Week 11

New Age Movement

This is really “a believe what you want” religion. It contains a lot of Buddhism and Hinduism in it. It is really hard to say exactly what the New Age Movement is, because you can really believe what you want. The most common thread in there is the beliefs of no absolutes. My truth is not your truth. As long as I am not hurting you and it gets me closer to some sort of spiritual state then it is good. It reminded us a lot of Oprah and her religion.

There is a lot of belief in reincarnation in the New Age Movement. Most believe that your soul keeps progressing until you get it right. However most don’t believe you can go backward on the evolutionary scale or should I say the reincarnation scale. Hey, if you’r going to make something up, why make it hard on your self. We know the truth is salvation comes from putting your faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior (see Rom. 3:24,25; Eph 2:8,9).

A common phrase in the New Age Movement is “God is us and we are God” and that Jesus is just one of many teachers. Even scarier is that all roads lead to heaven. Jesus said that he is the only way (John 14:6). The bible also talks about God being separate from His creation (Isa. 45:6, Rom 1:25).

This is not anything new. In the Garden the Serpent asked if God really said she couldn’t eat from tree (see Gen 3:1-5). We can be like gods and can have our “eyes open”.

Our Visit

We attempted a visit that we tried a few weeks ago. A school family, the son is in my daughter’s class. Last time we had trouble finding it. That was because it was their store address. I called before hand and she was excited about us coming by. She owns a convenience store/gas station. One thing to note, her store is one of very few that doesn’t sell beer. She was told that she’d never make it if didn’t. She said her and God will prove them wrong. Great faith!

They already attend a church and seemed to love it so we didn’t talk much about the church except where it fit in with the school. It was a good visit, very friendly family. Her sister came into the store just as we were about to pray, so we prayed blessing on her family and her business. I gave my bible to her sister before she left.

Prayer Request

Pray for my step-father-in-law. He is battling cancer and is having trouble with his back. Pray for our country, school and our solders and friends overseas.

The Greatest Show on Earth

We had a chance to hand out some bible tracts at a large event in North Little Rock. A couple friends and I meet up every other week to share the gospel on the streets. This time we chose the Circus at Alltel arena.

There were a lot of people there. We handed out a few hundred tracts in just a couple hours. Even though there were so many people, we still didn’t have a chance for any one-on-one conversations. With it being the just before show time, people were in a hurry, but people were very excited to get our Million Dollar Bible Tracts. We even had a new zillion dollar and the incredible shrinking dollar, which is great for the down turn in the economy.

It was so cold I have to get something to warm me up, so I walked to a conveiant store next to Alltel. I gave the cashier a million for the good service. He made such a big deal out of it I have to give everyone there one.

Week 10

Mormonism
Most people today believe that Mormons are just another “Christian” denomination. It is not only not part of Christianity, but it is anti-Christian. They have twisted the most fundamental doctrines of the Bible. Here are a few

Source of Authority-They don’t take the bible as the infallible word of God and they don’t believe scripture was closed with the bible. They have 3 additional books; the Book of Mormon (which has changed in 4000 places since it was written in 1830), the Doctrine of Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. Their belief is that the Bible is correct as long as it is translated correctly. If the bible contradicts their teachings or their other books, then they fall back on “it is an incorrect translation”.

Trinity-Mormons believe in polytheism, many gods. The universe has many gods that produce spirit children. They believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, but they believe that these are three different Gods.

God-Their view is that God was once a man like us. Through self-effort and the father-god of his plant was able to work his way to receiving his own planet and now has a physical resurrected body. They believe through their own good works and the atoning work of Jesus we to can be god and have our own planet.

Christ-They acknowledge the divinity of Christ, but not by the bible’s standard. They believe that Christ, Lucifer, the demons, and mankind are all bothers and are spirit babies from our father-god. They believe that Christ was conceived by sexual relations between god and Mary. They also believe Jesus had many wives; Mary and Martha (the sisters of Lazarus) and Mary Magdalene.

Heaven and Hell-Mormonism teaches that there are three degrees of glory: Celestial (for good Mormons able to cease sinning in this lifetime), Terrestrial (for good people who do not comply with all the teachings of Mormonism), and Telestial (for those who have lived unclean earthly lives). They don’t really believe anyone will go to hell but a few that can’t be redeemed, sons of perdition. They used to put blacks in this category up until 1978. Their belief is that the people that half-heartily fought when Lucifer got mad at God’s decision to select Jesus and fought against Him and Michael were the black race.

There are many differences these are just a few. The main thing to realize is that the lingo is the same. They use works like “salvation through Jesus”, Grace, and Trinity, but their definitions are totally different

Our Visit
Joanna and I picked up Josh this time out to make our three person team. We were scheduled to visit a family from the Church’s school. The husband was there with their 2 children. We had a good visit. When I asked what his understanding of how a person goes to heaven, he gave a “faith” answer, in Jesus only. I asked him if he as put his faith in Jesus and he told us that he has recently done that and was starting learn more and grow as a Christian. He already had a Church that he was attending and was about to start a new bible study. We didn’t want to pull him away from his church, but did tell him about Victory since the school and church were connected, this way if he ever needed anything he would know a little about us. We prayed with him and encouraged him in his new walk with the Lord.

Prayer Request
Pray for the family of a boy that was just saved. Pray for my step-father-in-law. He has is battling cancer and is taking chemotherapy. Pray for our family has we go through this with him. We only have a couple weeks left pray for our FAITH teams.

Week 9

Jehovah’s Witnesses

What if I told you the end of the world is coming on a certain date. That day came and went, and no end to speak of. I set a new date. That day came and no end of time. “Really this time I’m for real” and set a new one. Still the end is not here. What if I then told you that you misunderstood me and this is the last and final date. Guess what? Not that date either. I wouldn’t be very trust worthy would I?

This is exactly what the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) have been doing. They’ve made predictions for the end of the world or the second coming of Christ in 1879, 1914, 1925, 1940, and 1975. In Matthew 24:36 it says But of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. No one knows when Jesus will return, but they still keep trying to predict it. What is bad is Jehovah’s Witnesses believe everything the Watchtower tells them. The Watchtower is the publication from the main headquarters and is used as a study tool. This is their authority. They are not allowed to think on their own and interpret scripture.

Another place the JWs error in is the Trinity. They don’t believe that God can be three coequal, coeternal Persons. They don’t believe the Holy Spirit is God. They say it is like electricity. Here are some references that attribute personal traits to the Holy Spirit: Acts 13:2; Romans 8:14, 26,27; 1 Corinthians 12:11; Hebrews 3:7 and Revelation 2:7. Also in the Trinity they don’t believe Jesus as God. They do say that is was created as a god and call him a “mighty god”, but not God Himself.

JWs also don’t see that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:8,9). They got the grace down and believe that by the grace of God we are able to work our way to heaven.

Last time I checked a prophet had to be 100% correct. With their several missed predictions, I don’t know how anybody can trust anything that they teach especially when it is in direct contrast to the bible. When the bible has been held up as truth for so long and has been scrutinized throughout the centuries without any contradictions, how can you trust anything above the bible?

Our Visit

We had a really good visit. We visited a family from the school. The son last Sunday wanted to go to Church but they didn’t know how to get there. They left trying to find it with the son praying in the back seat. They ended up finding Victory and was there a little early for our evening services. They were going home to get the mother and never made it back.

We had a great visit with them they are believers and love the school and the son’s teacher this year. We talked to them a little about Sunday school and church. The son and the dad were going to be there for our Wednesday night services. We prayed with them and left them some church information.

We gave our bible out to a guy in the Walmart parking lot. I tried to give it out first without success. The person said they already had one but Joanna was successful.

