Product Description

Ten years ago, Steve Sjogren published this groundbreaking book that has helped thousands of Christians win others to Jesus and the Church by performing simple, unexpected services. Conspiracy of Kindness enables every Christian to become an effective evangelist by demonstrating with teaching, example and testimony how unassuming acts of kindness convince people of the love of God more persuasively than words. This tenth-anniversary edition contains the author's epilogue, in which he describes the impact kindness evangelism has had on Christianity throughout the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131984 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 245 pages

From the Publisher
Ten years ago, Steve Sjogren published this groundbreaking book that has helped thousands of Christians win others to Jesus and the Church by performing simple, unexpected services. Conspiracy of Kindness enables every Christian to become an effective evangelist by demonstrating with teaching, example, and testimony how unassuming acts of kindness convince people of the love of God more persuasively than words. This tenth-anniversary edition contains the author's epilogue, in which he describes the impact kindness evangelism has had on Christianity throughout the world.

About the Author
Steve Sjogren is the senior pastor of Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Cincinnati, Ohio, a church that was recently ranked as one of the twenty-five fastest growing churches in the United States. Steve is the author of Conspiracy of Kindness and Servant Warfare. Steve and his wife, Janie, reside in West Chester, Ohio.

Customer Reviews

This book is about being salt and light
I first read this book when I took an online course and it was one of the required text books. I can't tell you enough how this book helped to reshape some of my ideas about outreach in the church where I was serving. Truth transforms and motivates and that is exactly what this book did for me. The theme of the book is servant evangelism..reaching out practically in the community with the love of God through simple acts of kindness.

It works! I have tried it and organized several teams from my church to do outreach. It is also contagious as one event then creates ideas for another event. I have seen lives impacted before my eyes of those that we ministered to as well as our team members who were maybe timid at first but as a result got off their butts and became more hands on in people's lives outside the church walls. This is a must read for any pastor, youth leader or outreach minister.

these things change lives...
For the one review that says it's unrealistic...it's puzzling. Pure and simple this *WORKS*. I got this book shortly after joining the Cincy Vineyard. There are few things that truly change lives but things in this book work. It's not a book about mega-churches, for the strange thing is even though there's multiple services and thousands of people it gives church HOME a whole new meaning. The advantage to big churches...more people to do more things to give more things away!

There are things that aren't captured in the book that I feel worth mentioning here. I've been on many of the servant evangalism things as described in this book - and the phrase God works in mysterious ways is so often coined and cast aside. I've seen people come for help, and salvation, from receiving a can of Coke at an intersection 18 months earlier. I've seen people in tears from receiving a bag of groceries; I've seen first hand this isn't just a book of "look how well our church is doing" - it's a book that is meant to be a workbook - it's meant to DO things. People are astounded when you wash their windshield for free...when you go into the small businesses and give little treats or wash their bathrooms there's the head tilt and "what kind of church ARE you?!" I mean who volunteers to do bathrooms (and actually has fun doing it)?! Who thought wrapping Christmas gifts or receiving lightbulbs would change someone's life? Packaging school supplies to give away to low income families is humbling to realise there are people even in affluent America that are hard working and struggle to get paper, pencils and a notebook for their kids for school. Giving bottled water to visitors at festivals or a newspaper is consumable things that don't last the day - but the message it gives can stick with the recipient much longer. These things work - it's unexpected. There were times people tried to give something back - which defeated the gift of doing something for nothing...so the gift of a pack of sodas became another gift giving to people as their car filled with gas. The gift of time and small acts is something that is so often lost today.
I highly recommend this book and, having been blessed with the opportunity to attend the Cincy Vineyard (as well as others) it is something that has a ripple effect - the giving is infectious. THAT makes changes. Get this book, get some small groups together...give the gift of service year round...every weekend can be Christmas with giving the gifts of time and small things.

Disappointing
The idea is a good one, but the presentation in this book is just completely mindless and unrealistic. The author presents everything as a complete success story and never deals with the reality that there will be rejection. I quite honestly had trouble reading the book because it was just over syrupy sweet with every story/example ending with a teary eyed made for TV movie revelation. Like I said there are some really good points and yes Christians should be getting their butts out of the church pews and making a positive impact in the world around them, but we have to be realistic. We have got to stop treating "non-believers" as projects and something that is completely different from us. We are all human, none better than another.