Tomorrow (Sat., 06Feb10) I have the great privilege of marrying Joel and Irene, a young couple from my church. I would like to ask all who pray for us to keep us before the Lord both today and tomorrow because I will be speaking to the people during the ceremony about the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Joel and Irene are faithful members of Eastside church and have both been out on the streets witnessing to people about Jesus Christ (Joel, Irene and Irene again). They have a heart for God and they are committed to following Him in their marriage. So, they’re starting out on the right foot by using their wedding as an opportunity to witness to lost family members and friends.

Please pray today (Friday) for us as we pull together the final preparations. Joel and Irene are busy with all the details of the ceremony and whatnot; I will be finishing up the message I’ll be preaching (using Ephesians 5 to speak of Christ in the context of marriage, and then explaining the gospel beginning with the Law, then explaining the cross and man’s required response of repentance and faith).

The wedding will begin around 9:00am tomorrow. Thank you for praying for us!

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. [Ephesians 6.18-20]

Raul has been with our church and ministry for years, and he and his wife are very faithful members who are growing in discipleship and in their walk with God. Raul heads up our jail ministry (you can see a couple photos of Raul in the maximum security wing below). He and several others from our church minister to both men and women in several jails in the San José area. Raul also has a heart for young people who are growing up in poverty, surrounded by crime and other bad influences like drugs and alcohol.

During the next several months, Raul and his wife will be making several short-term (one- to two-week) trips to Nicaragua to continue to seek the Lord’s direction. Their desire is to minister in an area called Masaya and to work with the prisoners in the jails in Tipitapa (just outside Managua).

If you remember Raul, please pray for him, that God would confirm this new direction or close the door completely. I’ll do my best to keep you all informed as to what’s going on.

Thank you very much.

~Greg

I would love to be able to visit with as many of you as I can, so if you would like to make some plans (especially the churches in the area that support us and/or pray for us), please contact me as soon as you can so we can set dates and times.

Thanks!

~Greg

A few of us from church went out to meet with Giovani on Saturday. It’s about an hour west from San José, up and over the mountains (beautiful country). We had a great time of fellowship with Giovani and his wife, Laura. They have a fairly new work (about a year old) and have just moved into a new building in center of their small town (population: 5,000). They have a desire to not only reach their town, but to also be a blessing to the even smaller towns surrounding them — they hope to work with local pastors in evangelism, encouragement, etc.

We are going to be teaming up with Giovani on Friday, February 19th, for an area-wide outreach activity. They have a beautiful, newly renovated public park that we are going to use. The idea is to have some music and other activities to draw in the folks from town, and in then share with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ll be spending the better part of the day going door-to-door inviting people, both in town and in the surrounding area. Then around 6:00 p.m. we’ll get the activity in the park started.

Obviously, we covet your prayers, specifically for the following:

1. That we would be faithful to sow much seed preaching the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16.15).
2. That God would bless us with much fruit through the preaching of the Gospel (1Cor 1.18, 21; Rom 10.17).
3. That pastor Giovani would be open to establishing a biblical discipleship ministry in order to establish his people in the faith (2Tim 2.2; Php 4.9).

Thank you! ~Greg

Four of us from Eastside Church went: Jorge “el pelón,” Andrés (the guy who runs our soccer field), Stephanie (and recent college graduate from the States living here now, and teaching at my kids’ school), and myself. The trip down there and back was long but without incident, thankfully.

JuanCa selected a neighborhood close to the church where we preached open-air last year. He invited folks from his church in Jesús-María and also from the church he started and pastors in Labrador (about 15 west of Jesús-María). We basically had an open-air church service. While folks got the sound system set up, me and mine went door to door inviting the people to the activity (and leaving tracts with them). And then JuanCa started with prayer, singing, testimonies, etc. and I wrapped it up with a message on Christ, the Gospel and salvation. It was a wonderful time! We had well over 50 people present.

There is one testimony I’d like to share with you: When JuanCa announced the outreach event this last Sunday in church, a lady came up to him afterward. She had been in his church most of the past year, and her husband had even started coming with her. They are now regular attenders and members of JuanCa’s church there in Jesús-María. She told JuanCa that she was in church because of that outreach event in that very same barrio last year. She didn’t want to come out of her house (being timid and a little shy and ashamed), but she sat in her house listening to everything — the songs, the prayer, and the Gospel message. She got save that night last year and has been faithfully attending church ever since. He somewhat “problematic” husband eventually came around, too, and is also a faithful member with her. All I have to say about this is what Paul said:

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. . . . For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. [1Cor 1.18-21]

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. [Rom 10.17]

This will be the last update letter of the year. The next time I write, we will be well into 2010! This last year was a year of slow growth, and we have plans to continuing growing (maybe a little faster?) in 2010.

2009: The Big News Is Leadership Development

This year we began a specific focus on leadership development here at Eastside Church. God has given us many men that are potential leaders in the Lord’s work, and it was time they challenge themselves to grow through the next stage of discipleship (leadership development). I taught several of the men a class on personal Bible study methods and expository preaching, and then I turned over the mid-week Bible study to them. As always, growth is “slow and painful,” but it’s also “slow and sure.” They have grown considerably through the systematic study and preaching of God’s Word.

We have also seen several people get involved in discipleship under the leadership of Simón. I turned the discipleship ministry over to Simón earlier this year, and he has done a fantastic job coordinating and leading this key area of our church. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for him in the near future.

2010: What Are We Looking For Next Year?

A Building. One of the changes we made in the leadership structure in the church was in the area of administration. I now have the help of four capable men! They got the legal aspects of the church all up to date, and are working on getting things squared away at the bank. We’re hoping that this year we can buy a place of our own, a “home for our church family.” We would appreciate your prayers for this.

A Discipleship Philosophy. Many of you know that I put together some discipleship materials that we (and other Hispanic ministries) are using. It’s good material, and we are very pleased with it. But, I’m not satisfied with the overall “philosophy” of how we view and approach the ministry of discipleship. So, this year, one of my goals is to study out discipleship and then put together some teaching material on a biblical philosophy of making disciples. I think that will help people to see their personal part in the Great Commission and help them also to see how they can participate in the work.