Prayer Request

Pray that God will give us a passion for the lost, one that we loose sleep at night worrying that people are going to hell. Pray that God will put people in our path that we can share the gospel and His Word with.

Week 8

Cults

This week we talked about cults. It was an introduction to cults and in the next few weeks we’ll do a more in depth study of some of different ones.

The word “cult” comes from the Latin word for worship. Basically a cult is defined as “a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious”. Really anything that opposes the normal biblical view. It is not meant to be an insulting word but a way to categorize something different the biblical Christianity. Some of cults, for example the Mormons, might even call biblical Christianity a cult. The Jews call early Christianity a cult because of their differing views.

One of the characteristics of a cult is that it always surrounds itself around a specific person or that person’s misinterpretation of the Bible (ex. Joseph Smith with the Mormons). Besides being focuses around a leader or person’s interpretation, there are 5 things that you can look for doctrinally in a cult.

They reject the Trinity. They do not believe that Jesus is God. They either lower him down to humanity’s level or will raise themselves up to the same status as Jesus.
Belief that all Christians churches are wrong and they have the only truth.
They believe the bible, but will distort it to fit their viewpoint of man, God, Holy Spirit, Heaven and hell, salvation, and many other doctrines.
They deny that people are saved by faith alone. There is always works involved. Haven’t we seen that through all the religions we’ve studied so far?
They are skillful at using Christian words and doctrines, but with a twist. They’ll use the same words but they will not mean the same thing.

The first thing to do to identify cults is to know true Christianity. The bible tells us to test all things (1 Thess. 5:21). A guy that once worked for the Secret Service in the counterfeit division was asked “how, with all theses different types of fake bill going around, do you figure out which ones are not real?” He responded with, “To spot the fake ones all you have to do is know the real one”. If we know God’s word, when something comes along that teaches a different gospel we’ll be able to spot it.

Our Visit

We had a great visit. We visited a family that came to our “Trunk or Treat” that we put on at the school. The family had a young boy in the 4K class at the school. We talked with the wife. The husband was in bed, he’d had a few shot for a back problem earlier in the day. We did have a good conversation talking about our Sunday School class and Church. We asked the “Key Question”, “In your opinion, what do you understand that it takes for a person to go to heaven” She gave, what seemed to be a faith answer, but added a little to it. To be safe, I shared the gospel with her. We continued to talk a little more and prayed with her before we left.
When we got back to the car, we realized we were 1 hour late getting back to the church. It was worth it we had a great visit and Joanna clicked well with her. Ashley, the other young lady we brought with us, bonded great with the son. Well she played video games with him anyway.

Prayer Request

Pray for this family that they find a church home that can minister to their needs. Both of them have bad back and are taking treatments for the problem. Pray for our ministries, both here and PMBS AIT in the Philippines.

Week 7

Buddhism

Buddhism was started by a man named Siddhartha Gautama, who later changed his name to Buddha. He was born in India, around where Napal is today. He was born into a Hindu family around 560 BC. When he was young, a seer said that he would be the greatest ruler ever and if he saw four things: sickness, old age, death and a monk that renounced the world, he would discover a way of salvation for everyone. To protect him, his father built a palace to shelter him from all this. The story goes that one day when he was 29 he did see all these things. He saw a man with sores, an old guy, a dead person being carried to his grave, and a begging monk who appeared peaceful and happy. So he left his family and ran away.

He shaved his head, put on a yellow robe and tried to find salvation by self-denial. When starving himself didn’t work, he sat under a tree for 40 days. There he experienced nirvana which means the “blowing out” of the flame of desire and the negation of suffering. It was here that he clamed that he found salvation and then changed his name to Buddha.

They believe that suffering is universal and nirvana will release you from that cycle, because you will be reincarnated until you are released. This suffering is because of our craving and selfish desires. To reach this state a person must overcome ignorance and eliminate these cravings. The way they say to do this is to suppress the cravings by the eightfold path: right viewpoint, right aspiration, right speech, right behavior, right occupation, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.

Buddha clamed he knew how to get to nirvana, but what is was like when you got there he didn’t know. Buddha claimed to have found the way but Jesus said that He is the way (John 14:6). Buddha said that suffering comes from cravings and all desire was bad. Christianity says that suffering is caused by sin (Romans 8:18-23) and that we can have good desires like the desire to glorify and give glory to God (see Ps. 27:4, Matt 6:33). It all comes down to work, like all the other religions we’ve studied. People do have a “selfish desire”, a desire to save themselves and glorify our own deads. We can't save ourselves it is only God through Jesus Christ that can save and He should get the glory not us.

Our Visit

We had a scheduled visit to a family at the school. We never found that address but ended up close to a customer and friend of mine. This is a lady that has visited the church before and her son actually invited us the first time to victory. We had a great visit with her and invited her to Sunday school and a church. We prayed with her before we left.

Prayer Request

Pray for all our FAITH teams. Pray for a lady that the gospel was presented to and she accepted the gift of salvation. Thank God for moving in her life and allowing one of the team be involved.

Week 6

Hinduism

This week we have been studying the religion of Hinduism. So far, this has been the hardest one to grasp. With Catholic, Islam, and Orthodox, they a least had something in common with Christianity. Hinduism, on the other hand, is totally different. Right off, a big difference is their belief in God. A follower of Hinduism can believe in one god, no god or many gods. Hinduism is said to have 330 million gods.

There are two core beliefs in Hinduism that differ from Christianity: reincarnation and karma. Reincarnation is the belief that a persons soul comes back in different bodies. These bodies don’t have to be human. They don’t even have to be animate objects. This uncreated and eternal soul is totally different than the view in the Bible where were we are created being. The bible also says it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Heb. 9.27). Once we are dead that is it. We have one shot at this life.

Karma, which means action, is a process of cause and effect. If you are good, good things happen to you. If you are bad, bad thing will happen. This karma can even affect you status when you are reincarnated.

Regarding Jesus, Hinduism would believe that He is not God, but one of the many incarnations, or avatars of Vishnu, their supreme god. Remember they have 330 million gods that they can worship, so Jesus could be just one to them. This was a problem with missionaries. They would go into a highly Hindu region and a lot of people would make a decision for Christ. Their thinking is “we’ll accept Christ; we’ll put him with our other gods. When talking with Hindus we need to be careful. They need to understand that God has became incarnate only once (John 1:14) and that he is the only way to God (John 14:6)

Another point that we disagree with in Hinduism is their view on sin and salvation. Sin to them is an ‘utter illusion”. Everything including sin is just an illusion and not real. They seek the endless cycle of being reincarnated, by mediation, devotion, good works and self control. This will put them at one with Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. Christians see ourselves as sinners (Romans 3:23). Because of that sin we can not received eternal life and heaven. God didn’t want that and did a wonderful thing for us. While we were sinners, He came to earth as a man to pay for our sins(Romans 5:8). So that if we turn from our sins (Acts 3:19) and put our trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior, we will be saved (Romans 10:9)

Our Visit

Our scheduled visit was not home. While trying to find the address at an apartment complex, we saw a lady getting out of her car. We initially asked her about the address we where trying to find. When we got back, with no luck, she was still trying to get her two kids, a suitcase and a backpack out of the car and up the stairs. Joanna got out to give her a bible and noticed that she needed help. So both Joanna and Sherri helped her upstairs. This was a great time to talk to here about the gospel. We asked the key question “What do you understand that it takes for a person to go to heaven” and she had no idea. We explained to her what it took by using what we learned in FAITH class. We had a good talk with here and prayed with her before we left.

Prayer Request

Pray for Brother Harris. He is out sick. Pray that he will have a speedy recovery. We also have had a scheduling conflict and I’ll be losing a very good team member in FAITH. Pray that God will find a replacement. Joanna had a chance for a long talk with someone about Jesus. Pray that this person will chew on the things that were said.

