Here’s one way to think about it – if your next-door neighbour attended your church for the first time, how confident would you be that they would receive a warm welcome?

And if they went on their own, without you there to introduce them to the people you know, how would that affect your ranking?

Visitors to church will put up with a lot. Unreliable PowerPoint. Uncomfortable seats. Long sermons. Instant coffee. But few visitors will tolerate cold fellowship.

It is a horrible feeling to walk away from church after few if any people smiled at you, spoke with you or even seemed pleased to see you.

People expect a warm welcome at church – and so they should! Churches should be the friendliest places on earth! Where else do you encounter a room full of people who have experienced the extravagant, undeserved kindness of God?! Where else can you be surrounded by people who have the very Spirit of God dwelling in them?!

Churches are unique gatherings and our experience meeting with the people of God should be like no other. The way we love each other is compelled by God and is a sign to the world of Who we now follow.

Perhaps this is why it’s so jarring when churches aren’t warm and welcoming. And this can be the experience not only of first-time visitors but of people who have attended a church for weeks, months and even years.

As Christians, our impulse must be to warmly draw near to the stranger because God first drew near to us – when we were His enemies. Every interaction is an opportunity to share and demonstrate the love of God.

And let’s be honest – it doesn’t take much to smile and say hello. Yes, greeting strangers pushes some people out of their comfort zone more than others. And yes, there is always the risk that you will be rejected or somehow embarrass yourself. But Jesus has gone before us and been rejected and ashamed. This frees us to act selflessly, confident that our identity is now secure.

So here are six simple ways to be friendly at church this Sunday:

1. When you see someone looking for somewhere to sit, smile and invite them to sit with you.
2. When you take a seat, smile and introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you.
3. When you drop off your children at the kid’s program, smile and speak with other parents who are doing the same thing.
4. When the service ends, turn around, smile and say hello to the people sitting behind you.
5. When you are getting morning tea, smile and offer to pour a drink to the next person in line.
6. When you see people leaving, smile and say goodbye.

How would it feel to be the person on the receiving end of those interactions? Would you come back? Would you bring your friends?

The post Church – the friendliest place on earth? appeared first on Communicate Jesus.

Sidenote: One of the issues here is our preference to encourage people with the “what” but not equip them with the “how”. But I’ll leave that for another day.

Today I want to suggest an alternative. Instead of asking people to run for 30 minutes the first time they put on their running shoes, get them moving in just 30-second intervals. Most people can run for 30 seconds at a time and each time they do, fitness, stamina and confidence grow.

What does this look like in the church? It means identifying areas to grow, then setting smaller goals that are challenging but also achievable.

For example:

• Hospitality. Have you never had another family over for a meal? Invite one family to lunch next month.
• Evangelism. Do you struggle to talk about your faith? Ask one mum at school dropoff if she has a faith background.
• Prayer. Do you avoid church prayer meetings? Attend just one this year.
• Generosity. Have you never given financially to church? Start giving $1 a week.

Each of these is tailored to individuals and how they need to be pushed. Each of these pushes people just a little bit out of their comfort zone. Each of these requires commitment and action, but don’t sound impossible.

Here are some other examples:

1. Knock on one door.
2. Pray for one other person when you pray for yourself.
3. Pray with your wife for 5 minutes on Friday nights.
4. Read (or listen to) one Christian book.
5. Join a small group.
6. Fast for one meal.
7. Say hello to someone you haven’t met before at church.
8. Arrive at church on time.
9. Serve in a (new) ministry.
10. Memorise one Bible verse.

What do you think about the Couch to 5K model of Christian discipleship? What other examples of small steps can you suggest?

The post The Couch to 5K Model of Christian Discipleship appeared first on Communicate Jesus.

Google’s latest report has just been released and one search in particular grabbed my attention.

Why is it called Good Friday? comes in at #2 in the list of ‘Why is…?’ searches.

Some fascinating implications for mission, as are the top ‘How to…?’ searches: 

1. How to opt out of my health record
2. How to watch World Cup in Australia
3. How to win Powerball
4. How to delete Instagram
5. Google Arts and Culture face match how to
6. How to buy bitcoin
7. How to lose weight fast
8. How to screenshot on iPhone X
9. How to delete Facebook
10. How to lose belly fat

The post Google reveals Australians want to know about Good Friday appeared first on Communicate Jesus.

“I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.” – James A. Garfield

How do you become a man?

Over the weekend I read Play the Man by Mark Batterson. It’s very easy to read and explores what a man of God looks like and provides guidance for fathers as they help their sons become men.

Batterson helpfully shares how he sought to lead his sons in a  ‘Year of Discipleship’ with physical, spiritual and mental challenges. The year culminated in a rite of passage and as a father of two young sons, this book and these practices left me with a lot to think about. 