An English Service. For a long time I’ve thought about the idea of doing an English service on Sundays or an English Bible study during the week, and I think 2010 will be the year we start that. I have several native English speakers that are close to the ministry here, and it may also draw in some others that want to “practice” their English. Be looking for the announcement on the web site because I plan to make the audios available each week.

Evangelism. Discipleship. Preaching. In 2010, Lord willing, we will continue to evangelize intentionally, disciple those the Lord gives us, and preach the Bible expositionally. The rainy season is almost over, and we should have a couple of months of good weather for street work. I’m looking forward to that! (I would love to get down to Panama this year and preach on the university campuses. There are fourteen major universities down there, and I think it would be wonderful to go and talk to the students and professors about the Lord. If you would, pray about that with me.) Simón will continue as leader of our discipleship ministry, and we’ll be working together on the development of a solid, biblical philosophy of discipleship. And, as I finish up our Sunday series on Systematic Theology in January, we are planning on starting a series on the Book of Leviticus. Those of you who have heard teaching on Leviticus know what an incredible book it is, and I’d like to share that blessing with my people (feed God’s sheep!).

Thank you all very much for your prayers, friendship, and support. In August of 2010 we will have been in Latin America for fifteen years. KCBT sent us out in August of 1995, and the Lord (through you guys and your faithful support and prayers) has kept us here for almost fifteen years. He’s good! And you, our friends, family, and supporters, have been faithful. Thank you all very much!

Greg & Sue Kedrovsky

Dear friends and family,

Thank you all for your continued prayer, friendship, and support. God is doing some wonderful things here in the ministry. I would like to share everything with you, but space will not permit. Here are a few of the more salient things going on:

Leadership Development

God is bearing some visible fruit here in the area of leadership development. As many of you know, I have been working closely with four men (Carlos, Simón, Alex, and Ronald) to help them grow into the role of elders, and hopefully in the future form a pastoral team here at Eastside Church. Two of the men are deacons and the other two are qualified to be such but need to exhibit a bit more “visible” maturity in order to gain more confidence with the congregation.

They all, however, have begun to take some significant steps in showing leadership ability in the church. One key area in which they have done so lately is the administration of the church. They will be taking over the daily administering of the church and all that that entails: the legal functions, finances, etc. This is a huge step, especially when one considers that they initiated it. They are beginning to think like a team of leaders and as they administer the church they will be just that much more “visible” as leaders before the congregation. I cannot tell you how content I am with all of this. It is a big step and I give all credit to the Lord who is forming the right character in the right men.

Discipleship Ministries

This is another area of the ministry where God is bearing visible fruit in many ways. First and foremost is Simón, one of the four leaders I mentioned above. Simón is heading up all of our discipleship ministries now and continues to impress me with his heart for people and the Bible. He is a gifted, motivated, and very capable young man. Since January of this year he has successfully organized, administered, and “pastored” every aspect of discipleship at Eastside Church (he has even taken the initiative to visit other ministries and expose them to biblical discipleship).

Simón is working closely with another young man, Jorge, that could soon be an “up-and-coming” leader. Jorge is leading and teaching a small discipleship group of about ten people, and he is doing a fantastic job! He is a gifted teacher and is open to the Lord’s leading in his life in other areas of “pastoral” ministry. Pray for Jorge, that the Lord would do a wonderful work of grace in his life, maturing him into the leader He wants him to be.

The Web Site

I have on a couple occasions shared a little with you about the far-reaching impact the Lord has given us through our simple web site. Well, it seems we have another young man, Nicolás, that God has provided to take over this aspect of the ministry here (I have been maintaining the web site up until now). Nicolás is sharp when it comes to web design and he is a growing man of God. He has put together an entirely new site that will be more interactive with the people we come in contact with through the Internet. It all goes on-line this week! This is a key area for our ministry and God has used it to bear much fruit in the teaching and preaching of His Word. Now it looks like He is going to use it to develop a young leader, Nicolás.

2Timothy 2.2

“And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.“

It is very evident that God is giving us the privilege of seeing some “replacements” being raised up in our ministry. Just as Paul instructed Timothy to pass on what he had received from the Apostle, this has always been our desire: to pass on the ministry to men and women capable of leading it either with us or in our place.

So, what does all this mean for us? Well, for the time being, nothing (outside of being pretty happy and content with the work the Lord is doing). There is still much more work to do and much more growth needed in the leadership here. But, it is happening and that is great to see! Soon (in a year or two?)  I believe I will be able to move out of my capacity as “founding pastor” and, Lord willing, continue as a “teaching pastor” working with a pastoral team of other men. This would be very healthy for the church and allow me to dedicate more time to several ministry needs that seem to become more and more pressing each day.

One of the greatest needs throughout all of Latin America is theological training (on all levels: from the street to the congregation to the pastor’s study). And that is where my passion lies. I would love to be able to come alongside my brothers and sisters in Christ and, through teaching and training, help them grow in biblical, Christ-centered ministry so that we can all be more effective in fulfilling the Great Commission to “evangelize to make disciples and disciple to make evangelists.” Please continue to pray for us as we continue to labor for our Lord here and seek His direction for the near future!

Greg & Sue Kedrovsky

Many of you know that we try to make all of our resources available free of charge on our church’s web site (www.iglesia-del-este.com). Much of the Spanish-speaking world either lives in poverty and/or in areas of the world where the conventional mail systems are either non-existent or terribly unreliable. Therefore all of our books, discipleship materials, tracts, expository sermons, Bible studies, etc. are available for free download in either PDF (for written documents) or mp3 (for audio). It’s one of the easiest ways to reach people in need and God has blessed this area of our ministry since we started it.

Here is a small example of what the Lord is doing with our “homemade” web site (I built it and maintain it with WordPress; it’s nothing fancy, nothing professional and certainly nothing that couldn’t be improved upon).

