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.