'Hope for Life' Articles from Heartlight

Spirits, Demons, and the One Greater than Them All

tarcher@heraldoftruth.org (Tim Archer) — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 02:00:00 -0500

Do spooky things scare you?

Lots of frightful things come out at Halloween. Lots of people in spooky costumes, that is. People like to dress up as zombies, vampires, ghosts, and demons. Such things are far less scary when we know that it's just a costume that will come off the next day. I don't believe in the existence of most of what we see at Halloween, yet I know that there actually are evil spiritual forces at work in this world. Paul tells the Ephesians:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12).

Even if much of the world denies their existence, these forces exist and influence our world. Jesus calls Satan "the prince of this world" (John 12:31), and Paul talks about "the god of this age" (2 Corinthians 4:4) and "the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient" (Ephesians 2:2). Peter tells us: "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Other texts tell us that Satan is actively working to deceive us. Am I trying to scare you? Not at all. I want you to know that these things exist, yet I also want to remind you that we need not fear them at all. James tells us to "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). And John provides the information that should take away all fear:

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

There are scary things in this world, but we need not fear any of them. The one who is in us is greater than the powers of this world. Is Jesus in you? If not, let me tell you that his power and protection are available to all of us. Visit our Herald of Truth and read through the steps you'll find on the first page, steps that tell you how to have a life of hope rather than a life of fear. If you have questions about how to become a child of God, with Jesus living inside of you, then write to me at tarcher@heraldoftruth.org.

Special thanks for title graphic to UnSplash.com and Emilia Willberg for the use of this photo. All rights reserved by the photographer and used by permission.

Expressed written consent must be obtained prior to republishing, retransmitting or otherwise reusing the content of this article. Contact us at info@heraldoftruth.org).

About the author: Tim Archer is the author of Church Inside Out and leads a seminar by the same name on behalf of Hope For Life, a Herald of Truth ministry.

Using YouTube® To Reach More People (Really!)

leeswilson@gmail.com (Lee Wilson) — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 02:00:00 -0500

If the goal is to reach people who don't know much or anything about you, your church, the Bible, or God, you must meet them at the point of the question.

Editor's Note:
Now, more than ever, many of you as churches, preachers, and teachers, have video content on the web. How will you make it connect with those looking for help from Jesus? Here are some practical, innovative, and proven steps to make a difference with all that work. It's time for us to quit sharing Jesus only with ourselves!

If you are like most pastors, preachers, Bible teachers, or a person in a church leadership position, you've probably heard for years that you should be using the internet to reach people. In fact, you are probably tired of hearing it! If you are like most churches, your website is barely getting any traffic. If the truth is told, most of the visitors to your website are likely church members or staff, not the elusive "lost" or "hurting" who don't know Jesus or don't go to church. Having run an Internet marketing agency for nearly twenty years now, I'm very familiar with that glazed look in the eyes of pastors when anyone starts talking to them about putting lessons or sermons online. Even more church leaders are reluctant from being told to use the church website to reach people. On top of all of this, most church leaders are exhausted from trying to get their virtual church up and running during the pandemic. After learning the true numbers of people actually digging into their services, their website numbers, and the quality views of their sermons online, they are tired of doing it and talking about it. Maybe - I hope! - your church is the rare exception. However, most church staff I've spoken with feel like their church website borders on being a waste of time. One youth pastor described their church website to me as something that used to be a way to appease guilt and spend money under the title of "outreach," but now the guilt is felt more by spending money on the website at all, at least under the guise of doing outreach. It's more under the category of "preaching to the choir," or at least some of "the choir" who bother going to our website. It's something that we assume is good to do, but is certainly not an outreach tool into the community. How do we more effectively minister through online ministry?

The Important Tip Given a Receptive Pastor For a time, my agency stopped seeking churches as clients. Many churches had been burned by overpriced and over-hyped websites or cheesy promises of how desperate seekers would find their church online and come flocking to the Sunday worship. Some were also embarrassed at the amount of work and money that had been put into a website in anticipation of large visitors, only to see anemic traffic stats. Our agency found convincing a church that we could help them reach people to be very difficult. One pastor shared the following with me in bored and monotone voice:

For a couple of years we went over traffic stats for our website once a month at staff meetings. The numbers were so low and never improved so we don't even talk about it now. It was almost depressing.

That pastor was also putting his sermons on YouTube and had a smirk on his face when he said that he felt silly announcing that they were there and that the number of subscribers had gone unchanged for nearly two years:

When I tell the people already there that my sermons are on YouTube as well, it's almost pointless because the people there listening don't really have a need to watch that sermon again on YouTube. At least I'd say that it's exceptionally rare. So, I feel silly saying it and then seeing that a sermon receives 14 viewers. It's discouraging.

