ASK + Churches

Introduction:

ASK is a ministry of Evangelism and New Churches (ENC) which seeks to enable, encourage, and equip churches to do evangelism – through consultancy, training, media, and communication.

Churches are like restaurants that have wonderful food, but few come in to taste - and so they focus on keeping their already established clientele. In a world that is hungry for spiritual reality we have what people need - but we seem to be having difficulty in communicating that.

Our culture is used to the ‘have it your way’ type of menu. The church does not exist to give people what they want, but rather what they need. However, there are a variety of ways to do that. Just as each person has a physical DNA which is unique, so they have a spiritual DNA which is unique. What we need to do is connect them to Christ, at the point of their need. This requires understanding, compassion, and prayer.

Google became the largest company in the world because they realised that by tailoring content so that people had the illusion they were choosing and going their own individual way, they could obtain information and make people and their futures the product they would sell to advertisers. As Christians we are not interested in manipulating people or seeing them as products. Rather we see each individual as uniquely made in the image of God and needing to be restored by, and to, him. The best way to do that is not through pre - established programmes which treat people as ‘types’ but rather through communication which recognises their individuality, respects them as rational, emotional, connectional human beings; and relies on the Holy Spirit to do the work of regeneration. The bottom line is that people need to hear the Gospel of the incarnation, life, message, death, resurrection and coming again of the Lord Jesus. The best way for them to hear this is through the ministry of the local church. ASK aims to work with local churches to assist them in that task.

What is a church partnership?

ASK will partner with you for one year – with the possibility of renewing for a further year. Partnership means that we will spend the equivalent of one full day per month working with the church in developing evangelism in and through the church.

Before agreeing to this there will be a ‘no obligations’ meeting between myself and your church leadership where we discuss what the possibilities might be. If both parties agree then we would develop a ‘bespoke’ partnership along the following lines.

ASK will:

  1. Give one full day (or equivalent) per month to the church.
  2. In consultation with the church leadership, develop an outreach programme called EPL (Eat, Pray, Love) for the year.
  3. Provide training in evangelism/cultural apologetics.
  4. Enable and assist with outreach ‘events’.
  5. Assess and help with the church’s media and publicity; looking at how to develop appropriate resources.
  6. Be available for youth work, preaching and talks, as required.

The church will:

  1. Pay $500 per month. (Financial constraints will be taken into consideration so that smaller churches do not lose the opportunity).
  2. Provide a contact person(s).
  3. Commit to prayer for evangelism and ensure that this is a priority in church meetings.
  4. Commit to developing outreach events and an outreach mentality.
  5. Consider whether other local congregations could share with and benefit from this.

Other possibilities or suggestions could be discussed at the initial meeting.

The purpose is to help the local church engage in contemporary, biblical, cross-cultural, Christ centred, evangelism, as we work in partnership together, and to do so in such a way that evangelism becomes part of the DNA of the local church.

If you are interested contact me at [email protected] David Robertson

Director ASK (ENC)
Office: 29 King Street, Newtown
Post: 1 King Street, Newtown NSW 2042 M: 0431 887 321 www.newchurches.org.au

"I pray earnestly that God will raise up today a new generation of Christian apologists or Christian communicators, who will combine an absolute loyalty to the biblical gospel and an unwavering confidence in the power of the Spirit with a deep and sensitive understanding of the contemporary alternatives to the Gospel" John Stott (Cited by Os Guinness in 'Fools Talk').

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