Each quarter we emphasize one feature of church and Christian life through a series of emails. This page is a gathering place for this information
Invitation to Evangelism
Greetings Mission Friends! And Happy New Year to you!
Many of us are thankful to say goodbye to 2020. It was a year of great challenge, division, trauma and loss. We turn the page to 2021 with hope for brighter days ahead.
At the same time, I hope we claim the proclamation of Hebrews 13:8: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever!
The Spirit of Christ was at work in 2020 and continues that work without reference to dates or calendar pages. And it is that amazing, redemptive work of God that we are continually invited into.
The work of loving our neighbor, feeding the hungry, bringing unity where there is division, and sharing the Good News of Christ is our joy and privilege.
Our historic name as Covenanters, Mission Friends, says it so well. We are friends together on mission, called to make disciples and be the hands and feet of Christ in our communities.
We are 74 churches – 74 communities of mission friends – in the Pacific Northwest Conference. We are small and large. Urban and rural. Historic and new. Multi-lingual and multi-ethnic. All with one common purpose.
As we move into 2021, I encourage you to engage in the mission that God has called us to with renewed energy, passion, and delight.
With that, how is the Holy Spirit calling your church to love your neighbor? To whom is God calling you to share the Gospel message of hope, forgiveness and freedom? Will you be evangelists, bearers and communicators of the Good News that you have experienced and want to share with others?
This first quarter of 2021, as a conference, we are renewing our focus on our shared mission of being bearers of this Good News. We will highlight resources and stories through our social media and newsletters, and hosting a webinar in later February.
As we begin, we want to encourage you to consider utilizing and engaging in the Covenant’s resource called BLESS, which you can find on the Covenant website https://covchurch.org/evangelism/bless/
BLESS is an evangelism initiative created by the Covenant for churches. BLESS is an acronym for: begin with prayer; listen with care; eat together; serve in love; share your story. It’s a suggested pathway for engaging intentionally in blessing others with the Good News we ourselves have experienced.
The BLESS resources are not meant to be a one-time study or sermon experience. Our hope is that you will regularly revisit the BLESS Curriculum and that BLESS will become second-nature, embedded in your church life and culture.
Every April, during our conference Annual Meeting, we invite churches to submit their “BLESS” cards with the names of those you are praying for.
Plan now to schedule a BLESS Sunday sometime before our Annual Meeting Celebration so you can add all of your names to the others from around the conference.
We look forward to receiving those and joining you in prayer.
Looking ahead in 2021, as a conference we will engage other themes as well: “prayer” in the Spring, “community” this summer, and “scripture” in the fall. All with the desire to see our conference grow deeper in Christ and further in mission. Together.
Happy New Year!
Dawn Taloyo
Associate Superintendent
Pacific Northwest Conference
Schedule Your BLESS Sunday
Top 5 things to know about BLESS
5. BLESS is created by the ECC’s mission priority Make and Deepen Disciples for Covenant churches.
4. BLESS is an acronym for:
Begin with prayer
Listen with care
Eat together
Serve in love
Share your story
3. BLESS resources include
– posters
– journals
– study guides and leader guides for all ages
– sermon samples.
2. BLESS is available en Español.
1. BLESS moves the focus of our hearts, minds, and action outward towards our neighbors – following after Christ’s call to “Go and make disciples…” (Matthew 28)
Check out all the BLESS resources at https://covchurch.org/evangelism/bless/#resources
BLESS Interview with David Robinson
Enjoy this 6 minute interview with Rev. David Robinson, lead pastor of Cannon Beach Community Church. In this interview Pastor David describes how CBCC utilizes the Covenant’s intentional evangelism tool BLESS on an annual basis. We think you will find CBCC’s experience inspiring and practical.
Pastor David answers such questions as:
- How does Cannon Beach Community Church celebrate BLESS?
- Why did you decide on a 5-month campaign instead of a single Sunday in March?
- What has been most rewarding to you and the people as you emphasize BLESS?
- What challenges have you faced?
Check out all the BLESS resources at https://covchurch.org/evangelism/bless/#resources
In the video, David references the following new resource:
“BLESS: 5 Everyday Ways to Love your Neighbor and Change the World”
By Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson
BLESS In Living Color
Every year there is a new resource that is added to our denomination-wide focus on evangelism through BLESS. This year we add BLESS – In Living Color! This brings more dimensionality to engaging our neighbors. It also includes a 10-day devotional that is delivered to your phone with wonderful reflection questions. You are hearing about this before anybody else in the Covenant! Look for more as the official launch happens soon.
