Evangelism Seminar Session 3 Ken Ortize

Ken Ortize is the pastor of Calvary Spokane. He began his talk with a bunch of statistics some of which I caught, but many of them I did not. Please note I wasn't able to get sources for these either.

1500 pastors leave the ministry each month
50% of pastors get divorced
75% of pastors constantly battle depression
80% of pastors feel unqualified for their jobs
80% of Bible College or seminary graduates will drop out of the ministry within 5 years
There are 4,000 new churches started every year
7,000 churches close every year

Ken said that God wants your church to grow because He wants people to be saved. If we have churches that are evangelistically minded then we will have less problems in our churches.

Many people say that a church is either deep or wide. For example, some would claim that a church with deep biblical teaching won't grow very much because that doesn't appeal to many people and their growth would be limited. Others would claim that a church that is very big, must not have very deep teaching. Ken said that he believes that it is possible for a church to be 1 mile wide and 1 mile deep (Ephesians 3:17-18). Ken said, "Take care your your depth and God will take care of your width."

Ken then went on to look at some people throughout history that "carried evangelism to its logical conclusion." CT Studd, Adoniram Judson, and David Livingston. These stories were great. Follow the links to read more about these heroes of the faith.

Here are some more points or stories from Ken's talk that I appreciated:

• Preach the Gospel in every sermon.
• Turn the responsibility for evangelism over to the people that brought people. "If you brought a friend this morning, why don't you tell them your story over lunch after the service."
• Faith means taking risks. Ken said that if he is going to fail he wants to fail colossally so that everyone around him says, "wow, that was a big failure!" Failing big in attempting great things for God is better than being paralyzed by a fear of failure and not doing anything.
  
• Ken mentioned this story - Many years ago, archaeologists discovered the tomb of Charlemagne, (the) great 8th- and 9th-century king and emperor of France. When the tomb was opened, after being closed for centuries, the men who entered it found something amazing. They found certain treasures of the kingdom, of course. But in the center of the large vault was a throne, and seated on the throne was the skeleton of Charlemagne, with an open Bible on his lap, and a bony finger pointing at the words, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" (I found this story here)
• He said that he is encouraged when other pastors come up to him and tell him that some people that used to attend his church attend their church now and are involved and contributing in their new church. He isn't offended when people leave because Calvary's goal isn't to retain people it is to disciple them.

Power Points from This Session:

1. Church History Motivates the Church Today – I didn't go into much detail above about the stories of the people that Ken talked about, but they were inspiring. I love hearing about the great men and women of God who have gone before us. I keep running into things lately that have challenged me to go back and look to the past for motivation in serving God. John Piper in this article challenges follower of Christ to read Christian biographies. He says that Hebrew 11 is a divine mandate to consider the lives of those who lived for Christ before us.
   
2. Evangelism is the Church's Selfishness Antidote– This idea came from session two with pastor Joe as well as from Ken's talk. The idea is that an individual is selfish by default. If they have nothing in their lives to fight against that selfishness they will simply continue to be selfish. The church is made up of a bunch of people so magnify that by hundreds of people who default to selfishness and you see the problem. However, if the pastor is constantly challenging his people to think outwardly by raising high the banner of evangelism, then this will counteract that selfish tendency that people have.