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.