The following are responses and comments submitted concerning the Andrew Plan.
| Pastor Thomas Fricke | April 09, 2005 |
| Dear Jim, Thanks for the mailing on "The Andrew Plan". It's an idea that meets the requirements of a great outreach strategy. It's simple and it gets lay people involved so that the pastor is free to do what he's best equipped to do-teach the Word. I'm going to be sharing this idea with our Outreach Committee. Thanks for the encouragement. |
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| Prof. David J. Valleskey (P.em.) | March 16, 2005 |
| Dear Jim, Thank you for sending me your brochure on "The Andrew Plan for Outreach and Assimilation." It benefits members in at least two ways: 1)It gives them a simple way to do evangelism ("Come and see"); and 2) it gives them the opportunity to have their own faith strengthened through a systematic study of God's Word. And, of course, it can be a wonderful blessing with eternal consequences for those who have not yet come to know Christ as Savior to have a friend bring them to a Bible information class where they can learn of their Savior and then continue to remain at their side as a sponsor to help assimilate them into the life and work of the congregation. I also appreciate the fact that you are not speaking only in a theoretical way. You have been doing what you propose, and God has blessed your efforts. We now belong to Beautiful Saviour Congregation in Carlsbad, CA. I am going to show your brochure to our pastor, Silas Krueger, and also to the evangelism committee chairman and encourage them to think seriously about implementing such a plan. God be with you and bless you in your efforts to bring a growing number of souls to Jesus. A blessed Holy Week and Easter to you! |
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| Prof. Paul E. Eickmann (P.em) | March 13, 2005 |
| Dear Jim, Thanks for including me in your mailing of "A Simple Plan, etc."I like it that 1) it does not pretend to be a complete plan for evangelism; 2) any member can participate and profit greatly by participation; and 3) it aims at a more complete sharing of the Word than most evangelism plans. Our purpose is not just to "tell people about Jesus", but to help them become informed, growing Christians, members of confessional congregations. God bless your efforts to help pastors and congregations reach North America for Christ. |
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| Prof. Richard Balge (P.em) | March 11, 2005 |
| Dear Brother Lillo Your "Andrew Plan" seems sound and practical. It has the advantage of your "field testing" it, with sucess. It seems that many congregations that do good work in gathering then fall down when it comes to assimilation. Grace and peace in Christ Jesus. |
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| Pastor Dave Krenke (P.em.) | February 16, 2005 |
| The Andrew Plan is fabulous-so simple it's truly deep! Use it, and share it wherever you can. | |
| Pres. John A. Moldstad | November 28, 2004 |
| Greetings to you from your friends in the ELS: Thank you for your "Andrew Plan" letter. I read with interest your plan for outreach and assimilation. With your permission, I would like to share some of your concepts with our ELS Home Missionaries at an upcoming seminar in Orlando, FL. I would also appreciate any illustrations/ancedotes that you might give concerning your Andrew Plan. In Christ's saving grace, John A. Moldstad President Evangelical Lutheran Synod Note: Pres. Moldstad graciously emailed both the Andrew Plan pamphlet and the "Responses To The Andrew Plan" to all the pastors and professors of the ELS. |
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| Matt Brown | November 16, 2004 |
| Dear Jim, I love the Andrew Plan website and I am fully supportive of the effort. This plan follows the sucessful model of the explosion of Christianity in the 1st century. I believe that the plan could be enhanced by including a step prior to those outlined in the Andrew Plan. The Andrew Plan assumes that lay people are willing and able to ask FRANs to church or a Bible information class. However, I believe that the most difficult part of the plan is actually getting people to ask someone to come. It sounds almost silly--how hard is it to ask someone to church? But without a great deal of practice and application, it can be awkward, hard and even embarrassing to invite someone to church or a Bible class. Why is this so? Culturally, religion and politics are two topics you don't discuss with others; religion is viewed as a strictly personal matter in the mainstream media and culture, and best kept to oneself. It's not popular to be a "religious nut" or a "Jesus freak". Also, many work places have strict codes regarding evangelizing to the point people are leary of saying anything about their faith. Finally, most people haven't practiced out loud how they might ask someone to church and feel awkward. I believe that every church member would like to ask people to church and they know why to ask them. They just haven't practiced how. As an analogy, a person could read up on the game of golf, understand the rules and the benefits of a good swing, but until they get out on the driving range with an instructor, they won't be able to hit a good shot. Our church does a great job teaching people the knowledge of salvation through faith in Christ and the Great Commission. What we don't teach is how to ask. As a layman (as silly as it sounds) I often feel like a 15 year old asking the Prom Queen for a date when asking a friend to church. Will my offer be rejected? Will they avoid me because they're not interested