That’s not going to work

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Storm clouds

Anne* grew up in a family that was fairly religious. Her mother would read and teach the Bible to her four children. Anne remembers Mom rousing the children early on Sunday mornings to get them ready for church service.

But as she grew up, Anne fell away from Sunday school and, by the time she reached high school, she had dropped out of church. The crowd she hung out with were troublemakers. They introduced her to alcohol and she ended up getting into trouble with the law. Though there were people who cared enough to ask her why she was walking this path, she turned a deaf ear to them. She simply didn’t care to listen or to change.

Fast forward to her adult years. By now, Anne had married twice, ending up with a daughter and five step-children. With so many young ones to care for, she tried to clean up her life. Anne modelled her mother’s behaviour—she took the children to church, started reading her Bible and did her best to be a good person.

When her daughter was baptised, Anne felt a strong desire to find God. But how? She had thought that being a good person—helping others and doing good things—would make her acceptable in God’s eyes. But there was a nagging doubt in the pit of her stomach that she wasn’t succeeding. However she didn’t know where to find answers.

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Counselling with “By This Name”

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Worldview Rethink Visual Aids organizedAs a church counsellor, Stephen* encounters Christians in all manner of difficulties—couples facing marital problems, people who are suffering depression, others with addictions of all kinds, even a few who are suicidal. While the challenges that his clients face come from many diverse sources, one common theme he’s discovered is a lack of understanding of who God is. Stephen is discovering that more and more, people today—even Christians—do not know much about God. Their knowledge of God’s character—his sovereignty, holiness, power, love—is very limited, or worse, incorrect. As a consequence, their lives are filled with little hope. They have a low view of God.

Additionally, many clients believe that they can make themselves right before God. They strive to act right, speak right and live right. They fail to understand the power of sin in their lives and how, on their own, they cannot lead lives acceptable to God. They have an unbiblical view of their human nature.

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Sharing the gospel with the seeker, the confused and the hardened

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TERM SeminarIn today’s world, many of our friends, neighbours and family are not familiar with the Bible. How do we share the message of the gospel with clarity if they don’t have foundational information like who is the God of the Bible and what is he like?

And in churches, how do pastors and leaders help their congregations be equipped to share the good news to a community that may be indifferent or hardened to yet another gospel presentation?

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The architecture of “The Story that Matters”

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Architecture

Question: Can you tell me how The Story that Matters was written? It seems like such a short booklet. Can it explain the gospel clearly?

Answer: Here’s some background to the booklet that may help you understand its architecture and purpose. The Story that Matters was created with at least three important considerations.

First, the concise nature of the booklet enables it to be used for mass distribution or as a give-away on a personal basis—this for less than the cost of a greeting card.

Secondly, the booklet was designed to be read in under an hour. We did this to appeal to those who may not like reading but will read a small booklet. To achieve a quick reading time, we had to balance an accurate and sufficient gospel presentation with a succinct word count. If you have read one of our bigger books like By This Name, you will see that we do have resources that explain the gospel message in much fuller detail. ForThe Story that Matters, we were conscious of every word. So we distilled the good news, doing our best to ensure that the key concepts were explained without adding bulk to such a small booklet.

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