Perhaps I was placed in his path for a reason. I started asking questions about how he was describing and entitling his YouTube sermons. Basically, the titles he used on YouTube were the dates of his sermons. He tried to entitle a few of them with the name of his sermon but it seemed to make no difference. So, he went back to using the dates of the sermon, and each sermon was titled something like, "Sunday Sermon May 8, 2020." When he had tried using sermon titles, they were something like "The Night the Jailhouse Rocked," for a sermon about Acts 16:25-34, or "The Sheep of His Pasture." Nothing wrong with those titles for folks at the building, except for people on the web, no one was searching for those titles as ideas of needs. In other words, if someone with a question about the Bible or God went to Google or YouTube.com, they are not going to type in "The Sheep of His Pasture" or "The Night The Jail House Rocked." Those might be clever titles to people who already know who you are and are already watching. If the goal is to reach people who don't know much or anything about you, your church, the Bible, or God, you must meet them at the point of the question! "The questions might be difficult," I suggested, "such as, 'Why doesn't God answer prayer?' That's one that someone who is frustrated with God or religion might ask." I further explained, "There is even a place for Scripture in your titles as well. For example, 'Acts 2 and Baptism' or 'What does it mean for a camel to go through the eye of a needle? Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25; Luke 18:25.' See your sermons as answering a question when you choose a title for them on YouTube. You don't really get credit for puns or poetic titles when people are looking to answer their questions." I had grown used to that glazed look I described earlier - and on no action being taken due to doubts that anything might work. However, this time what I said apparently resonated with this preacher. He thought it was worth a try. He wasn't a pastor of a large church and didn't even have 100 YouTube subscribers, but he went through and changed some sermon titles as I had suggested. He called me with additional questions, and I consulted with him at no charge. At the time, I didn't even think that he would do much - I thought he was more curious about what I had said. However, he went through his videos and changed their titles. He also added two or three paragraphs with a specific description of his message. He also structured his sermons that way going forward and as he added new sermons to his YouTube channel.

What Do You Know, It Worked A few months later, he called to ask me another question. I asked him how it had been going. He explained that many of his sermons that hadn't even received an additional view in two years or more now had hundreds of new views. In fact, his subscriber rate had more than doubled in those few months. One of his sermons, in fact, had really caught fire and had had nearly 1000 views. In only three weeks and was now his top viewed video. His videos weren't studio quality by any stretch. In fact, the audio wasn't even very good but what people care about the most is if your content is what they are seeking. "What else can I do to boost this even more?" he asked. I had his attention and he was hungry to do more than just the basics. So I explained how he could now make each of those videos even more effective - both in YouTube and Google search. Even more important, this step would make it more attractive based on how many people could actually consume the videos. I told him to caption them! You see, if we are just talking about the United States, 20% of our citizens are deaf or hard of hearing. That's 50 million people! People with hearing impairments aren't the only ones who watch YouTube videos with captions. A surprisingly large number of people prefer to watch YouTube videos with the sound off and just read the captions. That's probably you if you have ever watched a video in a waiting room, in a car with other people, when people are asleep, or when you had difficulty understanding someone due to audio or an accent. When someone wants captions and your video doesn't provide them, they are unlikely to watch. That's true if your video only relies on YouTube's auto-captioning which is still a highly inexact science - YouTube doesn't even add the "CC" icon by your video if that's all you have. So if your video doesn't have captions, you are potentially missing out on 45-60% of people who would view your video otherwise! There are professional YouTube captioning services where large numbers of videos can be captioned quickly by people who know how to caption and who are U.S. based with English as their first language. Captions are also available in other languages that will expand your reach even more, but I suggest starting with the language of your sermons. I want to stress an important point about using video. In 2017, online video accounted for 74% of all online traffic. In 2019, online video accounted for 81% of all online traffic. Now, could this be for "such-a-time-as-this" moment for us? The Internet and your content could truly become that platform to reach people that you had hoped and thought it might be. Many churches have years of sermon videos that can be used without having to develop new content, and there are services that can help you get them online or caption already published videos quickly. Your mission field awaits!

Editor's Note: Lee Wilson is a relationship coach and internet marketer whose YouTube channel has 110,000 subscribers at the time of this writing.

About the author: Lee Wilson is a relationship coach who helps people get their ex back after a breakup or to save a marriage from divorce.

His websites are My Ex Back Coach and Marriage Radio.

Coach Lee is an online educator for TED Talk on the science of relationships. Lee has been interviewed by The New York Times, USA Today, Cosmopolitan Magazine, BravoTV, Yahoo Lifestyle, BusinessInsider.com, Daily Mail, The Sun, Elite Daily, AskMen, Reuters, E! True Hollywood Story, and The Today Show Australia among others.