Week 5

Islam

This week before going on our visits we studied about Islam. Islam is one of the youngest and one of the fastest growing of the major religions. It is estimated there are 1 billion followers in the world. This would mean that 1 in 6 people on this planet is a Muslim. Muslim, meaning one who lives his life according to God’s will, is the name for those who follow this religion.

Islam means submission. This is the submission to Allah, the God of Mohammed. He was born in 570 A.D. He came from a well-to-do family, which had a lot of tradigy strike when he was very young. His dad died a few days before he was born. His mom died when he was six. He was grandfather raised him until he died when Mohammed was nine. The rest of this raising was spent with his uncle where he herded flocks.

Most of his Ideas and exposure to religion was by spending time in the caravan trade where he took trips with his uncle to Syria and Persia. It is believed that he draws a lot of influence from the Jews inspiration from the Talmud. He also came in contact with the Monophysites and the Nestorians. The Monophysites believe that Christ was fully divine without a being human. The Nestorians believed that Christ did have two natures but they were separate from each other. Keeping all this in mind you can see how the structure and beliefs about Chirst in Islam was built from these three influences.

Their Holy Book is the Koran. It is said that Mohammed received this from the Angel Gabriel. Since Mohammed couldn’t read or write, the Koran was dictated partly by Mohammed and written down by followers who remembered his teachings. With this in mind they believe the Koran is the only correct book with the original, written in Arabic, in heaven. The bible, theTalmud and other books of Judaism are said by Islam to have been corrupted. They also have an extra teachings in the Sunnah, meaning path. This Sunnah was gathered into a book called the Hadith. Doesn’t this sound real close on how the Talmud supplements the Hebrew Bible. They also have there teaching on the law which they call Shariah, meaning “law.

The main part of their faith is the 5 pillars which they must keep to be a “good Muslim”.

Statement of belief; they must recite “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah”.

Prayer; they must pray 5 time a day in the right position and facing the city of Mecca.

Alms; They must give 2.5% to widows, orphans, and the sick.

Ramadan; the ninth month on their calendar. They must fast during daylight hours and stay away from forbidden activities.

Pilgrimage to Mecca; at least once in their lifetime, if possible, they are required to make a trip to Mecca. If they can’t go they can send someone in their place.

It all come down to without the shedding of blood we can not have the forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). I doesn’t matter if we think we are a good Muslim or a good person the bible says that there is none good no not one (Psalm 14:3) and all of us are sinner (Romans 3:23). There has to be a payment for our sins and I am glad Jesus did that. Ephesians 1:7 says that we are redeemed through the blood of Jesus. We must repent and turn away from our sins and our self-reliance of our good work to save us and put our trust in Jesus to save us.

Our Visit

My teams visit ended up not being home and since it was far out, we didn’t get a chance to make another one. We had a great time in fellowship and talking discussing our testimonies. There were some other great visits by other teams. The gospel was presented by one group and the girl that was saved last week was visited and baptism was discussed.

Prayer Request

Pray for the people that were killed in the auto accident the night of FAITH. Some of our teams were delayed getting to the church because of this. Pray for their families. Pray for our Missionary Glen Knight. Great work is going on in the newly renamed village of Bethany.

Week 4

Judaism

This week we are studying Judaism. It is unique in that it is both a nationality and a religion. We have, what we call, the Old Testament in common with them. They pay particular attention to the first five books, called the Torah. They also have teaching of their rabbis, which mean master or teacher, written down in a book called the Mishnah. Another book that they use is the Talmud. This is about 36 Volumes and is based on the Mishnah with more material added.

Without going into a lot of detail about this religion, the main difference in Christianity and Judaism is Christ. Christianity has its roots in Judaism. Most of our favorite bible characters were Jews. Even Christ was a Jew. They would have followed some of the same practices and rituals as today’s Jewish people.

Like us they believe in one God and it is the same God we worship, the God of Abraham. They don’t believe in the Godhead being in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The especially don’t believe Jesus was the Son of God. Some Jews accept Him as a good teacher. Their belief in salvation comes from commitment to the one true God and through moral living. As Christians we know it is through Jesus only. We understand that we don’t live a moral life. We know that all have sinned and that there is none good. For this reason we need a savior, someone to pay that debt that we have and to redeem us. We are saved thought faith in Jesus (Romans 3:24).

Our Visit

One of my team members had to be out this week so my prayer partner stepped in and came with us. We had a couple scheduled visits. These were a couple families from the Victory Baptist School. The first one was a family that had a couple kids at the school with the oldest one being in 6th grade. This family has been at the school for 7 years. It was dinner time so we had a quick visit at the door. We stated the purpose of the visit and asked how everything was going and if there was anything the church could help with. Before leaving we had a prayer with the family. Or second visit was not home so we left a church brochure at the door.

On the way back to the chruch, Joanna gave a bible to a police officer and she had a short conversation with him. He was asking questions about Satan. As we were pulling off there were some young men at the liquor store, so we gave a couple bibles to them.

Prayer Request

There as been a lot of children in the church and school asking question about salvation and a few the visits were geared toward them. There was even one saved last night on a FAITH visit. Please pray for each of these children and that God will continue to show them of there need for Jesus.

Week 3

Greek Orthodox
This week we are studying the Greek Orthodox Church. They are a little similar to the Catholic Church, which they split from in 1054 A.D. The reason from the split is they wanted to keep the church the same as it was the first century.

The main difference in the two churches is the Orthodox Church doesn’t have a Pope. Even though they don’t have a Pope, they still have a succession from the original apostles to today’s archbishops sometimes called patriarchs or metropolitans. The Catholic Church is a succession from Peter to the Pope, but the Orthodox Church is from each of the apostles.

Like the Catholic Church, the Church has authority over scripture. This is because of their understanding of the bible. We understand the bible is the inspired Word of God. This Word has always existed and gave life to the Church. Their understanding is that the Church wrote the bible so that they have supremacy over it.

This picture above is the an example of an Icon that they pray to.

Our Visit

Our plan was to visit a family that attends Victory Baptist School. That family wasn’t home so we visited their neighbor. I remembered the neighbor form a few weeks ago. I meet them at another Church member’s house which lived across the street. Before the visit, I felt that I didn’t go their with the right attitude or heart, but God quickly showed me that he planned this visit. This family of two boys and a mother just lost their father/mother. We were able to share God’s word and pray with the mother before we left. Also before we left we arranged for another group to visit that would be better suited to minister to her needs and would be the Sunday school that she’d attend.

On the way back to the Church I gave my Bible to a lady at a carwash. She seemed very thankful to receive it.

Prayer Request
Pray for the family that we visited that the love and comfort of God will show through our Church in this time of need. Pray for a guy that I went to school with that heard the gospel last Sunday. Pray that he will realize his need for a savior and that he will “accept this free gift”.

It's a Free Gift

This Sunday while playing out side an old school mate of mine saw me out and stopped by. During the conversation, I invited him to church. He got real defensive and didn’t want any part of that. We had a long talk about what he believed and what I believed. He has always been a loud person, and I was concerned about Katelyn getting scared. She might have thought we were arguing, which wasn’t the case. She ran in side at one point and when she came back out she had a piece of candy. She whispered in my ear “Give him some candy”. I was confused and was too involved in the conversation to think anything about, but gave him the candy anyway. When he said no thank you and didn’t take it, Katelyn whispered in my ear again “It is a free gift”. It click what she was doing. I was to hold out the candy and the offer was out there. All he had to do was take it. She related the gift of salvation to that candy and I was to let him know it available but he must take it. He did take the candy but did not the gift of salvation, but he heard the gospel and God does the saving. Pray that he will be convicted of his sins and turn to Jesus as that free gift.