• The “Page View Report” from Google Analytics from the last week shows that we hit a milestone. Over 2000 page views in one day! (There were over 35,000 in the last week, but to have over 2,000 in one day is a new “record” for the site.)
• The “GeoMap Report” shows the countries from where those hits and views came. Thirty-nine different countries from all over the world!

I’m sure the “big dogs” (the “mega-churches”) get a whole lot more hits than that, but we are very encouraged that God is using our ministry here to reach so many in so many different places in the world. We are thankful to be part (even though it’s a small part) of what the Lord is doing!

For all you who pray for us and support the ministry, just know that your investment is paying off. And it’s not because of anything we are doing. Our investment is in the Great Co-Mission — a mission we do in cooperation, one with another. We all have had a part to play in the people reached through the ministries of Eastside Church in San José, Costa Rica. Thank you! And let’s take some time today or tomorrow to thank God for the great privilege of participating in what He’s doing around the world.

• Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we spent all day, each day, on the streets in downtown Cartago and also going house to house with our Revista. It was a lot of walking (and we have more than one blister… sore muscles… and stories of mad dogs…) but by Friday afternoon we had passed out 10,000 of our Revistas. Each day we had a big turnout of people from the church wanting to participate, and many had several witness encounters because of the event. I think sometimes we don’t witness simply because we’re not out witnessing! The Revista gave us an “excuse” and a tool to get out on the streets and meet people. You can’t do something like that without several folks asking you, “Hey, what’s this?” And that turns quickly into an opportunity to witness!
• Today (Saturday) another good group turned out to witness to people on the streets of downtown Cartago one more time. We had about 2,000 tracts between us (million dollar bills, Chick tracts, etc.) and so we divided them up between everyone and hit the farmers market to pass them out. We even found a place to preach, so I got up on the Coke crate, drew a crowd with five one-dollar bills, and we were off and running with the “good test” open-air!

I want to thank everybody that took time out to pray for us. God is willing to save anyone and everyone, and He’s willing to use anyone and everyone who will submit to His will and just go, seek the lost, and offer them salvation through the preaching of the Cross of Christ. But, if we don’t pray, God will often leave us to ourselves — ye have not, because ye ask not [James 4.2]. Thank you for asking on our behalf!

We need to replenish our resources in order to print up more materials before we head up to Heredia (the capital city of the province called Heredia). We’ve been up there before to the university, but we want to take 10,000 Revistas and go house to house, along with 20 packets for the pastors of the local churches up there. So, I’d like to ask you to continue to pray for us, that God would provide so that we might continue reaching out to the lost and to pastors who need God and His Word.

Thank you! ~Greg

Please pray for us!

We’re using the same strategy that we used last month in Alajuela (which many of you remember). Here are links to the updates I gave on Alajuela, if you’d like to see what we’re planning on doing in Cartago:

• Alajuela: First Day
• Alajuela: Third Day
• Alajuela: Last Day
• Alajuela: The team
• Alajuela: One-on-one witnessing
• Alajueal: Open-air preaching

We have 10,000 “Mission Edition” Revistas boxed up and ready to go — all of them are designated for Cartago. And we have 20 or so of our “pastors packets” to give out to the pastors of the evangelical churches we come across while passing out the Revista.

It looks like God’s given us a great team to work with, too. Here’s a list of the people committed to going and evangelizing in Cartago:

• Simón, Silvia, Cai, Alex Trejos, Alex “Bimbo”, Salem (who headed up the Alajuela project), Johnny, Jorge Céspedes, Gianina, Pablo, Jessy, and Jorge “Pelón.”

Planning and execution on this project is shared: Simón has done all the front-loading with logistics, planning, coordination, etc. and he will likely be working with Alex (Bimbo) out in Cartago to “herd the cats” and see the project finished.

Here are some verses we’re praying for Cartago this week:

Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. [Col 4.2-4]

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel. [Eph 6.18-19]

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. [1Cor 3.6-7]

For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee. [Titus 1.5]

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. [1Cor 10.31]

Thank you for praying with us this week! ~Greg

1. The 7 Sevens
2. The 7 Dispensations
3. The 7 Mysteries
4. The 7 Judgments
5. The 7 Resurrections
6. The 7 Baptisms
7. The 7 Covenants

It also includes seven different appendices that contain a bunch more information on the following topics:

1. The universal flood of Lucifer’s rebellion
2. The 430 years of Abraham’s dispensation
3. A comparison of the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church
4. Hell & Paradise: Where the dead go
5. The Tree of Life
6. Blood
7. The Four Gospels

As always, even though by law I hold the copyright to my books, we offer them free of charge (free to download in PDF) and we grant permission to anyone to make as many copies of the books as they want. It’s simply impossible to ship books by normal mail in Latin America. The mail system is terrible (in some cases it doesn’t even exist) and the cost is prohibitive. But, most people have access to the Internet and can download a PDF to either read it on-line or print it out at a photocopy shop, or even on their printers at home (which is one reason why I write my books on 8.5×11-inch, letter-sized paper).

We still have several more books to proof, correct, format, and publish (as eBooks). So, please continue to pray for us! Thanks! ~Greg

2009_03_March_Kedrovsky_Newsletter.pdf

If you’d prefer to read it on-line… here it is!

———————————————

Dear friends and family,

This year has started out great! God has given us new witnessing opportunities and He is also working among the leadership of our church to begin pulling together a pastoral team of elders. Let’s talk about the latter first.

Elders: A Pastoral Team

This year God is leading us as a church body to begin forming a pastoral team of “elders.” There are four men in particular that I will be working with in the coming months to prepare them for pastoral-level ministry—to prepare them as leaders and pastors of Eastside Church.

We’ll be meeting together in order to study key passages in Scripture that deal with “elders” (pastors) and their qualifications and responsibilities. I will also be sharing the pulpit with them on a more regular basis while leaning on them more and more for ministry-related decisions.

For the next several months I’ll still be what many refer to as a “senior pastor” (actually, right now, I’m the only pastor!), but our hope and desire is to establish these four men as elders—as a pastoral team—and then work together as equals in the ministry of Eastside Church.