A Day of Thanksgiving!

info@heraldoftruth.org (Skye Noe) — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 02:00:00 -0600

In hard times or times of blessing, we are never without thankfulness

As the holiday season approaches, I get excited! The thrill of families coming together, enjoying great food, cooler weather, long-held traditions, and, of course, great food, is the recipe for my perfect time of year. There are so many traditions and rituals taking place during the holidays it can be difficult to tell one year from the next. The same family members eat the same meals, discussing the same issues, around the same table. Only when something changes or a new tradition is born does the year stick out clearly in my memory. A year I will never forget was not long ago when a new tradition was started. On Thanksgiving Day as all the family gathered around the dinner table, it was suggested that we each share the things we are thankful for. I had seen other families practice similar traditions, but this was the first time I was asked to share my list of blessings aloud. As I went to work compiling my list of things to be thankful for, I started to feel a little embarrassed. How is it that all the Thanksgiving Days of my past had come and I had forgotten actually to give thanks? Then I realized just how long of a list I was going to have! A scripture came to mind …

Call out with joy to the Lord, all the earth. Be glad as you serve the Lord. Come before Him with songs of joy. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His field. Go into His gates giving thanks and into His holy place with praise. Give thanks to Him. Honor His name. For the Lord is good. His loving-kindness lasts forever. And He is faithful to all people and to all their children-to-come (Psalm 100).

I’ll never forget the feelings of thankfulness I felt on that day. A great tradition had been born. It can be difficult at times for us to see God’s blessings; the holidays are not always full of good memories. People are forced to deal with tragedies and struggles even on holidays. In difficult times it’s important to remember that “the Lord is God ... We are His people and the sheep of his field.” We can be assured of God’s love for us and find comfort in his blessing. In hard times or times of blessing, we are never without thankfulness. We all need an occasional reminder to stop and thank God for his goodness. What better time to remember our blessings than on a holiday that was meant for giving thanks. Please visit our website at Herald of Truth or contact me personally at skye@heraldoftruth.org.

(Expressed written consent must be obtained prior to republishing, retransmitting or otherwise reusing the content of this article. Contact us at info@heraldoftruth.org)

About the author: Skye is a former Response Coordinator for Herald of Truth. You can reach Herald of Truth at (866) 814-4673 or (866) 814-HOPE or by writing to info@heraldoftruth.org.

Do Not Let Baby Jesus Become Baby Lite

sridgell@heraldoftruth.org (Steve Ridgell) — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 02:00:00 -0600

Do you like to keep Jesus in the manger? Sort of a Jesus lite. Don't

Everybody loves a baby and baby Jesus is no exception. We have just come through that time of year when our culture is actually aware of Jesus. You saw manger scenes in yards and on mantles. Buttons were worn announcing, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Churches made sure you heard about baby Jesus.

Live nativity scenes. Christmas plays and programs. Baby dolls, or live babies, and swaddling clothes all to represent baby Jesus.

Cute, and sweet, and precious. Who doesn’t like Christmas and baby Jesus? And, I think church leaders need to be very careful about the message we send. Because if baby Jesus is all you saw presented, we were showing a “lite” version of Jesus. After all, baby Jesus makes no demands on us like Jesus as Lord. Baby Jesus did not demand that you deny yourself, take up a cross, and follow him. So if we are not careful, we can leave Jesus in that manger. Do not let baby Jesus become Jesus lite.

There is more material like this in various seminars available through Hope For Life, a Herald of Truth ministry. For more information, visit Herald of Truth.

(Expressed written consent must be obtained prior to republishing, retransmitting or otherwise reusing the content of this article. Contact us at info@heraldoftruth.org).

About the author: Steve Ridgell is the author of 'Can I Tell You a Story' and leads a seminar by the same name on behalf of Herald of Truth Ministries.

We've Got to Listen Before We Speak

tarcher@heraldoftruth.org (Tim Archer) — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 02:00:00 -0600

Don't focus on what you're going to say!