Katelyn learned that from Mrs. Walker’s third grade class at Victory. They have been studying ways to share the gospel and have even made their own bible tracts to give out. This ministry of Victory Baptist Church is doing a great job reaching the lost and I think God for this school and the teachers.

Week 2

This is week 2 and I’m very excited about FAITH. During class time we talked about Roman Catholicism and how it is different then what the book calls “Protestant Christianity”. One of the biggest differences is how the bible is viewed. We believe in sola scriptura-“Scripture alone.” That the bible is all that we need (see 2 Tim 3:16). In the Catholic Church, they give equal weight to Scripture and traditions. They have what is called “Sacred Traditions”. The bishops have this special insight that is passed on from the apostles and then down from Bishop to Bishop. They also believe that the Pope is infallible when he speaks for the Church.

The way that they view the Bible is also very different. They see the bible as a “churched-based book.” They believe that the Church observed things and then wrote them down in a book. We believe again that the Bible is the inspired word of God.

Because of how they view the Bible and give so much weight on the traditions of men (Mark 7), it is easy for them to move away from the truth. I’m not going to go through every difference but just pull a few of the biggest ones out.

We are saved by faith (Eph. 2;8,9). Catholics believe that you are saved by faith plus works. That is it a life long process. You are baptized as a baby to wash away you original sin but your mortal and venial (easily forgiven) sins need to be confessed to a priest and taken care of by penance. Penance simply means to make amends for those sins. Penance can be anything from repeating by saying certain prayers to fasting.

Because they still can’t do enough in this short lifetime to make it to heaven, Catholics believe that you must go to Purgatory a special place to be cleansed of your sins and made fit for heaven.

There have been many tries to unit the Catholic Church with “Protestants”, but without any success. They keep trying to find some common ground that both sides agree on, but what should be done is just start at the beginning. Let’s see what scripture has to says. No agreement will ever be made when the rules keep being changed. If the Bishops and Pope hold equal weight to the Bible, then it will be easy to get off track. While looking at the different doctrines of the Catholic Church, you’ll see doctrines or rules referenced not by a scripture in the bible but a pope and a year. Take this example. We believe that Jesus is the only way to God. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6). Catholics believe by the words of Pope Leo XIII in 1891: “[A]s no man goeth to the Father but by the Son, so no man goeth to Christ but by His mother.” That was added in 1891 and holds equal weight with the bible.

This is why we must always hold the scripture as Gods holy inspired word.

Our visit
We went door knocking tonight. We only made it to two house because each of them were fairly long visits. The first one was a couple that attended St. Luke’s. The wife gave a “Faith” answer to the key question on how a person gets to heaven. We had a good discussion about children and other ministries in our two churches. We prayed with them before leaving

It was getting dark and the neighbor’s house was dark so we skipped that one and went to the next house. It was a young woman and her daughter. The daughter attended Victory Baptist School and the Church in the past. I asked her the Key question and she gave a works answer, “live like Christ”. Before we could continue on with the gospel, she took over the conversation. She had some very informative things to say on her view of how the Church should to minister to a changing world of divorce families, drug use, and many societal problems. Josh talked about our Sunday school class and how it is not the typical “preach to you” style and that we talk about these everyday issues.

We left there late as usually for my team and we needed to find someone to give the bible to. We saw a fire truck at Taco Bell and figured these people would be perfect, but the firemen were inside and we didn’t have time for them to come out. We drove to Fitness 10 and there were two guys in the parking lot talking. Josh gave them each a bible and they said they were just talking about Church. By the way, Sherri ending up giving her bible to the firemen later as her team came in.

Prayer Request
Pray that God will show each of us opportunities to share Christ. Pray for all our ministries at the Church, our school and our missionaries.

FAITH Is Starting Up

We have a new semester of FAITH starting up and I have a new team. On my team is Josh and Joanna, both from my Sunday school class. It is going to be a great 12 weeks.

Before we go out each week, both Josh and Joanna will go to the regular FAITH class and I, along with the others that have been though FAITH more then two semesters, will have a new class. This time around we will be going through a book called "So What's The Difference?" by Fritz Ridenour. It is a book that will take a look at 20 other religions or world views. This week we discussed chapter one, "Biblical Christianity". It talks about what is biblical Christianity. To study other religions we must fist define what we believe in and compare other world views from there. The book uses a plum line illistration. We need to measure what we believe by God's standards and what His word says. (see Amos 7:8)

My team members should be in their class where I was in my week one last year (see Week 1) They should of had teachings showing the importance of the “Great Commission” and how to gain power over their fears.

Our Visits

We had two assigned visits, both with the last name Smith. The first one was a couple that has family in the Church. They visit during the worship service on occasion, but don't attend a Sunday School class. The wife was there but husband was out. We had a great visit and invited them to our class. We had a good visit and prayed with her before we left.

Our second visit was with the Smith family. This is a family that are members of our Church. The husband is currently stationed in Iraq. They've missed a few weeks in Church and we wanted to check in on them. The son is having a little trouble with separation anxiety and has trouble leaving his mothers side. Because of this, she is having trouble going to Church and doing some things around the house like mowing the yard. Funny thing, she just email Joanna before our visited. She was trying to find out if Joanna's son does any yard work. I guess it is not really funny, I don't even think it was by chance that we were there at that time either. We found several ministry opportunities for our Sunday School class and It was a good visit.

One last mission. Each week were are to find somebody on the street and give them a bible. On our way back to the Church we stopped a Kroger and Joanna gave the bible to a family walking in.

It was a great first week and it is going to be a great semester. My team is going to work well together and have some fun along the way.

Prayer Request

Pray for the Smith boys with their dad gone and his safty. Pray for a good semester of FAITH. Also I have an oppertunity to talk about witnessing at Victory Baptist School, in the third grade class. This will be on Thusday from 2:15-3:00. They want me to talk about why I share my faith and how I do it. The important thing is I get to share the gospel. This is a very important age and pray that God will give me the words to say and that hearts will be open to the message.

May 20, 2008

You just thought FAITH was over! Josh and I went to knock some doors in Sherwood, just down the street from Victory Baptist School. We thought it would be a good idea if we invited people in that area to our services Sunday night at the school.

We talked to a lot more people than normal. We had a little more time since we didn’t have class. The first house was a very nice lady that was saved and we had a good time talking with her. Another visit ended up being a customer of mine that I built furniture for a while back. She also used to attend church where Patty and I got hitched. She has been looking for a church and her son goes to school at Abundant Life. Since we have a lot of our teens that go to school there, he may already have connections at our church. She said they are looking for a church that is more traditional with a regular choir and not a praise band. She wants a good youth group for her son. She doesn’t want a church that is so big that you don’t know anyone. I feel she described our church exactly. We stressed the importance of Sunday School or bible study group at any church that she finds, since she is wanting that personal relationship with believers.

We then helped chase down a dog with no luck. We didn’t get to talk to that person, she was a little distracted.

The last house we went to I asked where they went to church. He said that he was a Mormon. I asked the key question “In your personal opinion, what do you understand it takes for a person to go to heaven?” He had a works answer. I presented the gospel to him, he said that he has already put his trust in Jesus. We continued our conversation by talking about his co-workers who were “bad people.” I was able to emphasize again that we are saved through faith and nothing else. I also talked about how people aren’t ready to take the cure unless they understand the sickness…SIN! Unless a person understands how bad they are and how far off they are of curing themselves, they will not turn to the cure, Jesus.

Overall it was a great night. Beautiful weather, wonderful fellowship, and a great God.