This will be a very healthy change for everyone involved. With Costa Rican elders/pastors, the church will become more “Tico” (more Costa Rican) and less “gringo” (less like me, a North American). The plurality of leadership will also allow for better accountability among the leaders and pastors (myself included) and it will mean a better use of resources—each of us has strengths and weaknesses, and so we can lead better together as a team than if we each worked as individuals.

Please pray for us as we focus on putting into practice the principles found in such key passages of Scripture as 2Timothy 2.2 and Acts 20.28-32. God desires to establish a team of elders to pastor His church (Titus 1.5), and we are committed to working toward that goal.

Strategic Outreach

This year we are also striving to reach all of Costa Rica with the Gospel and with sound Bible teaching. One of the greatest needs here (and in all of Latin America) is that of sound doctrine, both in evangelism and church life. To that end we are planning to strategically reach out to all of Costa Rica.

Our country is made up of seven Provinces (like States in the U.S.) and each Province has its capital city. The Provinces are divided up into “cantones” (like counties) and the cantones are made up of districts. Our plan is to first reach each capital city of each of the seven Provinces and then begin working our way out to the more rural areas of the cantones and districts.

We plan to take 10,000 copies of our Revista (a biblical presentation of the Gospel in a newsletter format) and 20 “pastor packets” to each of the capital cities. The packets for pastors include a book on how to study the Bible, some key discipleship material, and a letter giving them thanks for what they do and offering them whatever help we can.

On our web site you can see some pics and videos of our first outing to the capital city of Alajuela (links below). Next on the list, for March, is San José and then in April we hope to be in Cartago.

• alajuela-outreach-first-day
• alajuela-outreach-third-day
• alajuela-outreach-last-day
• alajuela-videos-meet-the-team
• alajuela-videos-one-on-one
• alajuela-videos-open-air

Please pray that God would grant revival among the lost (to save many) and also a “revival” among pastors—a revival of sound doctrine and hunger for the Word of God.

Support Needs

In our last update letter, I mentioned our critical need to raise our monthly support. I’ve been blessed with two great opportunities since then to visit two key churches in the States. However, we continue to have the same needs. We thank all of you for continuing to pray for us, and I’d like to ask that you’d pray specifically for God’s grace to keep us patient while we wait on His provision or His direction.

Thank you all very much for your friendship, prayers, and support. God has used you guys to keep us here and we appreciate you and your faithfulness!

Greg & Sue Kedrovsky

]]> http://www.greg-and-sue.com/2009/03/16/update-letter-march-2009/feed/ 0 http://www.greg-and-sue.com/2009/03/09/alajuela-videos-open-aire/ http://www.greg-and-sue.com/2009/03/09/alajuela-videos-open-aire/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:00:13 +0000 greg http://www.greg-and-sue.com/?p=676 After a spending the morning in the Farmers Market passing out tracts and witenssing to folks one-on-one, we decided to try to preach open-air. The people were very “dispersed” but God gave Salem a very good group, and the preaching went very, very well. You can see it all in the three videos below (each is about 10 minutes long).

• Part 1 [Low-resolution flv | Higher-resolution mpeg4]
• Part 2 [Low-resolution flv | Higher-resolution mpeg4]
• Part 3 [Low-resolution flv | Higher-resolution mpeg4]

• Part 1 [Low-resolution flv | High-resolution mpeg4]
• Part 2 [Low-resolution flv | High-resolution mpeg4]

• Introduction [low-resolution flv | higher resolution mpeg4]
• Lunch [low-resolution flv | higher resolution mpeg4]

I will be leaving tomorrow (Monday) for a week at the annual KCBT missions conference. Please pray for us during the week and a half I’ll be away from the ministry here in Costa Rica…

• …that God would protect my family and provide for them,
• …that He would do His good and perfect will at the KCBT conference,
• …that He would use the opportunity to help us raise support (if that be what the Lord desires; many of you know we are in need of raising our monthly support if we are to continue in the same capacity in the ministry here).

Afterward, we took a break, had lunch, and then headed over to the central park where we planned to open-air preach as Mass let out. We found out that the church had been damaged in the last earthquake, and wasn’t open until later on… so no preaching in front of the Catholic church this time around. There were lots of people in the park, though (it was a beautiful evening), so we finished up by passing out more tracts and witnessing to more people.

We had a great week and we want to thank all of you who were praying for us! We are in so much need of revival here in Costa Rica (and Latin America) — we need a revival in evangelism (a revival among lost souls, and a revival of biblical evangelism) and we need a revival among God’s people (especially the pastors and leaders of local churches: May they hunger and thirst for righteousness!).

I shot about an hour of video Saturday. Below are the links to an eight-minute summary of the day. I’ll be posting the rest of video in ten-minute segments later this week and next.

Here are the links to the quick, summary video (it’s the same video, just different formats):

• Flash video out on Blip.tv (you can click the image above to get here, too).
• High Resolution mpeg4 (best quality)
• Low Resolution mpeg4
• Ogg Video (for Penguin people)

Please continue to ask the Lord for revival in Alajuela and Costa Rica — revival among the lost (that they might be soundly saved) and revival in the church (a revival of sound doctrine; a revival among the pastors that would lead them to a profound desire to read and study Scripture, and feed their sheep with sound, biblical exposition of the Word of God)

Here are the links to the video (it’s the same video, just different formats):

• Flash video out on Blip.tv (you can click the image above to get here, too).
• High Resolution mpeg4 (best quality)
• Low Resolution mpeg4
• Ogg Video (for all you Linux Geeks)

Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine… Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. [1Tim 4.13-16]

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. [Hos 4.6]

It was a lot of walking, so by the end of the video you can see the loooooong faces. But, God was good and opened a lot of doors for us. We actually bumped into several pastors on the streets (two of which pastor two of the most popular non-catholic churches in Alajuela).

Here are the links to the video (it’s the same video, just different formats):

• Flash video out on Blip.tv (you can click the image above to get here, too).
• High Resolution mpeg4
• Low Resolution mpeg4
• Ogg Video for all you Linux Geeks

The event: Intentional evangelism and pastoral outreach. From Monday, February 16th, through Saturday, February 21st, several of us will be in the city of Alajuela all day, everyday. We put together a “missions edition” of our Revista newsletter; it’s designed to be a complete and biblical presentation of the Gospel, and also a tool to offer help and resources to church leaders and pastors (e.g. our Biblical Discipleship program, seminars, workshops, etc.).

