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.

High Schoolers, and Korean DTS students

As the school year has come to an end, we finished another year of evangelism with one of our local Christian high schools. Every other week for the course of the school year we have taken these students out to do evangelism on college campuses and in our city. We look forward to next school year working with them again.

This past month we had the opportunity to take our Korean DTS students out to do evangelism. This is always a challenge given the language barrier, but with a few interpreters we got to see these students step out in boldness to proclaim the gospel. In two weeks they leave for Asia for their 2 month outreach.

Two Birthdays and a Visit from Grandpa and Grandma

From mid April to mid May my folks were in town. They sure got their fill of grandkid time. The above picture is of the first evening they were here the kids put on a home made circus for them. May also saw two birthdays as Aidan turned 15 and Abby turned 13. Time is flying bye. Our two kids who were born in the nation of Finland are now in their teens!

Aidan turned 15 on May 6th. He is our wrestler, life of the party kid.

Abby turned 13 on May 8th. She is our bookworm and baker.

Monthly Temple Talk and Toolbox

In April we took people to a Progressive New Thought church. It is by far one of the most frustrating Temple Talks I have had in a while. If your not familiar with Religous Science, please get familiar with it as it is growing all across the nation. Pray for Rev, Maur, the man who is the pastor there. Our temple talks continue to be eye opening for believers as they intentionally hear about other religions and see how much the gospel is needed in our city. At the end of May, we will be taking people to a Mosque in town for our next Temple Talk. Pray. 

This month at the Toolbox I led a training time on "The Art of Conversation. How to start, maintain, and end conversations about Jesus."  We had a great turn out and I think it went very well. Pray for these monthly equipping times at the Toolbox. 

USS Repentance Mayden Voyage...Amazing and Frustrating

USS Repentance on a college campus

Me sitting with Stephen. Please lift him up in prayer.

In April, I finally found the time to take the USS Repentance out for her mayden voyage at the local college. I have to admit, Iv'e never felt more weird, akward, and judged than when I came dragging a massive boat into the middle of a college campus. The look started immediately. I prayed. Lord, for your glory use this ridiculous boat to bring people to you. Within 5 minutes, after a nudging from my co worker, a young 21 year old guy named Stephen approached me. "Hey man, mind if I shared with you a story of my life using this boat as a metaphor.?" I asked. With a chuckle, he responded, "Sure".  He sat in the boat, and for the next hour, I shared with him my story, and the gospel. He asked questions, we had great conversation and I could tell God was working. And then, to my amazement, Stephen prayed to receive Christ as His Lord and Savior. This was the first conversation I had in the boat. I was in shock and blown away by the faithfulness of the Lord.  There is more though. If I could say how a "textbook" salvation should be, it would have been this one. All the stars alined, Stephen seemed to be very serious about it, understood it, etc. Signs of a true repentant heart were there. He even texted me the very next day, asked for my churches address, and said he would be there on Sunday. He took a Bible from me, and we had arranged to begin to meet every Monday to study it together. He was also interested in plugging into a college ministry group on campus. I was overjoyed.......that is until Sunday came and Stephen never showed up. I have not heard from him since that day. I have called, texted, etc... This to me is one of the most frustrating things about evangelism. You simply never know the fruits of it, even thought at first the fruits appear like they are real. Was Stephen serious? I think and hope so...it sure seemed so. Do I feel like I may have been "given the slip" by a nice guy who just was being nice? Maybe. Am I bothered that what appeared to have been a real salvation, may not of been? Absolutely. Do I ask myself a million questions about this conversation, how it went, why he seemed so genuine, only to ignore me after? You better believe it. Does it cause me to ponder the working of God in evangelism, how He works, what does true salvation look like? Yes. Has thus type of "thing" happened to me before? Countless. Am I able to figure it all out this side of eternity? Nope. Will this deter me from doing evangelism. Never. Why? Because I measure my effectiveness in evangelism through my obedience, not the fruits of my obedience. Will I take the USS Repentance out again. Absolutely. Have I seen people who did not seem genuine at all in praying to receive Christ end up being bold followers of Jesus? Yep. I say this all to highlight that God works in ways we cannot understand. I truly hope Stephen came to know Jesus. Fact is, to this day Im not sure why he never responded. He could have lost his phone, he could have had some big life issue come up?  He could of even died. I have no idea, I have not seen him. I pray wherever he is, he is following Jesus, and I will continue to proclaim the name of Christ to the lost, even if I question it in its results and applications all the time.  So if you've ever experienced the same, I want to encourage you. Stay true to the proclamation of the gospel. Let the Spirit do His work in the lives of all you speak with, trusting Him and how He is working.