Throughout the book Batterson raises some great questions for self-reflection. They make more sense in the context of the book, but are still helpful on their own:

1. Is my version of Christianity worth dying for?
2. What are my sin triggers? 
3. Who am I willing to offend? 
4. Who do I need to goad and who have I licensed to goad me?
5. How can I be more childlike? 
6. How can I be less childish?
7. What will my kids remember from their childhood?
8. What boundaries do I need to put in place to protect myself, my marriage and my family?
9. What decisions against myself do I need to make?
10. What am I tolerating?
11. Who are my pacemakers and who am I pacing? 

I also appreciated this reminder:

“You’ll never be a perfect parent but you can be a praying parent.” – Mark Batterson

The post Becoming a Man: 11 Questions for Christian Men from Mark Batterson’s ‘Play the Man’ appeared first on Communicate Jesus.

This is why online accountability software is so important and why I have long recommended Covenant Eyes as one of the best tools for being held to account for what you do online.

The problem is, the way we access the internet is constantly changing. Web browsers were once the only and then the main way we accessed the internet. Today, apps provide an increasing opportunity to sin with almost no means of accountability.

Covenant Eyes is moving to fix this, and this change is huge:

For the past two years we’ve been working on a revolutionary Screen Monitoring technology. This service captures screenshots of your devices, detects sexual images using image analysis, blurs the images, and sends an image report to your Accountability Partner.

This is a great step and I look forward to seeing how this new technology will help us conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

The new reports are scheduled for early 2019, and if you are interested you can sign up to participate in the trial here.

The post Covenant Eyes announces new online accountability for a changing world appeared first on Communicate Jesus.

That said, here’s the latest compilation of Christmas videos for 2018 – hopefully with a new video from the team at Speak Life to come. You can explore videos shared in previous years here, here and here. 

The Hero Has Come Home

The Hero Has Come is available to download here.

Silence and Fury

Silence and Fury is available to purchase here.

A Christmas Harmony

A Christmas Harmony is available to download here.

God With Us

God With Us is available to purchase here. 

Season of Mercy

Season of Mercy is available to purchase here. 

The Light

The Light is available to purchase here. 

The Shepherd King

The Shepherd King is available to purchase here.

God With Us

God With Us is available to purchase here.

Thrill of Hope

Thrill of Hope is available to purchase here.

Lift Up Your Eyes

Lift Up Your Eyes is available to download here.

Someone is Coming

Someone is Coming is available to purchase here.

Miracles Can’t Happen (and a Christmas Exception)

Miracles Can’t Happen is available to purchase here.

The Other Story of Christmas

The post Videos for Your Christmas Services (2018 Edition) appeared first on Communicate Jesus.

Are you an ordinary man? Good! God does great things through ordinary men! God doesn’t look at outward appearances when he recruits men for his purposes – education, wealth, connections. No, the Lord looks in favour on the man who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at His word.

At BASECAMP 2018, Malcolm Gill will share with us the story Dwight L. Moody – an ordinary man who was used mightily by God. We will be encouraged as we look back on his life, and look forward to how God might use us in our ordinariness to accomplish His great purposes.

Here are 6 inspiring quotes to introduce you to D.L. Moody and fire you up to live well as a Christian man. You might also like to check out a biography: D.L. Moody – A Life: Innovator, Evangelist, World Changer.

Interested in BASECAMP? Find out more here.

The post 6 Inspiring Quotes for Men from D.L. Moody appeared first on Communicate Jesus.

So I was excited to discover Dwell – a new app from the team behind Lightstock – to listen to the Bible and “keep Scripture in your ears and on your heart.”

The app emerged from a Kickstarter campaign and became the 4th most funded app of all time! With Dwell you can listen to the Bible (ESV, with more translations to come) read by one of four different voices, accompanied by original background music.

You can also select a playlist based on themes, stories, passages and plans. The app currently contains the entire New Testament and 7 Old Testament books, with more on the way.

The free version includes one voice and recurring interruptions. There are 3 pricing plans available for all of the voices and unlimited, uninterrupted listening:

• $2.99 a month.
• $23.99 a year.
• $126.99 a lifetime.

Dwell is available now on iOS, and later this year on Android.

The post Listen to the Bible with the Dwell App appeared first on Communicate Jesus.

It’s the most compelling sermon I have ever heard on this topic, and I commend it to you.

Here are some of the comments on Facebook post-sermon:

“It was one of those moments where everyone was encouraged, compelled and rejuvenated in the same talk, what a cracker!” Andy

“He brought tears to my eyes… and I was trying to work out why. It was great.” Geoff

“The whole room was completely captivated and compelled!” Michelle

“Saw him speak yesterday, and listened to it again today. So much to take away from this.” Jim

“Brilliant.” Kate

The post The Most Compelling Call to Mission Sermon I’ve Heard appeared first on Communicate Jesus.