We printed up 10,000 of the Revista to take to Alajuela along with about 20 of our “pastor packages” (a small gift for pastors in the area that includes my book How to Study the Bible, Mark Cahill’s book One Think You Can’t Do in Heaven, some key discipleship material, and examples of our Gospel tracts — my son, Kevin, is holding one of the packs in the picture).

• We will be going door-to-door with the Revista, passing it out on the streets, and giving it away after open-air preaching.
• Saturday the 21st we will be evangelizing at the Farmers Market in the morning (preaching, witnessing, passing out the Revista and tracts), and then in the evening we are planning on doing some open-air preaching in the central park after Mass lets out.

The area: Alajuela. The city of Alajuela (population: 50,000; about 10 miles northwest of San José) is the capital city of the Province of Alajuela (population: 700,000). A province in Costa Rica is like a state in the USA — we have seven, as you can see in the map (click to enlarge).

• Obviously, with only 10,000 Revistas and 20 “pastor packages,” we will not even make a small dent in the reaching Alajuela with the Gospel and sound doctrine. But, we are committed to do what we can with the resources God has give us. So, we’re asking for your prayers — that you would ask God to get the literature into the hands of those who need it, and that He would use it save the lost and bring the saved to a sound knowledge of the truth of Scripture.

The need in Costa Rica. I’ll have more to say about this later on, during the course of the year, but let me just say this for now…

• The glaring need in Costa Rica (and, frankly, in all of Latin America) is sound doctrine — biblical theology (a sound and biblical understanding of Who God is and what He is like). Many church leaders here are men with a heart for God and a zeal for the work of the Lord, but not having had the opportunity to receive good theological training, it’s been difficult to effectively carry out the mission of “making disciples” both here and abroad.
• The failure in the Latin America Church to establish an “orthodoxy” (correct doctrine) has led to an even more serious failure in “orthopraxy” (correct practice). For example, in the area of evangelism, the great majority of churches and ministries are preaching a false Gospel because they do not understand Who God is and what He is like. In the area of basic “church life,” ministries are rife with non-biblical activities and practices while the sheep are starving — not being “nourished” in sound doctrine. Bad practice follows bad doctrine. But the reverse is true also: Sound practice follows sound doctrine (both in evangelism and church life).
• With the Revista and the “pastor packages” we aim to try to meet this need head-on. The Revista is an evangelistic tool that has a biblical presentation of the true Gospel. It also has information and links to resources on our web site that will be of interest and help to leaders and pastors. Of course, our intention with the “pastor packages” is to get sound teaching materials into the hands of the men who are feeding God’s people and training them in the mission of making disciples.

We are limited, but God is not. We have limited resources, but we are thankful for those we have and are confident that God will supply all our need (Php 4.19). Offerings from our people here and income from our soccer field business are funding this entire operation. Our desire is to first cover the capital cities of each of the seven provinces in the country and then we will select strategic areas within each province to do the same: Outreach through literature distribution, witnessing on the streets, open-air preaching, and “pastoral help.”

We need prayer. Please pray for us as we strive to preach the Gospel to those who have never heard (most have heard the modern Gospel of “accept Jesus in your heart and you’ll feel better”) and to teach sound doctrine to those who desire to hear.

• The pic (above) is of the “team” that went today (from left to right): Jorge, me, Alex “Bimbo” and Marco.
• If you’d like to see some pictures, check out my Picasa album. Jorge manned the camera and did a bang-up job, like always.

If you want to see a 9-minute video, I tried to put something together that would give you a good idea of what went on. You can see them here:

• Standard mpg4 | Small mpg4 | Ogg Video
• It’s also out on Blip.tv if you’d like to watch it there.

“That just doesn’t work in the States.”

Well, I beg to differ. I think it “doesn’t work in the States” because many Christians simply don’t witness — they don’t evangelize, they don’t pass out tracts, and they don’t preach open-air. And the reason given is this:

“That just doesn’t work in the States.”

Yes it does. It “works” in any culture, any society, at any time, and with any people group. It “works” because God said it does:

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God… For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.  [1Cor 1.18-21]

Here are some examples that, yes, it does “work” in the States — biblical evangelism (purposeful, intentional witnessing to people we do not know) “works” in the United States of America.

Trish Ramos took advantage of a TV program filming a segment near her hometown and passed out tracts. Click the image of Trish (using the “Curved Illusion” tract); right around the 2:30 to the 3:00 minute mark you can see her passing out million dollar bill tracts and the people receive them just like they do here (with a smile and an outstretched hand!).

Here’s Ray Comfort passing out a ton of the “Giant Money” tracts in record time at a convention (who couldn’t do this?!):

Darrell Rundus makes it look easy (because it is! …once you get over your fear and intimidation):

How about open-air preaching in the USA? Here are some pics and links to guys that preach open-air on a regular basis. Check out the crowds they have, and if you watch the videos you can see that they crowds stay, they listen, and they interact.

Here’s Ray Comfort at Huntington Beach (hang with it if you watch the video… it’s a great example of how to use a heckler to preach the Gospel to those who are listening):

Here’s Tony Miano in Glendale:

Here are four of Leon Brown (he’s very good at interacting with the crowd — very articulate and interesting):

So, why would anyone say that biblical evangelism doesn’t work in the States? I still say the main reason is fear — people fear because they have not been trained. Here’s a quote from a great tool for getting trained up (Todd Friel’s “Terrified“):

Nobody expects a soldier to go into battle without training and proper equipment. Yet we are frequently encouraged to witness and share our faith without training and without weapons.

So get trained up! And get some good “weapons”! Ray has a great DVD on how to open-air preach (and not just “street holler”). I think a lot of us don’t like to give out tracts because the tracts we’ve seen make us ashamed of the Gospel when we give them out. Get good tracts! Get tracts you like so you will like to give them out. Spurgeon said that!