and don't want to be bothered again? These are the kind of worries our weak flesh puts in our way. Therefore, I think that the first step of the Andrew Plan should include teaching people how to ask others to church. One way this could be accomplished is through some kind of role playing. I'm sure there are other methods that could be taught too. As with anything, we need to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE asking others to church. Start in Bible class on Sunday morning where there is no fear of rejection, no awkwardness. We could have members in class pretend to be unchurched FRAN and ask each other to church. Teach people how to work their invitation into a conversation with the unchurched. We never do that. What we hear from the pulpit is "ASK SOMEONE TO CHURCH", but never exactly how. It sounds easy but the devil, the world and our flesh conspire to keep us mute. The Message we have to tell is perfect. Through the Word and prayer, God gives us weaklings the strength to put the Great Commission into practice. I believe that if we can train people in "the ask", that the Andrew Plan can take off like wildfire and be a great method for teaching all nations. In Christ, Matt Brown Faith Lutheran Church Anchorage, AK Email - rockmattQ8@hotmail.com |
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| Rev. Stephen Mueller | November 04, 2004 |
| A short time ago I asked our Outreach Pastor, Stephen Mueller to write a summary of our outreach efforts here at Faith, Anchorage. This request was prompted by a few requests from some of our WELS pastors. Pastor Mueller submitted the following article with permission to post on this web site........... Believing that a well-rounded outreach/evangelism program is a desirable thing, we at Faith in Anchorage are attempting to create such a program, employing different types of evangelism to reach a wider audience. Although a well-rounded program serves the church well, we also recognize that, statistically speaking, some forms of evangelism present fewer barrieres to the gospel message. Therefore "friendship witnessing" as it has been called, has turned out to be one of the major emphases of our program. Shortly after arriving in Anchorage, I conducted a milti-week friendship witnessing seminar in Adult Bible class, for which I used Pastor James Radloff's "Bring a Friend to Meet Jesus" course. I found it to be very edifying and its plan easy to implement. As a follow-up to that course, we followed Pastor Radloff's suggestion to start a "Grow and Go" group. We picked a date, publicized it, and invited everyone who was interestd in learning how to witness to their friends, relatives, associates and neighbors with the gospel. Those group meetings have continued, and each one is composed of: Bibles study related to witnessing, witness training, prayer and mutual encouragement. Approximately 35-40 different people have participated in these monthly group meetings, and many have grown in their confidence and ability to witness their faith. A Bible study that I have used in Grow and Go meetings is Pastor Paul Kelm's "Always Prepared to Give and Answer," available from WELS Parish Services. In order to give our members opportunities to invite their unchurched FRAN to church events, we strive to offer two "Friendship Sundays" every year. These services are publicized well ahead of time, and are designed with the unchurched person in mind. A good resource for planning a Friendship Sunday is Prof. David Valleskey's book, "We Believe, Therefore We Speak", and Pastor James Radloff's "Guidelines for Conducting a Festival of Friendship Sunday". We are currently working with our Fellowship Committee to plan and carry out quarterly off-campus fellowship activities to which unchruched FRAN's of our members might feel comfortable attending. We are also planning on offering family-oriented Bible classes, such as parenting, husband-wife relationships, etc. for our members, but also to attract our members' FRAN's who may be looking for help in these areas. In addition, a prospect newsletter is in the works, and I am planning on adding an outreach page to our website that will feature scriptural articles and other things of interest to our memberss who wish to share their faith. For quite some time, Pastor Oldfield has encouraged our members to bring one of their unchurched FRAN to his Inquirer's class, if they felt that the FRAN was ready for such an invitation. This is also an integral part of the Andrew Plan, and an important one. Our plan is to do a better job of reminding our members a few months before each Inquirer's Class starts so that they can decide which, if any of their FRAN is ready for an invitation to the class. An informational brochure might be prepared about the class and some of the topics that will be covered in it, so that our members can give it to their FRAN's. Once the FRAN has taken the Inquirer's Class and been confirmed, we intend to make the assimilation process more intentional and personal by following the Andrew Plan.Therefore the member who did the inviting and attended the Inquirer's Class with his or her FRAN will be given the privilege of being that person's sponsor.All in all, we feel that the Andrew Plan can be a valuable facet of our outreach effort, and we pray that God will bless it. Exposing people to God's saving Word is always our goal, and the Lord has blessed our efforts so far. There is much more that we can do to achieve this goal with his help. May he also help you as you seek to hold out the Word of Life to those who are dying. Pastor Stephen Mueller |
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