More on Schindler’s INTEGRATION: I just did an interview yesterday with Tony Jones. His new book, The God of Wild Places, releases in April. You can preorder it now. In his book he sites the statistic of the rapid increase in the number of people leaving the church while simultaneously the number of people doing “outdoors” (including sports) is on the increase. When the interview releases soon in Shout! OUTDOOR LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE, please read and watch it - we talk about being stewards of this opportunity. https://shoutlifestyle.com Here is a huge INTEGRATION concept Christians must understand and steward: The opportunity is huge for Christians to be the life of Christ in these outdoor gatherings. Your program may very well be the ONLY church that the people going outdoors ever have. I know this is counter to our usual thinking and likely not at all what your church has in mind in doing CSRF. But we can no longer treat what we do as a back door into the church. Christians are the church. When we fully submit to God (not just you as leaders but your participants also) and seek God to be fully in our SRF then that integration really starts to happen. Lifestyle ministry is living alongside others: fellowship and discipleship. Those things can and should happen well, fully and consistently in our programs. God wants our programs, services and us to BE HARDCORE (severely on task) for him. Guess what - your participants want that too! Brad Bloom, Publisher, Lifestyle Media Group

Posted by Brad Bloom at 2024-02-02 14:13:08 UTC