An intersection is a place of connection. In terms of people seeking God or Christians making an impact around them, an intersection is any time people on two separate paths cross. It might be a conversation. It might be bumping into that person at work or Starbucks. It might be someone encountering God while at a quite moment in his day reading the Bible or praying. An intersection for some could be that vague sense that God is out there and somehow watching out for me.

Intersections happen all the time. Christians see more than just “chance encounter’ as the explanation. Somehow every intersection that takes place has God’s fingerprints on it. A person just so happens to run into someone at a point in their day when they really need a conversation. An unexpected event takes place and it just so happens that a friend is there to experience it with them. Another example could be someone whispers a desperate prayer a moment of need, then later realizes that very prayer was answered.

Evangelism always involves three people in some form of intersection: God, Myself, and Someone else. Great outreach is never accidental, yet never a matter of “sales technique”. If God loves people, we can safely assume he’s already hard at work trying to prove that point to them. Our job is to join God and be available to how he want’s to reach someone.

Suppose we’re the person not interested in reaching others, but in need of God ourselves? That same intersection shows us that God does care. He’s watching our life. He can bring people into our life we need to meet and get to know.

If you want to see how intersections work, give Acts chapter 8:4-40 a read. God is the orchestrator. Philip is the instrument. And a spiritually curious Ethiopian is the victim of God’s loving pursuit.

As a seeker – you might be that Ethiopian. As a Christ follower – you could be a Philip.

Watch out for the intersections! They’ll get you every time.

Evangelism isn’t about technique, it’s all about intersections. As we launch out to Double our Impact here at CCC, we’re wanting to grow in how effectively we reach others with the Gospel. That’s why we’re offering Intersections – a 6 week learning experience designed to move people through the basics of befriending others and communicating the message.

Often what holds people back is the familiar excuse “I just don’t know enough to lead others to Christ.” If we could just get people using the right tool, evangelism would be fast acting and pain-free, right? Kind of like a new piece of exercise equipment! Not really.

The best place to turn to see great outreach in action is the life of Jesus himself! He did outreach as a comprehensive way of life! No one technique dominated his style. It wasn’t all that easy. He was very effective! We’d do well to pay attention and learn. And that’s what Intersections is all about.

It’s not too late to jump in on this fall’s class. We meet in EC 178 (the Fireside Room) at either 9:00am or 10:45 am on Sunday mornings at the Old Mill campus of Christ Community Church.

Last week at Gathering we discussed reason #2 in our Unbelievable series why people don’t buy Christianity. Here’s a couple of gems from our presentation. Feel free to download the MP3 and listen to the whole presentation.

Hypocrite, we discovered is a greek word connected with theatre. A hypocrite in antiquity was one who played a part. An actor! At the heart of it’s biblical use is the idea of pretense. Pretending to be one thing when there’s another reality on the inside.

Two other jumping off points early in the discussion had to do with how Jesus defined and encountered hypocrisy. Here are two absolutely classic texts you have to look up and read:

Jesus Definition of Hypocrisy: Matt 7:1-5

Jesus Blasts the Professional Hypocrites of his day: Matt 23:1-32

Give the presentation a listen (link at top) and come back to my next post and take the hypocrisy test… if you dare.

We have been having a very stimulating time taking on The Prince of Darkness Grim (as Luther calls him). Satan has been generating all kinds of interest in crowds and crowds of people. Each week our attendance at Gathering has hovered around 120 people as we’ve talked about Satan, demons, temptation and spiritual warfare.

Each week we wind up with more questions than we have time to answer from the stage, so I thought it would be a good idea to log those questions and bring them here to the Spiritual Discovery Blog. What follows is the whole list of our texted-in questions. In the posts that follow, I’ll go to work on some of the ones we didn’t have time for at Gathering.

If you haven’t been out to Gathering yet, today’s your last shot for the Lucifer series till we restart with a major change of pace topic: Questions For Heaven. If you want to catch the presentations we’ve done hope over to the Gathering Media Page and give them a listen!

Here’s some of our Questions:

I have heard that there is a different demon for each sin. For example a demon of lies. What are your thoughts? Are there verses that support that?

Do demons try to intimidate Christians more than non-Christians?

One of my friends is having a psychic party with a palm reader. I want to be there to care for her, but I don’t want to mess with the spirit world. What should I do?

Can someone who orients with Satan (Satanists) cause demons to attack or possess another?

I don’t believe that Satan or demons are omniscient. When Christians are struggling we are called to confess our faults to one another so that we can be healed. Does our out loud confession give Satan fodder to use against us?

Can someone be led by the Lord to recognize demonic activity?

The Catholic Church still performs exorcisms today. Why doesn’t the Christian church?

Several years ago I went from a period of fire in my bones to suicide, depression, anorexia, etc. Everything I knew was against God’s will for me. Do you think God still tests people like he did Job or was it just lies I believed?

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. In the original context does this refer to the sacrament of baptism or just a cleansing of the soul?

In last night’s Jesus Class, more than one participant remarked at the way Jesus is introduced by John the Baptist. In the fist place John the Baptist is not marketed well for a successful ministry. He’s not in the temple being video cast to multi-sites all over Palestine. Let’s just say… he’s not in Jerusalem (the center of Jewish spiritual life) he’s not in the temple (the center of the center). He’s in the wilderness.

He’s preaching repentance! Not grace! And people are coming to him from everywhere. It would be like Mark Ashton deciding he’d like to go to a corn field outside Wahoo and deliver his Sunday messages… and people would actually flock to be there! And in response to such a message, people would actually be cut to the heart, repent and be living in expectation of Jesus’ arrival.

Could it be we actually need to clean up our life BEFORE meeting Jesus makes any sense? John can’t be telling us that we have to get rid of all our sins before we encounter Jesus! Got any thoughts?