Inspiring Passion and Action Through Communcation

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

I loved this video. I love the idea of starting with the things available to you, and combining them in new and wonderful ways. I believe that God has give each of us the ability to bloom where we're planted, and it's up to us to seek out the best ways to bloom.

I've been working on some ideas for what we'll be doing at church over the next year. We're trying to emphasize outreach and evangelism. While we have what I think are some great ways to move forward in this direction, one of the areas that Don and I have seen most challenging is the preaching. Sure, you can get up and fuss at people and say, "We all need to be more evangelistic!" As a preacher, you can always just blurt out what needs to be said, pat yourself on the back for speaking "the truth in love", and saying, "If they don't do it, it's their problem." I think we can--and must--do better than that in teaching and equipping our members.

Fred Craddock's approach to communicating is the best I've seen. "Inductive preaching", he calls it. Rather than state the major point you're making, you walk them through the thoughts and emotions that built up to your point, allowing them to reach the conclusion through their own thought processes. Inductive preaching is much more difficult to do than deductive preaching, but when it connects, it's very powerful. I feel like we've got to find some ways to talk about reaching the lost that will evoke feelings of compassion for the lost souls of the world, but it is so difficult to help people develop passion unless there is some already there.

I'm curious about what you think: How can you communicate with people about evangelism in a way that makes them feel motivated to be more evangelistic?

How do you inspire passion in people?

What has your minister/church leader done that has caused passion about God's work to well up from within you?

A Map of Passion Week

I found this really interesting. Someone has plotted out the estimated locations on Google Maps of the major events associated with the end of Jesus' life.

Click Here and it will take you to the "tour".