When most of us think about sharing our faith with someone, we worry about what we're going to say. Will we have the right words? Can we answer the questions that might come up? How will we tell others about Jesus in a way that will make them want to respond? I've come to believe that's the wrong focus. Instead of thinking of what we're going to say, we need to focus on listening. What will we hear? How will we get the other person to open up? Can we learn enough about them to help them draw closer to God? We need to know what a person's needs are. We need to know what their background is. We need to have a relationship of trust. These things are achieved through listening. It's always easier to hear things when we know what we want to be aware of. When talking with non-believers, here are some of the key things to listen for:

Felt needs that can be met by the gospel. Felt needs are the things that someone is aware of. While many people aren't aware of their need for forgiveness, they are aware of their need for community. Or their need for moral guidance. Some people are weighed down by guilt; others are afraid of death. We need to listen to know what aspects of the good news will especially speak to these people.
Life changes that can create receptivity. Times of change often make people seek God. That could be a family change, like the birth of a new baby or a recent divorce. It could be a job change, whether it be a promotion or a layoff. For many, it's illness or death within their family. By listening to them, we can be aware of the times when their hearts are more responsive to God.
Obstacles to be overcome. Many people have experiences in their past that make them hesitant to get involved with a church. It could be something that others have done to them or things they have done themselves. When we listen to someone's story, we can hear the things that need to be dealt with so that they can hear Jesus' story.

Those are just a few thoughts. The key thing is that we have to focus on other people and not ourselves. We have to concentrate on what we can learn from them, not just what we can teach them. To be able to speak appropriate words, we first have to listen carefully to what others say to us.   ***** This material comes from a seminar called "Church Inside Out" that is available through Hope For Life, a Herald of Truth ministry. For more information, visit Herald of Truth (heraldoftruth.org). (Expressed written consent must be obtained prior to republishing, retransmitting or otherwise reusing the content of this article. Contact us at info@heraldoftruth.org).

About the author: Tim Archer is the author of Church Inside Out and leads a seminar by the same name on behalf of Hope For Life, a Herald of Truth ministry.

Knowing the People Makes the Difference

bbrant@heraldoftruth.org (Bill Brant) — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 02:00:00 -0500

It's all about who you know

Three weeks ago I was in Vienna, West Virginia, to speak at the 36th Street church of Christ. What I knew about the area was gleaned from songwriter and musician John Denver and that it was “almost heaven.” That weekend was also when hurricane Irma raged from the Caribbean through Florida and continued northward. Millions evacuated, people were injured, and some died. Destruction was everywhere! Not “almost heaven.” That morning in a church in West Virginia we all prayed for those affected by the gale force winds, overwhelming rain and storm surge that inundated coasts. I told them about my friend Tony Fernandez who lives in Matanzas, Cuba, where Irma had just passed by. During Bible Class, I told about Tony’s commitment to God, his congregation, and that I had not heard from him since the hurricane passed over. The prayers changed because we “knew” the people who were affected. In fact, as we talked more, it became obvious that many of us knew more people who were in harm’s way that weekend. Then during worship, I received an email that Tony was safe and read his description of what he saw as he tried to help others. Knowing the people makes the difference!! Who do you know that needs your prayers and your help? What else can you do to help them, because knowing the people makes the difference! Join the conversation at Herald of Truth.

(Expressed written consent must be obtained prior to republishing, retransmitting or otherwise reusing the content of this article. Contact us at info@heraldoftruth.org).

About the author: 'Bill Brant is the President and CEO of Herald of Truth Ministries based in Abilene, Texas.

Sharks, Life, and Sharing Jesus

sridgell@heraldoftruth.org (Steve Ridgell) — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 02:00:00 -0500

A Great White shark jumped into the boat. You never know when someone is going to realize they need help.

The shark jumped right into his boat. Terry Selwood was fishing off the coast of Australia, just like he had hundreds of times before. Something almost knocked him down and when he turned to see what it was that hit the boat, he realized that a seven foot, 440-pound Great White shark had jumped into his boat. I wonder who was more surprised - the shark or Mr. Selwood. After radioing for help, he jumped overboard and hung onto the side of the boat until he was rescued. He evidently did not think it wise to share his boat with a shark. You never know when life will take an unexpected turn for the worse. It could be a natural disaster that destroys property, an unforeseen layoff at work, or bad news from the Doctor. It can be something evil done to someone, or evil done by someone. It is a hard world, and bad things happen. That is why people need Jesus, and that is why we must take every opportunity to share his story. Perhaps you have tried to talk to friends and neighbors about Jesus before, and they were not interested. Until something happens in their life that makes them realize they need something bigger than themselves. Until an event happens that leaves them desperate for answers. Sometimes the shark jumps into the boat. You may be the one they call for help. Be ready to share the hope we find in Jesus. There is more material like this in various seminars available through Hope For Life, a Herald of Truth ministry. For more information, visit Herald of Truth. (Expressed written consent must be obtained prior to republishing, retransmitting or otherwise reusing the content of this article. Contact us at info@heraldoftruth.org).

About the author: Steve Ridgell is the author of 'Can I Tell You a Story' and leads a seminar by the same name on behalf of Herald of Truth Ministries.