Evangelism Interview with Grant Christensen
What fuels evangelism? Be encouraged and challenged by Pastor Grant Christensen (Grace Cov, Bremerton) as he shares from his heart about why the good news of Christ is so real to him and how he must share about it! Is the gospel real to you?
Missional Thinking About Online Ministry with Erik Cave
At any moment a seeker may be visiting your online space looking for hope in Jesus and a welcoming community. This is an unprecedented opportunity for the church to reach hurting and isolated people.
We are compelled by scripture to live missionally. In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 Paul says he will go to great lengths, even make himself a slave to others, to win as many as possible for Jesus. To Jews, he becomes like a Jew; to those living under the law, he becomes like one living under the law; to those not having the law, he becomes like one not having the law. In sum,
At any moment a seeker may be visiting your online space looking for hope in Jesus and a welcoming community. This is an unprecedented opportunity for the church to reach hurting and isolated people.
We are compelled by scripture to live missionally. In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 Paul says he will go to great lengths, even make himself a slave to others, to win as many as possible for Jesus. To Jews, he becomes like a Jew; to those living under the law, he becomes like one living under the law; to those not having the law, he becomes like one not having the law. In sum,
“I have become all things to all people so that by all means I might save some.” 1 Corinthians 9:22
We have to come to grips with the fact that we are called to be missional, and that being missional has nothing to do with us, our desires, our comfort or our way of doing things. It has nothing to do with the people in your church and everything to do with the people not in your church. It includes embracing them, their desires, what makes them comfortable and their way of doing things. It is about leaving your comfort to go where they are.
Our world is looking for hope and community online. The COVID-19 quarantine has accelerated this phenomenon as we have become more dependent on the internet than ever. For better or worse, the people in your neighborhood are selectively picking and choosing their communities through social media, and these communities are not regionally based. It is easy to make a case for the problems this poses for healthy social, emotional and spiritual lives. This is why it is so important for the church to be missionally reaching into these online spaces to call a broken world to hope and community in Jesus.
What can a church do to take a missional approach online ministry? Begin by strategically approaching streaming of live services. Seekers will visit your church online before they will visit in person. The trap to avoid here is falling into televangelism. Simply feeding content to observers will not reach seekers looking for engagement, interaction and invitation.
Here are some good steps:
Engage All Audiences as Though They are One. We must go beyond simply greeting both online and in person audiences. Announcements need to be tailored for both. Welcome and connection cards need to be available in person and online. The speaker needs to speak to and interact with both audiences.
Interact With Both Audiences. Invite both audiences to share prayer requests. Invite both audiences to a common online chat to comment and discuss the service. That’s right, consider encouraging those at the in person service to use their phones to interact with those online. Consider asking a question from the pulpit, and share responses from the chat with all. Doing this will encourage those watching the recording later to watch live.
Invite Both Audiences to Deeper Connection. Lurkers is the name given to people who watch online communities but never contribute. We need to draw these lurkers into a deeper level of connection through an invitation to something outside of the Sunday morning service. This may be a lunch with the pastor on Sunday afternoon, an online small group or webinar, a Facebook group, or ultimate frisbee in the park. The invitation to deeper connection must be a constant and compelling part of every service and include both online and in person options.
I like to listen to podcasts. One host regularly reads comments on their YouTube posts. This drew me into making comments in hopes that they would be read. Every time one is read, I show it to my family and friends. I used to listen to another podcast at a later time than it is recorded live. After hearing the hosts interact with live comments in the chat, I decided to listen live so I could also participate in the chat. Still another podcast regularly invites all listeners to an online game night each Saturday. One Saturday I had nothing to do, so I joined. I met the hosts, who learned my name. I am now part of their community. These are examples of how online platforms can draw people into deeper connections one step at a time through engagement, interaction and invitation.
Think about online ministry beyond Sunday services. We must go beyond inviting seekers to our online spaces to connect with them in their online spaces. Ask yourself the question, “What online communities, or gathering places, are connected to our churches’ local physical community?” Apps like Next Door are designed to connect regional communities. Sites like Reddit and Facebook have groups dedicated to cities and neighborhoods. Your church already has members embedded in these online communities. Consider leveraging this by providing digital postcards consisting of pleasant images and text inviting people to your online services. Encourage your church members to regularly post these to their social pages and online communities.
These ideas are disruptive and require some work, and they are worth it. They may not result in substantial increased attendance or giving, and that is OK. Let us remember that missional activities have never been about comfort, numbers or institutionalism. Missional living is about going into the world with the hope of Jesus and invitation to community. We can make an impact on the world through missional online ministry.