Prayer Requests

Pray for Patty’s step-father. He has been in the hospital almost three weeks. He left ICU yesterday and is in a regular room now. If things keep going the way they are, he should be home in a couple days. Pray for my Mormon friend. Pray that he understands the gospel and who Jesus truly is. Finally, remember to pray for Mr. Parsley and his family.

Week 13

This was the last week of FAITH but it wasn’t a typical week. Instead of each team going out on visits, all the teams went on one visit. We went to the Parsley’s house. Mr. Parsley is in his 80s and has cancer…they can’t do anything more for him except keep him comfortable. He hasn’t been able to attend church several months. Matt has made it a point to schedule a team to go by there each week. One thing they say that they miss more than anything has been going to church. They couldn’t come to church, so we brought church to them. We all loaded up in the church van and went to their house. We joined Mr. Parsley in his bedroom and sang hymns and heard the Word preached.

It was a wonderful experience to be part of, Mr. Parsley is someone that a lot of people love. Each year he buys the choir dinner at Golden Corral, because he wants to say thank you for the Christmas program. He has preached many times at the church. When his eyesight started going, he would continue to preach entire chapters…from memory!

My prayers are for him and his family. His wife was put in the hospital Friday for dehydration and a kidney infection. This morning at prayer meeting, the family was asking that the Lord take Bro Parsley home…he is in great pain. Isn’t it great when you have the assurance that someone you love is going to heaven? Please keep Bro and Mrs. Parsley and their family in your prayers.

Week 12

The Next Generation

FAITH is one semester from extinction. This is what Brother Robert reminds us each semester. We have a good group going, but in just one semester all that can be gone. FAITH is reliant on new learners each semester. It is the biblical principle found in 2 Timothy 2:2. We are to make disciples and they are to go out and make disciples.

Best case scenario would be that each person on our three-person teams would start a team of their own next time around. They would take the new learners under their wing and train and disciple them. Just think about it. This time we have 3 people. Next time there would be nine. The third semester there would be 27. In just 5 semesters FAITH would involve 243. That is almost all the people in church on a given Sunday. You know the Great Commission is directed to all of us.

We have been entrusted with a special gift, the Gospel. We are to share it and train others how to share by discipleship.

Our Visit

This was our last official visitation time this semester. We were one member short on our team, so we stole Wesley from another team. Wesley was fired up. He just finished learning the entire FAITH Gospel Presentation and is anxious to share. He wanted to do opinion polls. We had a couple houses assigned in a new neighborhood. After searching for the road with no luck, we parked on a corner and started down the street. The first few houses were uneventful. There was some new construction going on and the workers were just watching the concrete dry. We approached them and started talking about their work. We asked if they had time for a few questions. When he agreed, it was turned it over to Wesley. He asked the four questions with the last being the “Key Question”. He gave kind of an unclear response, but then explained it a little better.

We went across the street and two ladies answered the door. They attend Central Baptist Church, which was the same church that the pastor was from on last weeks visit. We had a good visit with them, encouraged them to join FAITH at their church, and to tell the pastor that we visited them. They both gave a strong faith answer on the key question that was asked.

Note from last weeks visit with the pastor. While we were talking to the pastor, they opened a door in the hall to block the view of the rest of the house. The daughter was taking a bath and they didn’t want her to wonder out not knowing there was company. While she was behind the door she was listening to our conversation with her dad.
The next Sunday the daughter told her teacher that she had to go to big church because she was saved. The teacher told one of our members that the dad said that his daughter has been under conviction for a while and that a FAITH visit was all she needed. Even though we didn’t talk directly to her and didn’t even give the gospel, God will work through us. It is amazing that God would use someone like us to accomplish His will.

Prayer Request

Pray for my brother and his girlfriend. They are planning on getting married in the next week. Pray for Patty’s step-dad, Don. He has a collapsed lung and should have surgery on Friday to repair the hole.

Week 11

Our Role in Kingdom Work

Non-Christians may be looking for several things from a church, but ultimately they are looking for Jesus Christ. Jesus is what they need.

People want a place where they can discover the truth, find connections, enjoy of variety of experiences, and have an opportunity to make a difference in the world. This is our role in the kingdom work. We are not just to share the gospel, but to disciple others. This is where Sunday school comes in. It is through our Sunday school class or small group that we are to continue the work of the Great Commission.

Our Visit

We had one assigned visit. It was a new homeowner, not too far from the church. The house was located in a new cul-de-sac with two other houses. They were not home so we went to the next house. They were not home either. The last house was still being built. We decided to drive to the top of the hill and work our way down one of the main streets. As soon as we got there, we see a lady walking her dog. We told her that we were in the neighborhood asking some questions on how we could better serve the community and asked if we could ask her a few questions. She said no because she went to church, which wasn’t the question. It was clear she didn’t want to participate. We did small talk with her a little longer. We had another miss or two at houses on that street.

We finally found someone at home. When the lady answered the door, I gave the opinion poll introduction. She immediately responded with “Are you doing FAITH?” I told her we were. She said that her husband is the pastor at Central Baptist Church and they do FAITH. We talked with her and her husband for a while. As we try to do at most visits, we prayed with them before we left. This visit was different; he asked if he could pray for us and our efforts. This visit was a real encouragement.

At the next house we found two women at home. I went through the Opinion Poll questions and asked her “in your personal opinion, what do you understand that it takes for a person to go to heaven.” She started out with a FAITH answer, but added some works in there. I went though the gospel presentation. She said that she has done that and she attends church at New Life.

Prayer Request

Pray for Susan, a visit mentioned in a previous blog. Pray for our teams. We have a couple weeks left. Pray that we will finish with a good attitude. Please pray for my mom, brother, and his girlfriend.

Week 10

Baptism

This week our pastor is preaching a revival and wasn’t in class. Matt filled in and did a good job discussing baptism. This is the next step after a person receives Christ. Part of the Great Commission is to go out and make disciples, not just make converts. We are to teach and help new believers grow in the walk with the Lord. We are to be, as the book puts it, their spiritual parent. Paul refers to Timothy as “[my] own son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2).
Part of the teaching is to show them the importance of baptism. Baptism isn’t going to save us. It is done in obedience to God. It is an outward way to publicly show what has happened to us on the inside. We are buried with Christ and come up a new person. There are four reasons we should be baptized.
1. Jesus Commanded It (Matthew 28:19)
2. Baptism demonstrates Obedience.
Jesus set the example (Mark 1:9)
Jesus’ followers obeyed (Acts 2:41, 8:38)
3. Baptism represents a picture of breaking from the past and beginning a new life with Christ. (Romans 6:4)
4. In the New Testament baptism is a public testimony of faith. (Acts 2:41)

Our Visit

We had one assigned visit. It was a new residence. We parked at the end of the street, started with the first house on the block and made our way up. The first house was a nice Catholic lady. She gave a works answer on how a person gets to heaven. Sherri presented the gospel to her. When asked if that is something she has done, referring to repent and faith in Jesus, she said she didn’t understand what we were asking. Sherri did a good job at going back to her works answers and that she just wanted to make sure she know that wasn’t relying on works to save her and that it is through the sacrifice Jesus made for us. She said that she has done that. Whether she has or has not the gospel was presented. Sherri prayed before we left and again she gave the gospel in the prayer.

The second house was the assigned house. It was clear that they were eating. We told them that we would come back at a better time.

On the third house, Sherri said the house looked familiar to her. We rang the doorbell and a lady answer. She said that she was the caregiver and that the family is members of our Church. She invited us in. When I asked, “in your personal opinion what do you understand it takes for a person to go to heaven”, she responded with belief in God and heaven. It was kind of an unclear answer so I asked “do you mind if I share with you how the Bible answers this question?” She said that was fine. I went through the FAITH gospel presentation. She said that she has done that. We invited her to Church. She said that she would love to go but she takes care of Gary all but 40 hours a week. Gary is handicapped and his mother died within the last year. Her funeral was at the Church and he is not ready to go back. His is hard for him. We did go back and talk with him a little before we had to leave. He got emotional when talking about going to Church. We prayed with him before we left.