When preaching and private talk are not available, you have a tract ready, and this is often an effectual method. Some tracts would not convert a beetle: there is not enough in them to interest a fly. Get good striking tracts, or none at all. But a telling, touching gospel tract may often be the seed of eternal life; therefore, do not go out without your tracts.

You know… even if it didn’t “work in the States,” we should do it because God told us to. But, if you just take a look at the videos above, you’ll see it does work. Folks, the needs is great, the message is urgent, and there’s so few that labor in the harvest. Let’s be different.

I want to say a special thanks to Brent Blaise and his wife, too. I’ll be staying with them (Lord willing and the roads don’t freeze) during my week in Tacoma. They are moving from Kansas City to Tacoma on December 30th. I arrive on January 2nd! I used to camp out at lot with the Boy Scouts… so this trip should bring back some pleasant memories!

But, seriously, I am grateful for the Blaise’s hospitality and would ask everyone to be praying for them and their family as they make the move out to Tacoma to work with Faith Baptist. Brent has been a tremendous encouragement to me over the last couple of years (along with Jeremy Bonneen) and I’m looking forward to being with him and his family for the week of the conference at Faith.

We had a fair turn-out and it all went well. We sang Christmas songs (like Silent Night) and then I preached a messaged based on Luke 2.8-14: “On earth peace.”

1. I explained why we needed peace: Because man without Christ is God’s enemy.
2. I explained what would happen without peace: Judgment and condemnation to eternal hell.
3. Then I explained the text: God wants peace and so came to take our punishment so we could be forgiven and granted eternal life and entrace into heaven!

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. [1Tim 1.15]

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. [1Pet 3.18]

After the service, we fed everybody donuts. If you’d like to see some pictures of the service, one of my guys got some snapshots.

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Please pray for all those that heard the Gospel, that they might repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.

I was reminded again today of the absolute love affair of modern Christianity with pragmatism. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the same question when people go with me out onto the streets to evangelize: “Does it work?” They ask me about the fruit… about the number of people in my church as a result of witnessing out on the streets… about how many have “made a decision” because of the tracts we’ve passed out… That’s pragmatism!

One of the great evils of the time is that of deliberating about a plain command of Christ, and asking, “What will be the result of it?”  What have you to do with results? “But if I follow Christ in all things, I may lose my position.” What you have to do with that?  When a soldier is bidden to go up to the cannon’s mouth, he is very likely to lose his “position,” and something else; but he is bound to do it.  “Oh but I might lose my opportunity for usefulness!” What do you mean? That you are going to do evil that good may come? That is what it comes to. ~C.H. Spurgeon

God has called us all to go and preach the Gospel to every creature. He has told us to find where the sinners are, and verbally communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them (Rom 10.13-17; Mar 16.15). We do not have the liberty to change the message… We do not have the liberty to change the method either! God said: Go and preach!

In the great day, when the muster-roll shall be read, of all those who are converted through fine music, and church decoration, and religious exhibitions and entertainments, they will amount to the tenth part of nothing; but it will always please God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Keep to your preaching; and if you do anything beside, do not let it throw your preaching into the background. In the first place preach, and in the second place preach, and in the third place preach. ~C.H. Spurgeon

Believe in preaching the love of Christ, believe in preaching the atoning sacrifice, believe in preaching the new birth, believe in preaching the whole counsel of God. The old hammer of the gospel will still break the rock in pieces; the ancient fire of Pentecost will still burn among the multitude. Try nothing new, but go on with preaching, and if we all preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, the results of preaching will astound us. ~C.H. Spurgeon

But, what if nobody is listening…? What if nobody cares…? HEY, CHRISTIAN! God is listening! And you can rest assured that God cares! Set your eyes upon Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith — Jesus, He who suffered and died for you! Jesus is our Lord, and we are but His servants. He tells us what to do, when to do it, with whom to do it, and HOW TO DO IT. We have no right to change the mission… the message… the method… just because we want to see “results.”

Pastor Steve Sanchez had a very good post on his blog today — that’s him in the photo at the top of this post. He ends with a quote from Spurgeon:

God never clothes men until He has first stripped them, nor does He quicken them by the gospel till first they are slain by the Law. When you meet with persons in whom there is no trace of conviction of sin, you may be quite sure that they have not been wrought upon by the Holy Spirit; for “when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”

Amen. Keep it up, Steve! And may God raise up more labourers to go forth out into His harvest and preach the cross of Christ: God’s Law, God’s Grace, and man’s ultimate decision (repent and trust Christ, or perish).

Yesterday was a bit of a sad day around here, but was also kind of exciting. My “right hand” in the ministry, Will, and his wife, Naylene, moved to the States. Many of you know Will and so you know that he has always been my closest friend in the ministry here. He was constantly at my side on the streets evangelizing and in the church discipling and preaching.

Will and Naylene will be spending the holiday’s with Naylene’s folks in Illinois and then they’ll move down the Kansas City area to attend KCBT and look for work. This is a great opportunity for Will and Naylene to be exposed to other ministries (KCBT, Midtown Baptist Temple, etc.), grow in their faith, and continue to develop as leaders in the work of the Lord.

Please keep them in your prayers, and if you attend KCBT, be looking for them to welcome them into the family! Thank you! ~Greg

Dear friends and family,

It’s December and that means a lot of things to a lot of people… For us it means an opportunity to do some personal evangelism and to begin evaluating the past year in preparation for the next one!

Christmas & Personal Evangelism

As we’ve studied the Book of Acts this year in our Sunday services, we’ve come to understand one thing: Our life mission as Christians is to evangelize the lost! We are to do that “publically” and also among our friends, family, and co-workers. So we decided to take advantage of Christmas this year and put together a simple plan to reach those closest to us with the message of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

About two months ago we purchased four cases (176 books) of Mark Cahill’s One Heartbeat Away in Spanish. It’s a wonderful book for a lost person who is willing to sit down, read a little, and be challenged in his view of God and eternity. Mark did a fantastic job in writing the book, and he’s also very generous in getting it into the hands of those who need it.

