great and we are thankful for each one of you who added to them. But the numbers don’t tell the real story. […]

Wisdom & Encouragement From the Past

By

Came across two quotes that seemed like a fitting post for this week to give everyone some encouragement in our efforts to reach the lost, both in our daily lives and in our churches. First, Andrew Bonar directed toward our everyday lives: “Our power in drawing men to Christ springs chiefly from the fullness of […]

More From Michigan: Church, People, & Story

By

This is part 2 with Jonathan Landry Cruse. This is an interesting episode as we talk about unique topics. Jonathan was a film student in college and he appreciates the dynamics of story in everyday life and communication. We had an interesting conversation about how church, people, and story all intersect in ministry, evangelism and […]

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

By

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, […]

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

By

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 […]

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

By

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 […]

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

By

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 […]

Top 3 of 2022

By

We do this summary every year because we think what the readers determine is valuable is, well, valuable. So when our committed audience says these are the top posts, we want to highlight that for you. So here are the most viewed, shared, and forwarded posts of 2022: 1. Podcast with Dale Van Dyke & […]

Stories From the Field: Evangelism Where You Are Planted – Part 3

By

The last snippet from Allison Hill’s article about a youth evangelism conference in Dayton, Ohio. Pastor Tyler Detrick’s reflections on the event are worth a few minutes of consideration: According to Detrick, the kids were surprisingly eager to speak with people, even asking to move to new locations when they weren’t seeing much foot traffic. […]

Stories From the Field: Evangelism Where You Are Planted – Part 1

By

Light of the Nations OPC in Dayton, Ohio is consistently doing evangelism. Recently, Allison Hill (Home Missions Staff) wrote a great article interviewing Pastor Tyler Detrick about one of their efforts with a youth evangelism conference. We are going to break the article up into a couple of short segments with some questions for thought […]

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

By

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 […]

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

By

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 […]

Hidden Gems – Part 2

By

We introduced this series last time that we are calling “Hidden Gems.” After almost 5 years and 250 posts, we have detected several that had a distinct influence on people but maybe didn’t get the attention or circulation warranted. So we are sharing those on occasion over the next few months. This one had a […]

Hidden Gems – Part 1

By

Outward OPC will soon be 5 years old and we have published almost 250 articles, videos, and podcasts. Because we have a committed audience, we are able to get a good idea of what posts hit a particular chord with people. We can see the analytics (reads, shares, social media posts, etc) but we also […]