Prayers

There was one saved tonight. Pray for her and her new walk with the Lord. Still pray for Susan that was mentioned in the last blog. Pray that God will open up doors for us to share the gospel.

Witnessing In Little Rock

Went out door knocking on Thursday. I met up with John Scuderi from KAAY and Paul Davis, no relation to me, from Heritage Baptist. I met John on a evangelism web site a couple of months ago. He was searching for someone to go out witnessing with him. Our schedules finally matched up to were we were able to go. We met with a group at Heritage and went door knocking somewhere in Little Rock. A very, very nice neighborhood were all the houses were craftsman style with perfect yards and landscaping. I was nervous and just wanted to observe. Just set back see how others shared the gospel.

After a few houses they asked if I wanted to take this one. I agreed and knocked on the door. A woman answered the door and found out her name was Susan. I asked her about Church and she almost immediately started crying. She talked about how she knows she needs to be in Church and that she was an agnostic. She admitted that she was and Alcoholic and has attended AA several times with no success. She didn't like the name God. I asked Her if she would like for me to share how the bible says that a person gets to heaven. She agreed.

She had lots of question mainly about finding God. She knew she needed help and kept referring to a "higher power", I assume that is something taught in AA. It was hard for her to believe in something she can’t see or touch. We explained to several ways and ministered to her. We answered several of our questions. One question that she had was, " Why did the tsunami happen that killed all those people. We tried to explain to her that death, hurt, Desi's, and destruction was all because of sin. Not that their sins were any worse than ours. God created a perfect place and because sin was introduced everything must die. We tried to turn it back to her, because is was her sins that she must account for on judgment day. We had to be standing on her porch for at least 45 minutes. We realized and I believe she did to, that our meeting was not by accident. God sent us there that day. Paul and his Church are going to follow up and continue to minister to her. Please pray for her salvation and her ability through Christ to kick this habit. Pray from Paul and he continues to minister to her.

Week 9

H can also stand for How

How can a person have God’s forgiveness, eternal life, and heaven? It’s by trusting Jesus as their Load and Savior. As I wrote last time in week 8, we have been going through the meaning of the word FAITH. Now it is time to make a decision. We need to remember that it is only through the leading of Holy Spirit that anyone comes to Christ. I feel this is a very sensitive subject and that a lot of people have been given a false sense of salvation when they are not saved. Many have been lead to believe that “say this special prayer and your saved”. We may want to ask questions to help them with making that decision without being too leading. I’ve heard it put this way. If a husband was unfaithful to his wife and needed to make things right would he need to have someone help him? Now repeat after me. Tell her “I’m sorry”…”I’m sorry”. Now tell her you’ll never do it again….”I’ll never do it again. That don’t make any sense and neither would someone needing to be helped with a prayer.

Now I do realize that people may have no experience prayer and may not know how to pray. That is why I like the books suggestion about reading the “prayer of salvation” something like: “Dear God, I know that You love me. I confess my sin and need of salvation. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and arose from the grave. I turn away from my sin and place my faith in Jesus as my Savior and Lord. I want to follow You with my life. Amen.” Then ask them if this is how they feel. They can then tell God how they feel or use the printed prayer on the leaflet as long they understand that it is not a magic formula.

Back tracking a little with leading up to this decision we use a “Step of Faith” leaflet. It reviews over each letter and the Bible verses that go with each one of them. This is a great tool to use. It first has a picture of Jesus on the cross and people around the foot of the cross in today’s type of clothing. It does a good job of representing that we put him there. It was because of our sins that Jesus went to the cross. The leaflet is something that we can leave with them. It has the verses that we used on it so that they’ll know it is form the bible and not just from our mouths. It is something they can study and read over as the Lord convicts them of their need for a savior.

It also has a place to record information about the visit for both them and us. It also mentions the next steps that they should follow: Baptism, Prayer, Bible study, Devotional life, Church with other believers, and sharing Jesus with others.

Our visits

We made 4 attempts. All but one was not home. The one that was at home was a minister. He was recently relocated to our area to take care of his mother-in-law. He is not currently pasturing a Church and doesn’t have a home Church either. He and his family have just been visiting around at a wide range of different style Churches. We asked the Key Question, “In your opinion what do you understand it takes for a person to go to heaven? He gave a faith answer, to receive Christ and be born again. We had a good conversation with him and invited him to visit our Church. We also prayed with him before we left.

Prayer Request

God did save someone tonight. One of the teams was able to share the gospel with a 12 year old and her mother. The 12 year old did receive Christ. Pray that she we be strong in the Lord and that her mother will be saved too. The mother didn’t speak great English; pray that the daughter will be able to explain the Gospel to her mother in a way that she can fully understand. Isn’t God great!

Week 8

H is for Heaven

Heaven is where we’ll spend eternity with God. Jesus said in John 14:3 “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also. This is what we all look forward to as Christians, eternity with God. Because of our sins we deserve to be punished. I can at least speak for myself; I’m a lying, thieving, blasphemer. Because of this we must be punished. I know I’m not the only one, because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, Romans 3:23. We deserve Hell, but God in His wonderful grace paid that penalty for use that we may be saved and enjoy eternal fellowship with Him. WOW! In Romans chapter 5 it talks about how it is very rare that someone give there life for another; maybe even more likely will someone give their life if the person is righteous, but God commanded if love for us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Heaven starts now with Christ. We don’t have to wait to experience heaven, heaven is here and now. Jesus said in John 10:10 “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly”. This doesn’t mean that we wont have any problems when we begin to follow Christ or that we’ll become wealthy. The Bible doesn’t promise that. When we are saved the Holy Spirit dwells in us and we can enjoy a wonderful fellowship with Christ. We’ll have hope and piece that no matter what happens we understand that God is in control. God is great right now, but can you imagine how great He will be when this distraction of the sinful flesh is removed.

H stands for Heaven, but it can also stand for how. How can we have eternal life and Heaven. Throughout the past weeks we’ve been spelling out the meaning of the word FAITH. FAITH can also stand for Forsaking All I Trust Him. That can be summed up with two words: Repentance and Faith. Forsaking, Repent, or Turn from our sins and believing that we don’t have anything to do with making ourselves right with God. And Trust Him. Put our faith in Jesus and Him alone for our salvation. We know for sure that He will save us remember Romans 10:9 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

If you haven’t repented of your sins, not just ask for forgiveness but turning from those sins; and put your trust in Jesus, then I plead with you today to do that. We don’t know how long we have in this life. Life is short, like a vapor that is here at one moment and gone the next.

Our Visit

We didn’t have any visits this week. It was raining and we don’t want to track water and mud everywhere. We had an extended class, had some singing to praise the Lord, and group prayer. The prayer time was awesome.
The prayer time was an answered prayer in itself. My wife has been discouraged and has been praying that God would do something awesome this Tuesday. She was expecting something on a visit, but it ended up being right there in our FAITH groups. God taught us that He is faithful. We may be expecting one thing, but He’ll answer prayer in is own and even more powerful way. When doing God’s will of going out and spreading the Gospel, Satan tries to hit hard. We had a few people experiencing that. One of our members needed to stay home. We got her on speaker phone and included her in the prayer. When Gods people get to gather and pray it is an awesome experience and something great is going to happen.

Payer Request

Pray for our FAITH members and their struggles. Pray for a friend Daniel that is trying to get away from drugs that has been an everyday habit for over a year. Pray that I will be more bold in my sharing the Gospel. Pray for the safe return of our pastor and the group from our church that are in the Philippines. The small picture above that I used since we are talking about Heaven, is a shot from the Philippines on Monday.