I challenged each and every one of our people in church to think about how many friends, co-workers, and family members they had that still weren’t saved. Buy them a book, write them a letter with your testimony in it, wrap it up with the book, and give it to them as a Christmas gift this year (stick a tract in there, too, if you want!). Many are buying four or five books, and some are buying twenty or more!

We are planning on having a special Sunday service the 21st of December; we’re buying a truck-load of Christmas-colored donuts, and we’re going to invite all of the friends, co-workers, and family members we can to celebrate Christmas with us. I’ll be preaching from the text: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2.14). The “peace” that was on earth was Jesus Christ. He came to establish peace between God and man, because man without Christ is the enemy of God (he hates Him; Rom 1.30) and God is angry with the wicked every day (Ps 5.5; 7.11). But Jesus came to change all that! And we want to tell all of our friends and family about it this Christmas.

Personal Evangelism Workshop

In preparation for the holidays (family reunions, Christmas parties, etc.), we hosted a personal evangelism workshop last Saturday (you can see some pictures of the event on our web site). There were almost 50 people in attendance! We had a wonderful time going over biblical and practical principles of sharing the message of the cross with anybody anywhere. The majority of the people that attended were from other churches. What a blessing to see other brothers and sisters in Christ who desire to learn how to share their faith!

Looking Forward To 2009

With Christmas right around the corner, I find myself evaluating 2008 and making plans for 2009. This last year was quite the test, and I don’t know if I passed all of it, but I’m pretty sure I learned a bit from it all (by the grace of God). I think 2008 was plagued by the “Martha Syndrome.” Remember Luke 10.41? Jesus says to Martha, “Thou art careful and troubled about many things.” You get so busy trying to do everything that you end up not really doing anything. This last year was one big “To-Do” list that didn’t get done: Books I’ve written that need to be proofed, studies that are finished but need to be written out, messages that need to be published on the web site, a group in Esparza that needs more care, outreach tools that never got finished… and you end up feeling like “too little butter spread over too much bread.”

This month I’m working hard on finishing two key projects (two key tools) that will be the basis for a push in the area of leadership development this year. After these projects are finished, I will be focusing my time and energy on three things: Feeding the sheep (Sundays), developing my leaders to replace me (as we are all instructed to do; 2Tim 2.2), and intentional evangelism. I’ll keep you posted on my blog.

Support Needs

If you would know of a church or of an individual that would like to invest in a work like ours here in Costa Rica (evangelism, discipleship, expository preaching, Bible teaching, etc. along with taking all of this to other churches in other cities and countries), would you please mention our names and maybe our web site to them? Since we left the States in 1995, our support level has basically stayed the same. Over the past several years, though, the dollar has dropped considerably on the world market and we have to deal with 15-18% annual inflation rates (that’s a complicated way to say our dollars don’t buy as much today as they did 13 years ago). We also lost two supporting churches this last year when they decided to invest in other fields. For now we are keeping this in prayer and seeking opportunties to present our field to people who would like to invest in the work among Spanish-speaking people.

Thank you all very much and we hope you have a great Christmas and New Year! Preach the Gospel anyway you can!

Greg & Sue Kedrovsky

Today (Saturday) we had a “personal evangelism” workshop in the church, and over 40 people attended! What a great group and what a great time we had together!

Many people are very intimidated by “street evangelism” but they want to know how to share their faith with friends, family, and co-workers. So, I scaled back our “intense” one-day evangelism seminar and taught the biblical principles of evangelism in the context of “normal life” conversations.

The turn-out was just one of those blessings from God that really encourage you. Most of the 40 people were from other churches, too. That’s interesting! But, it’s obvious that’s God’s at work in Christians’ hearts to evangelize. We want to! The problem is that most haven’t been taught and trained how to. So, we tried to give them some teaching in training in personal evangelism this morning. And God blessed greatly.

www.dougpearson.org

Doug grew up in in the Kansas City Metro area where, after the Lord saved him, he was trained up at Kansas City Baptist Temple. Later he was led to participate in the missions revival of native pastors all over the world called “Greater Grace World Outreach“.

In 2002, he moved to Baltimore to attend Greater Grace World Outreach and had the opportunity to be discipled by pastor Tom Schaller. From 2002 to 2006, while at Greater Grace, Doug helped plant a church in Philadelphia.

In 2006 that he was sent by Greater Grace to India where he’s had the joy of working with native pastors, teaching Bible college in Mumbai, and discipling men in the church. He’s also planted several churches in North India and Nepal. He travels to Nepal twice a year where he disciples native Nepali pastors, and travels with them to preach Jesus up and down the mountains in sight of the Himalayan range.

Doug has a tremendous heart for God, the Bible, discipleship, and missions. He trusts the Lord and walks with Him daily. Please log onto his site and get to know him a little bit. If the Lord leads you to pray for him, great! I know he would also be very encouraged by an e-mail letting him know you’re lifting him up in prayer and interceded for his needs in India. His e-mail addresses are:

• douglaspaul7ATyahooDOTcom
• dougATdougpearsonDOTorg

Hi, everybody. I just wanted to write a quick update about the trip to Medellín. Will and I spent about a week and a half with Fernando Garrido and his church, “La Biblia Dice…” and it went really well.

Our first Saturday there, the church hosted an executive breakfast in the five-star Intercontinental Hotel. They rented out a conference room and served a gourmet breakfast to the 110 people in attendance. The goal was to reaching professional (executives, lawyers, doctors, politicians, business owners, university professors, etc.) with the Gospel. Here are some pictures of the event:

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We took four cases of Mark Cahill’s book “One Heartbeat Away” (in Spanish) to give out to the people who attended. It’s a great “follow-up” to any witness encounter because it’s like an extended Gospel tract.

The following week was Fernando’s annual Bible conference, and we met several nights to study what the Bible says about our mission of making disciples, and what that looks like in real life. We also had some time to hit the streets with the folks from the church and evangelize. That was great!!

God blessed and the folks at La Biblia Dice church really took good care of us. Their generosity is humbling!

