40/50/90/3000 Devotional: Day 5- February 27, 2010


Day 5 – February 27, 2010

“I remember Harry Denman as always warm, open, friendly. He had a view of evangelism that was
anything but narrow. While he subscribed to most of the traditional methods of evangelism –
including revivals and personal witness – he was open to many other methods, some new and
experimental.” (Prophetic Evangelist: The Living Legacy of Harry Denman, 1993)


New and experimental ways of evangelism

I work with a group of teens today who have challenged every concept I have ever had concerning
evangelism. They certainly want to hear about Jesus Christ, and they even desire to be part of the church
of today. However, they do things differently than most in the church world have ever done them.
When it comes to communication, they do it differently. They don’t talk on the phone so much anymore;
they text message each other, even if they are sitting in the same room, often sitting on the same piece of
furniture. I have even found myself texting with them while in the same room. It offers a degree of
privacy while staying in the group.

Facebook and Myspace are two of the communication tools of choice with the teens of today and, by the
way, the generation of people 50 years old and above are also coming to use these tools in huge numbers.
E-mail is passé with the youth of today; they just don’t use it. Communication with the youth of today
needs to be in short bites, a text message; in video format, such as Youtube; in music they can download
from the web, such as itunes; in becoming their friend on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.
It is time that we as the church embrace the methods necessary to communicate the gospel to the youth of
today, without changing the message in any way. Take the time over the next days and weeks to get to
know the youth around you, in your community, in your own church, through the media of social
networking sites. You may just find they are open and receptive to coming to visit your church and, better
yet, they will come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Jesus taught people in many different places at different times. He taught in the synagogues, out in
the open, while moving along the shore in a boat. Jesus never changed the message but he took the
message to where the people were.

Luke 5: 1-3 (NLT)
One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to
listen to the word of God. 2 He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left
them and were washing their nets. 3 Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push
it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.

Lord, like Jesus, John Wesley, and Harry Denman before us, let’s take the gospel to where the people are.
Amen.

Submitted by: Rev. Ronnie G. Collins

One comment on “40/50/90/3000 Devotional: Day 5- February 27, 2010

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