Week 7

T is for Turn.

If you were driving down the street and someone asked to turn, what would they be asking you to do? Change directions right? In the Bible the word repent means to turn. To turn from our sins and our self. Our self in believing that we can get to heaven by our own means. The bible says in Luke 13:3 “unless you repent, you will all likewise parish”. We are going to parish because we are sinners and broken God’s laws. Because of that we should, and rightfully so, be punished. (see Week 4 ) We have a penalty for our sins that we can’t pay, but God did a wonderful thing for us. He sent is Son, who was fully man and fully God to pay the price for our sins. Jesus was to be the perfect sacrifice for us. Jesus, who never sinned, hung on the cross so that we would be made righteous. To accept this payment we must repent and put our faith in Jesus.

Just like repentance is turning from sin, we must have faith in Jesus As one of my team members stressed, when you turn from something you are also turning to something else. We need to turn to Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Jesus said in John 14:6 “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but through me”. It is only through Jesus that our sins are forgiven. People may ask “What about the people that have never heard of Jesus?” It is not that they haven’t heard of Jesus that will send them to Hell; it is the fact that they sinned against God. It is only through Jesus that those sins can be forgiven. In Him (meaning Jesus) we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. Eph. 1:7.

Our Visit

We visited a couple from Church that hasn’t been there in a while and have never been to Sunday school. I went to school with the wife, but never really got to know her husband. I had a preconceived opinion about the husband. I don’t know why but I’ve always seen him as an intimidating type of person. After getting to know a little about him with this visit, I realize that my opinion was without merit. He turned out to be a really nice, down to earth type of guy. This visit taught me a lot about judging others. I didn’t get a chance to talk about their salvation, but we did invite them to join our Sunday school group. Maybe we’ll get a chance to talk more in the near future.

Prayer Request

Pray for our pastor and the group that is in the Philippines. They are currently in a small village where several professions were made when I was there last year. They are currently conducting a Bible school at night and constructing a building during the day. Check out this video that I took one village over about a mile over. Pray also the their families. This is a long trip and very hard for their loved ones.

Week 5

Going into today I was excited. It was an election day and there is a polling place located in the community center across from the Church. Usually there will be people on the Church property holding up signs pushing their candidate or issue. Since they can’t be on the grounds of the polling place, they stand on the sidewalk by the Church. One time I went with another FAITH member and was able to present the gospel to those standing around. We have these “poll questions” that our Church uses to find out how we could better serve the community. The last question is “In your opinion, what do you understand it takes for a person to go to heaven”. If we get anything but a “faith” answer, we present the gospel. Unfortunately this was just a small election and nobody was out pushing for his or her cause, it was just an annexation vote.

Class was good we studied about the “A” in FAITH. A is for available. God’s forgiveness is available to us. It is available to all of us. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Even though it is available to everyone it is not automatic. Jesus says in Matthew 7:21 “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven”. There are a lot of people out there that believe that everyone will be saved or that all religions lead to heaven. They read into John 3:16 and say see He died for all of us, so we all are going to heaven. We need to also look at the “whosoever believeth in him..” This is why the “F” that we studied last week is so important. Every one has sinned and needs forgiveness. That forgiveness is in Jesus only. If we don’t understand our sins, how can we receive or even understand the cure. We compare ourselves too much to other people (horizontally) and not to God and His holy standards (vertically).

In class we also learned that people often ask “How can a loving God send someone to hell?” Again, the need to understand who we are (sinners) and who God is (Holy and Righteous). Like an earthly judge, if a convicted criminal went unpunished then the judge would be corrupt. The same with God, we wouldn’t think that God would let a murder or a rapist go unpunished would we?. How about a lair, a thief, or a blasphemer? When Jesus was talking to Nicodemus in John 3:18, a few verses after John 3:16. He said “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already”. Jesus didn’t come to lead people to hell they are already on their way. He came to save us from it.

Our Visit

We had a ministry visit, the Parsley’s. Mr. Parsley has cancer and has not been able to leave his home for a while now. One of the FAITH teams has been tried to visit with them each week. Last week a FAITH team didn’t visit and they disappointed. Even though a FAITH team didn’t visit, there have still been visits from the pastor and friends during other parts of the week. We had a real good visit and we talked about how we miss them in Church. Mr. Parsley was a little emotional telling us that they miss being in Church. We learned more about them. This is one of the preachers at our Church. The few times I’ve heard him preach, I came away blown away at the talent God has given him. Since his eyes had gotten bad, he couldn’t read the passages out of the bible. He would recite them from memory, word for word. He is a great inspiration for me and I’d bet a lot of people in our Church too. We had an overall good visit. We prayed with them before we left.

Prayer

Pray that Mr. Parsley would get healthy enough to make it to Church again. Pray for the son of my daughter’s teacher. I’ve found out tonight that he had to go in for emergency surgery on his appendix. Pray for my team members both of them work at our school and this is a busy time for them. Pray for the lost and that I’d have more courage about sharing the gospel.

Week 4

This week there were several people out sick. We even had one missing from our team. This weeks lesson was on the F in FAITH. F is for forgiveness. Everyone has sinned and needs God’s forgiveness. The bible says in Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”. Everyone must first realize that we are all sinners. A lot of time we compare ourselves to other people. When we do that we seem to be okay. It is not until we compare ourselves to God and his holy standards, that we realize how bad we are. Just look at God’s law, the 10 commandments. For example, who hasn’t stolen or told a lied. Who has failed to put God first? We also have those secret sins of the heart were God sees hatred as murder and lust as adultery. I can see where I’ve broken every single one of these. If we say that we have not sinned we are calling Jesus a liar (1 John 1:10)because the Bible say “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Even if we’ve kept most of the law we’re still guilty; for whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one [point], he is guilty of all. (see James 2:10)

Once we understand that we are sinners we can understand our need for forgiveness. That forgiveness is in Jesus only. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. (Eph 1:7). It is only through the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross that our sins are paid for. That is what separates Christianity from all the world religions. The world’s religions believe we can work our way their. That penalty it too large for us to pay ourselves, God can’t be bribed. God came down in the form of a man to pay for our sins, that they may be forgiven.

Our Visit

I was assigned to go with Chris and Judy’s team, since both teams were missing people. We were assigned a new resident that lived close to me. There was nobody home, so we went to the neighbor’s house. They didn’t want to talk and said that their child already attended a Church. So we didn’t get to talk to anyone tonight, but it was a success. I got to talk with both Chris and Judy. We had a great time of fellowship.

Prayers

Remember those that were out sick in our FAITH group. Remember my Great-Aunt. She had surgery and ended up with a stroke. Pray that the doctors and family will make the correct decision on how to treat her. Pray for Daniel that I came into contact with the last few days. Pray that I’ll be able to ask about his salvation. He seems to have bible knowledge and be open to spiritual subjects.

Week 3

This is the 3rd week of FAITH and our team is back together. The devil is still hard at work though. There is still sickness in some of our families, but luckily one of the daddy’s stepped in and everyone was able to show up. We started the class, as usual with “Team Time”. Since all my whole team has gone through the class before, we just usually recite the gospel presentation. It taken a few weeks for us to recommit the verses back to memory, but each of use did a great job this week.

During class we learned about the 5 types of visits: evangelistic, follow-up, baptism, ministry, and Opinion Poll. Brother Robert explained each type, what they are used for, and how they are to be conducted. Out of the 5, I believe our team really likes the evangelistic and Opinion Poll visits. My wife’s team, on the other hand, likes to do the ministry visits. See that’s what makes the body of Christ work.