2 out of 10 Australian Christians are engaging with God on a daily basis. This isn’t 2 out of 10 Australians. This is 20% of Australian Christians!”

If you want a better devotional life I’ve been working on a new resource to help us. My Time With God will share the stories of how Christians around the world spend their time with God. My prayer is that this will be a practical and inspiring resource to revive the devotional lives of Christians of all ages and life circumstances.

“When we relegate our intentionality with God to a minute fraction of our time, it’s no wonder we feel distant from him during the times we happen to be thinking about him and lack power during all the other times. Whatever we focus most of our conscious time on will invariably dominate the way we think and feel.” – Jared Wilson

I asked my friend Glen Scrivener to share how he approaches his time with God. Glen is an evangelist and director of the ministry Speak Life. He creates evangelistic resources, composes songs, hosts a podcast and has produced a number of excellent videos including Life According to Jesus, If You Had Been Here and my favourite, He Came Down.

Glen’s reflections were a great encouragement to me, and I pray will be to you also.

The Fatherhood of God

When my prayers are dry, nothing brings refreshment quicker than quoting Matthew 18:3 to myself:

“Unless you change and become like a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

My default is to come as a battle-weary soldier to a Sergeant-Major. The reality is that I’m a child — a little child — coming to my Father. That changes everything.

The Priesthood of Christ

Probably the central image I have in mind when I think of prayer is Christ’s prayer life before the Father (Luke 11:1). He is my Aaron, spreading incense in the Holy of holies and I am carried on his heart before the LORD (Exodus 28-29; Heb 7:25). I don’t have to yell up to heaven, I’m at his right hand, whispering in his ear. It’s not my prayers that need to ascend to heaven (which is good because my prayers are rubbish). Christ has ascended and I am in him (Col 3:1-4).

The Spirit’s Intercession

I’m always late to prayers. That’s because there’s been a prayer meeting going on for a very long time. And the Spirit sweeps me up into it — I now participate in the Son’s communion with the Father. So now the Spirit cries in my heart, Abba, Father. This is my new spiritual heartbeat. Once again, this is not a communion with God that I have to establish. It’s given to me. The Spirit is praying, now I get to join in.

The World’s True Nature

I’m constantly tempted to feel that the world is a factory floor and I need to pull the right levers to get stuff done. Even with ministry I can feel like I must ‘build the kingdom’, brick upon brick. But I’m not meant to pull levers or lay bricks, I’m meant to abide in a Vine that is, by nature, full of life and fruitfulness. As I pray I’m telling myself (and living out the truth) that “Without [Christ] I can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Pray Bodily

When Hannah did not pray out loud she seemed like a crazy drunk to the high priest (1 Sam. 1:12-14). Who even does that? Who prays silently? Apparently no-one in Israel ever did that. But today in the west, we default to this madness. We even call our times with God “quiet times”? Are we insane? Do we want to ensure that our thoughts will definitely drift in a thousand distractions? Do we want to turn our time with God into introspection — a descent into the self? No? Then pray out loud. And while you’re at it, read out loud too (Revelation 1:3). Seriously, don’t have quiet times. Talk to God.

Pray the Psalms

There are 150 prayers in the middle of your Bible. Pray them. They’ve been given to us for precisely this reason. They involve the interplay of the LORD, his King/Christ, the righteous and the wicked. Figure out what interplay is going on in the Psalm in front of you and join in, playing the appropriate part. If you want real help, check out the Daily Prayer app from the Church of England which will help you pray through the Psalms every month and they give excellent model response prayers at the end of each one.

Remember The Point

Prayer is not the point. God is. Prayer is not a thing that you do, a task you tick off, a rung on your ladder of spiritual self-righteousness. There’s the old line, attributed to a number of different saints, that ‘I don’t pray for longer than 20 minutes, but I don’t go longer than 20 minutes without praying.’ There’s something to that. I used to psyche myself up to hours long prayer marathons and then condemn myself when I failed at it. Why? What was my goal in attempting this? Looking back I think it was mainly spiritual pride and a sense that I wanted to pray my way up to God. Our Father doesn’t want anyone to pray their way up to him. We are not meant to be strong pray-ers but weak pray-ers, feeling our littleness and yet knowing our welcome nonetheless. Aiming for prayer marathons when you’re not even praying for 5 minutes is almost certainly a sign that you’re missing the point. The point is to talk to your Father. So if you’re not doing that. Try 5 minutes. And if you’re praying for 5 minutes, how about 8? (Here’s a great app that helps you remember things to pray for). Things will build but not because you’re trying to flex some kind of prayer muscle. The point is not to be a good pray-er, the point is just that prayer is good. Because God is good. He’s the point.

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If you’re interested in more resources like this, please subscribe to My Time With God.

The post Glen Scrivener: What Transforms My Personal Time with God appeared first on Communicate Jesus.