Face to Face Evangelism Internship

Last week we started our Face to Face Internship. We have 6 interns, from all walks of life. Nate in the picture above is a corrections officer who wants to learn how to talk to people about Jesus better. We have a senior pastor, a youth pastor, a retired lady who runs a women's ministry, and the leader of a local college outreach program all doing our internship. We are so excited about this and already are hearing fantastic feedback from our interns. It is going to be a very busy summer running these internships, at the same time as leading weekly evangelism for our Summer DTS students as well as Mission Adventures students. Bring on the coffee. 

All Hands on Deck on a YWAM Campus

Being part of YWAM Salem is such a blessing. One of the reasons for this is I am forced to look outside of Gospel Focus many times and serve the YWAM Campus in many different ways. One of them, is I sit on our leadership team which requires quite a few hats. But one of the great things about being in a community like this, is how we can all help each other when needed. Last week we helped pour a new concrete slab for our Ropes course on our campus and it was a fun time, as you can tell by the above picture, we will do whatever we need to do to make things work!  Jeff and Fred in the above picture are legends here. Jeff has planted over 15 Ropes courses all over the world, and Fred has served faithfully in our maintenance department for years. I learn a tone from guys like these. Mentorship for free!

Pulpit to Pavement

In June we hosted another Pulpit to Pavement outreach. I believe we had about 15 pastors show up and we had an amazing time of fellowship and evangelism. One of the highlights of this day was when a very skeptical pastor of evangelism came, and by the end of the day, he was so encouraged  and even convicted about his heart towards evangelism. Another highlight was that one of the pastors who came, has signed up to be one of our interns for our Face to Face Evangelism Internship! How amazing that a senior pastor would do this with us! We are so blessed every time we do Pulpit to Pavement and we look forward to the next one in the fall time. 

Some of the pastors who joined in on the day

Berry Picking and a Birthday

Oregon is an amazing place to live....in the summer. :)  We have been having a great time on weekends picking blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc. The other day in about an hour we picked 48 pounds of blueberries. I wish I could say that will last us for a long time, but not so lucky. I give it a few days and they will be gone. I blame the kids.  In June we also celebrated our little Annie Rose and her 8th birthday. 

Annie Rose on her birthday

Face to Face Evangelism Internship

We are excited to start a new component in our ministry. This month, we will be starting a 12 week evangelism internship for people in our city. I am SUPER excited to see this thing started. The internship is designed to accomodate the busy lives of normal people, and will be a great asset to our city. We are matching people up with mentors from Gospel Focus who will walk alongside them the full 12 weeks. In the internship they will do 12 hours of evangelism, Temple Talks, follow up meetings, training times, memorize scripture, and even develop their own personal gospel tract. Debriefing times, and personal interaction with lost people will make this a super unique experience. We have a few people who will be our "guniea pigs" as we try this out, and our hope is that this grows into a thriving program in our city! Pray as we begin to put things in place for it. My hope is to see people who come through this and complete it then begin to take others through it. Multiplication is the idea!

Toolbox and Temple Talk

For Mays Toolbox we had a man from a ministry called "Be Bold Ministries" come and share his testimony. He was an ex gang member who came to know Christ and know runs a ministry which reaches out to gang members. This guy was shot 4 times and stabbed 11 times! His word was very encouraging and challenging to all who listened. 

Our Temple Talk this month was at the Salem Islamic Center. As it was Ramadan, we decided it appropriate to engage our Muslim friends in discussion. Turn out was less than excpected, but the discussion was deep and rich none the less. 

UFO Festival Recap

Our "Phone Home" outreach at the UFO festival went fantastic, thank you so much for your prayers! We had around 20 people join us in the outreach, and we literally hand hundreds of conversations through the day. The above picture is of our "Mother Ship" tent. All day long, we had people lined up to ask us questions about their spiritual beliefs. Hundreds of people heard the gospel!  One young lady surrendered her life to Christ, and so many seeds were planted in the hearts of people. We spoke to Satanists, Gnostics, Atheists, Pantheists, etc...the list could go on and on. For me, one of the highlights of the day was seeing a guy from a local church take a huge step and simply talk to one person. That was a huge thing for him to break out of his comfort zone and talk to a stranger. He did it! I love being able to walk alongside people in their journey of evangelism. 

Some of us were able to gather for a picture. Literally impossible to gather all those involved because of all the ministry going on!

Pastor friend of mine joined us. We had around 12 people from our home church join us. It was awesome!

One of the many thousands of different characters at the festival.