It’s Evangelism Sunday…10/17/2010

Sermon text: Mark 2:1-12

This is what our denomination has said about evangelism in this year’s Evangelism Sunday materials: Good News. That is the essence of the New Testament’s word for evangelism. For many the word evangelism is associated with ideas and images of insensitivity, intrusiveness, judgment, legalism or guilt. We are reminded of programs and procedures that the world and culture around us have deemed as manipulative, irrelevant and impersonal. We need a new paradigm, a reclaiming of what evangelism is: God’s people joyfully and authentically telling and showing others that in and through Jesus Christ we are forgiven, we are redeemed, we are transformed, we have purpose and meaning in life, we are sent to authentically love and heal, to serve and work for justice, to be reconciled and reconcilers, to be stewards of God’s creation. This is the Good News that the unchurched and dechurched in our communities desperately want to hear. … Read full sermon here (PDF).