We are going to begin an extended series throughout the summer on practical ways to be more effective and helpful for visitors. Before digging into the ideas and examples, this series needs some context. (Note: This is Brad Hertzog writing) My work has provided a unique opportunity. Multiple times, I’ve spent a couple of months […]
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How Are Things Going?
It’s been 3 months since the wider release of Outward OPC, initiated by the New Horizons feature article (March New Horizons). Your response as a community is very encouraging to us. We are about to share a couple of numbers, but not because we think this is all about numbers. But some numbers tell us […]
Podcast Episode #3 (Dave Crum)
Dave Crum is the OPC Regional Home Missionary for the Presbytery of Southern California. He joins Outward OPC to talk about how foreign missions service affects home missions service, doing evangelism and building up core groups in an ever-changing world, urban church planting, and gives updates on a couple Southern Cal church plants. Dave has […]
Rosaria Butterfield’s Hospitality & Bridging the Divide
A fantastic video featuring Rosaria Butterfield—her testimony, how hospitality was the patient means God used to draw her to Himself, and how that has affected her views of hospitality in an antagonistic world. Check it out: This video is a promotion for her new book, “The Gospel Comes With a House Key,” which is highly […]
On The Frontlines: Eric Watkins Part 4
As always, this can be viewed as a stand alone video, but we are deep into this discussion with Eric that builds on prior segments. (Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3). Today, Eric dissects how we think about church planting and how our distinctives as a Reformed Church relate to evangelism. He has […]
Outward Stories From the Field: San Francisco
A man walked up and asked, “Do you have free Bibles for atheists?” We assured him we did and had a short conversation about how they are really free and we are happy to give one to him. He ended up taking a “Confessing Christ” as well. He seemed pleased that his atheism didn’t faze […]
Helping Visitors Enter a New World – Eric Watkins Part 3
Here is the next installment of our interview with Eric Watkins. This can be viewed as stand alone, but it’s building on previous segments (Part 1 || Part 2). Today, Eric gets very practical with thoughts and examples on how to be more welcoming to visitors and helping them enter into a new world of […]
On The Frontlines: Eric Watkins – Part 2
Last week, we released Part 1 of the Eric Watkins interview. Eric talked about how 2 church plants shaped his view of building an evangelistic culture. Each part is somewhat self-contained and can be viewed individually, but they are building on each other. Below is part 2. In a fairly short clip, Eric lays out […]
On The Frontlines: Eric Watkins – Part 1
We sat down with Eric Watkins, pastor of Covenant OPC in St. Augustine, FL to talk about a wide range of topics related to outreach, evangelism, and the culture in which we live. We are excited about this interview. It is packed with thought-provoking and practical content. We will be releasing the interview in smaller […]
Outward Stories From the Field: Sterling, VA
What would it take to get a group of maybe 5 non-Christians along with 5-10 Christians into your home to talk about spiritual things for a few hours every Friday night? For Phil Proctor at Sterling Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Sterling, VA it’s a free dinner and some intentionality. Two months ago, he started a […]
Conversation That Opens Doors (and Hearts)
Our post several weeks ago about how well-intended questions could be unwelcoming to visitors (“Unwelcoming Welcome”) received a lot of good feedback, was passed around congregational email lists, and led to requests for more help in this area. Today, let’s look at questions and conversation once you get beyond the initial chitchat phase. These may […]
Podcast Episode #2 (Stephen Doe)
Stephen Doe is the OPC Regional Home Missionary for the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic. He joins Outward OPC to talk about encouraging a church planting mindset, understanding people who are very different from us, and practical steps he’s taking to encourage and develop an outward focus in his work. This episode is for all Christians, […]
You Are What You Love – Part 3 (Applying the Principles)
Before we get too far along in this series, let’s think about how to apply what we’ve considered so far. We’ve laid out the overall topic and thesis: James K. Smith wants us to realize that people are first and foremost lovers. That even more than what they think or believe, what people love or […]
You Are What You Love – Part 2 (The University)
In Part 1 of our series on James K. Smith’s You Are What You Love (Part 1), we considered Smith’s thesis that people at their very core are most significantly formed by what they love. What a person loves is more formative even than what they think or what they believe. We narrowed our focus […]
You Are What You Love (and so is everybody else) – Part 1
What if your neighbor actually loves liturgy more than you? In November at the Regional Church Extension Conference, multiple sessions were dedicated to the topic of 2 recent books by James K.A. Smith—Desiring the Kingdom and You Are What You Love. I (Brad Hertzog) led the sessions with 25 men—chairmen of Presbytery Missions Committees and […]
An Unintentional Unwelcoming Welcome
Sometimes our sincere efforts to welcome visitors on a Sunday can actually be unwelcoming and we don’t even know it. This is our third installment highlighting one of the sessions entitled “Building a Culture of Evangelism” at the 2018 Church Planter Training Conference. In previous posts, we looked at an overview of loving people in […]
Podcast Episode #1 (Chris Hartshorn)
The Outward OPC podcast is born! This will be an occasional podcast, not a set time of weekly or monthly. When we have opportunity, we will be interviewing OPC pastors and some other guests to talk about outreach and evangelism. You can listen to the podcast right here (orange play button) or download it with […]
Preaching & Evangelism
We continue our series of highlights from the Church Planters Conference in St. Augustine. Last week, we considered some matters relating to “Building A Culture of Evangelism” in our churches (Link). During the same session Eric Watkins, the host pastor, led a brief discussion on the role of preaching and evangelism. Eric had an interesting […]
Building A Culture of Evangelism
Last week was the annual Church Planter Training Conference in St. Augustine. One of the sessions was an extended consideration of “Building a Culture of Evangelism.” John Shaw led this with contributions by Al Tricarico and host pastor Eric Watkins. John & Eric completed teaching their first MTI-OPC class on Evangelism this past August. We […]
Reading Outside the Box Because We Live Outside the Box
“The First Church of Intersectionality” “Why Asian Americans Struggle to Feel at Home in White-Majority Churches” “Generation X, Y, Z, and Others” These are 3 recent articles from Steve Doe’s monthly curated selections that he passes on to his presbytery. Steve is the Regional Home Missionary for the Presbytery of the MidAtlantic. He […]