Our Visit

We visited the same couple from week 1. It was a follow-up, one of the 5 types of visits. They have attended the church services each week since we visited. They even brought some guests with them last week. I didn’t have a chance to talk with them last Sunday. They slipped out before I could catch them.

When we arrived at their apartment, they we just setting down for dinner. We didn’t want to interrupt, so we tried to excuse ourselves, but ended up standing at the door talking. We probably stayed longer then we needed too, but they are really interesting people and easy to talk with.

We found that we had a lot of connecting points. Mike worked the power point type program at their last Church and we are in the process of raising money for a projector system. Leslie expressed her need of some help in Algebra and our Pastor’s Assistant has a Masters in math.

We invited them to Sunday school and to a bowling fellowship that is coming up in a couple weeks. We prayed with them and left before their food got any colder.

Prayer Request

Pray for the sickness that is going around in my team’s families, at Church, and at school. Pray that our visit tonight will have an impact for the kingdom of God. Pray for a person that I met on a past visit, that is going through some troubling times. Pray that they will get the help needed; and that God will help our team cross her path so we can show God’s love and protection to her. Pray that I will seek out people to witness to at times other than FAITH.

Dog Food

One of the perks about FAITH is that we have food prepared for us each week. This is done so that we can come straight from work without having to worry about food. Since the beginning of FAITH, there has been a can of dog food on the counter. I don’t why it‘s there, but it has became a little inside joke. One class, as I arrived at Church for FAITH, I noticed the dip and chips on the table didn’t look right. I came to the conclusion that it was the dog food that was normally on the counter, and suppose to be in the can.

Someone was playing a little trick on us. I wanting to have some fun of my own, so I took some German Chocolate cake that was also there, broke it apart padded it back together. This made it slightly resemble the dog food. I added a few of the crackers that were put with the dog food to make it even more convincing, and sat down.

Before anybody could warn me, I took a big bite of what they thought was dog food. I could see the panic as they were trying to warn me, but it was too late. Now, dog food will probably not harm me, unless it was from that China batch a few months ago. For the most part, even if I did eat it, nothing would happen, but people felt compelled to warn me of the mistake I was making. I would even bet that complete strangers would even warn me of the mistake I was making0.

For something that would not seriously harm me there was a strong passion to let me know of my mistake. They thought I wasn‘t informed on what I was eating. How much more should we warn people of the judgment of God. 150,000 people are dying each day and most of them without Christ. They don’t know that if they died today they would go to hell. We need to warn them of the wrath to come and what Jesus did so that they can be saved. If we are truly concerned about people, we should be telling them how to be saved. Not just that they are about to eat something bad, or about to step in some chewing gum on the ground. In the time it took to read this post hundreds have died. Let go and tell people about Christ.

Week 2

It is the second week of FAITH and the devil is hard at work. Both of my team members are out with sick kids, but the “gates of hell will not prevail” (Matthew 16:18). I had two great substitutes. Jared our FAITH encourager and Trish one of my prayers partners. We had a lot of information presented tonight in session 2. We learned of ways to look for witnessing opportunities not only during a FAITH visit, but also in everyday life. We learned two skills that will help us move into a spiritual dialogue with someone; ask open-ended questions and to let people talk about themselves. Last we studied two items that are very important to use during a witness encounter, you evangelistic and Sunday school testimonies. I think Trish was listening to the last part (see Our Visit)

Our Visit

Our scheduled visit was a follow-up from last week. The couple that we talked to in “Week 1” visited the Church and seemed to have a good time. They only visited the worship service, but maybe they’ll attend Sunday school this week. Even though we had that visit scheduled, we had a change of plains. I got a call from my mother today saying that she and my brother would like my team to visit. She said that her, my brother, and my brother girlfriend would be there. This was an answer to my prayers for this is something I have been praying about for a while. I don’t know what it is, but it is harder to witness to your own family. This is a burden that I’ve had for a long time. None of us would want anyone to perish much less a family member. I just wanted them to know for sure that they have eternal life through Jesus Christ. I was very nervous, but thankful during the couple hours leading up to the visit. Before we got there I warned my team that they would probably get hugs from my mother. You see she’s a hugger. God comforted and relaxed me as we arrived. After we got the hugs out of the way, told you she was a hugger, we had a chance to talk. The “key question” was asked, “In your personal opinion what do you understand that it takes for a person to go to heaven”. My mother gave a faith answer and my brother and his girlfriend both gave an “I don’t know” answer.

I presented the gospel, spending what seemed like too much time on the forgiveness part. I felt as if I was going in circles, but I wanted to make sure it was clear and that they understood. My brother has a story similar to mine. He made what seemed like a decision for Christ, but there was not fruit or there was no new creature (2 Cr 5:17). We talked a little more answering Brian’s questions. Trish gave her Sunday school testimony; she must have been listening in class because her testimony was very good. We prayed and invited all of them to Sunday school. I hope that they will be there

Prayer Request

Pray that God uses His words tonight and that souls will be saved. I pray that Brian and his girlfriend could see the sincerity and love that I have for them. That they understand their condition (Romans 3:16) and that God has redeemed the through Jesus Christ (Eph 1:7, John 3:16). Pray that God will give my mother strength to make it to Church. Pray that I stay humble and give God the credit for all that he does and He continues to comfort me in times when I’m scared to share the gospel. Please pray form my team and their family. One last prayer is for the recovery the Larson’s son.

Week 1

This is the first week of FAITH this semester. We have our teams. Sherry and Alice are on my team again this time. We were together last semester, and I believe we work together well. I am looking forward to a great semester.

We also have new material. FAITH has just totally revamped their material. We learned the new outline last semester, so we had a little jump on the new stuff. This first week’s lesson was in introduction showing the importance of the “Great Commission” and how to gain power over our fears. One way we do that is through prayer. Not just our prayer but the prayers of our prayer partners. As in Exodus 17 were Moses stood with his hands in the air. As long as his hands were up the people of Israel would not fail, but when he dropped them they started to lose the battle. This is where Aaron and Hur helped by helping him hold his hands in the air. Prayer partners you are my Aaron and Hur. You are my support when I’m on visits. As long as you are praying for us, and our visits, I have total confidence that God will do wonderful things. Think about it. If all three of my team members have at least two people praying for us, that is nine people for our team.

Our Visit
Our visit was a couple that just moved here from Huston, TX. Their names are Mike and Leslie. Mike is auto body repair technician at a local dealer. Leslie is in the Nursing program at UALR. Leslie’s mother called Robert today and asked if someone could go by and visit with them. Leslie’s mother lives in Lonoke, but heard about Victory and thought that Mike and Leslie my like it here. They have visited some other local Churches in the area, but didn’t feel connected. When we go on visits our whole goal is the see if the person is saved and if not share the gospel with them. When we got there, they were expecting us and waiting out side. We were invited in and had good conversations about work, school, family, and church. I had a lot in common with Mike. He’s a painter and I’ve done some body work and finishing work in woodworking is real similar to what he does.

We ask the “Key Question” In your personal opinion, what do you understand it take for a person to go to heaven?’ If we get anything but a faith answer we share the gospel. We didn’t need to share the gospel on this visit. Mike gave, probably the strongest faith answer I’ve heard. His answer was pretty much the gospel in itself. Ending with Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved”. So instead of the gospel we invited them to Sunday School and our “Wii Party” on Friday. So if you see them make them feel welcome. They seemed very interested in attending both the party and Sunday School

Prayer Request
Pray for me during the week to have confidence in having a “life witness” (to share my faith during the week). Pray that my attitude will be correct on Tuesday’s and that I don’t get prideful, I need to remember that God gets the glory for what happens on Tuesday’s and during the week. Pray for Mike and Leslie that they will find a Church that they feel at home and can grow in the Lord.