We’re hoping to be able to get Fernando up here during the last week of March, so he can meet the folks at our church and share with us what the Lord is doing in his life and ministry. We’d love to be able to encourage him like he has us!

Thanks to everyone who was praying for us! ~Greg

The Christian music group called “Hillsong” was in Costa Rica for two concerts this last Thursday, October 30th. We couldn’t pass up a great opportunity to pass out our new “What if… I’m pretending?” tract (in Spanish, of course).

We showed up outside the “concert hall” around 10:00 am in order to catch the people standing in line for the 2:00 pm show. There weren’t many, and it was raining and cold. But, we did get to talk to several people and we passed out several hundred of the tracts. We tried to avoid “pointing fingers” and “accusing” people of being false converts (the tract could easily be taken that way) by saying, “Hey, we’re all Christians and we have a common mission: Evangelize. Take this tract, read it through, and then give it to someone who needs it — a lost family member or friend.” It went over really well.

The evening concert was crazy! Thousands of people showed up and stood in line for hours. And the line wrapped around the entire block. We passed out tracts individually, and then just before they opened the gates, we started at the front of the line and “preached” our way to the back. I’d stand up on my Coke crate, get the folks’ attention, and then motive them to witness, evangelize, and reach the lost. After my “sermon” we’d ask them if they wanted more tracts and then we’d give them as many as they wanted so they could read it and then pass it on to lost friends and family. After one sermon, we’d move down about 20 meters and do it all again until we finished the line.

It was a great time! Very well received by the people! We probably passed out around 5,000 of the “Pretending” tracts. If you’d like to see what it looked it, here’s a video one of the guys put together:

Here’s the plan for the trip…

1. Saturday, Oct. 18th: Oscar (a leader in Fernando’s church) is organizing an “executive breakfast” and he has invited about 200 professionals that work in and around Medellín. I’ll be presenting the Gospel to them in the context of a selected “theme” for the breakfast. Wonderful outreach opportunity!
2. Wednesday-Sunday (Oct 22-26): I’ll be speaking on biblical discipleship during their annual missions conference (each night at 7:00 pm, Saturday morning with the leadership team, and Sunday services in the morning).
3. We’re also looking forward to spending a good deal of time on the streets open-air preaching and evangelizing. Will and I both are VERY excited about that!

I would like to say one more thing in the context of this trip, and it’s about Mark Cahill. The “theme” of the executive breakfast centers around a book that is very popular among many of the professionals in Medellín these days. On Saturday, Oscar will first give a short presentation of that work, and then I’ll use it as a “springboard” to present the Law of God, the Gospel of Christ, and the need of personal repentance and faith in the Lord. Since we’re basing it on a book, I wanted to send the people home with a book — a free gift from us. I wanted to give a copy of Mark’s One Heartbeat Away book (in Spanish) to each one.

You can imagine the investment we were talking about to try to get almost 200 books purchased and shipped down to Latin America. So, I wrote Mark an e-mail and explained to him what we were doing and what our needs were. His reply was: “Get the books you need, and pay me later… if you can. Make sure you give yourself a big discount.”

Mark is the “real deal” and if you haven’t yet read his books, listened to his messages, watched his videos, or subscribed to his newsletter… please do. You won’t be sorry.

Thank you for your prayers for us this week. And please remember my family, too. It never fails, whenever I go out of town something happens and Suzy has to deal with it all by herself. :-) ~Greg

And just a side note: Steve is a neat guy and very committed to intentional and constant evangelism. If you have time, check out his blog, especially the first posts (made years ago!). He started out slow, and then God kindled a real fire in heart for evangelism.

After you read Torrey’s essay, you might want to listen to this brief testimony:

• George Street

And, of course, make sure (like Spurgeon said) you get “good, striking tracts” that you like to hand out.

• Living Waters
• Custom Tract Source
• Chick Publications

Here’s a brief outline of the Torrey article you can find out on Steve’s blog:

THE USE OF TRACTS

By R. A. Torrey (1856-1928)

Comparatively few Christians realize the importance of tract work. I had been a Christian a good many years, and a minister of the Gospel several years, before it ever entered my head that tracts were of much value in Christian work. I had somehow grown up with the notion that tracts were all rubbish, and therefore I did not take the trouble to read them, and far less did I take the trouble to circulate them, but I found out that I was entirely wrong. Tract work has some great advantages over other forms of Christian work.

I. Importance and advantages.

1. Any person can do it.
2. A tract always sticks to the point.
3. A tract never loses its temper.
4. Oftentimes people who are too proud to be talked with, will read a tract when no one is looking.
5. A tract stays by one.
6. Tracts lead many to accept Christ.

II. Purposes for which to use a tract.

1. For the conversion of the unsaved.
2. To lead Christians into a deeper and more earnest Christian life.
3. To correct error.
4. To set Christians to work.

III. Who should use tracts.

1. Ministers of the Gospel should use them.
2. Sunday School teachers.
3. Traveling men.
4. Business men.
5. School teachers.6. Housekeepers.

IV. How to use tracts.

1. To begin a conversation.
2. Use a tract to close a conversation.
3. Use tracts where a conversation is impossible.
4. Use tracts to send to people at a distance.

V. Suggestions as to the use of tracts.

1. Always read the tracts yourself before giving them to others.
2. Suit your tract to the person to whom you give it.
3. Carry a selection of tracts with you.
4. Seek the guidance of God.
5. Seek God’s blessing upon the tract after you have given it out.
6. Oftentimes give a man a tract with words and sentences underscored.
7. Never be ashamed of distributing tracts.

Dear friends and family,

I hope this letter finds you doing well and looking forward to the day when you will meet the Lord. Let’s strive daily to please Him so that when that day comes, we’ll not be ashamed!

A WEEK AT EASTSIDE

We’ve made some minor changes in our weekly schedule, always trying to be as biblically based and effective as we can in our ministry here. I’d like to share with you how we are investing in the Lord’s work during a typical week at Eastside Church.

On Monday mornings (during the mornings to avoid the rains) we’ve been taking our new outreach publication, La Revista (an extended tract based on apologetics), out to the different universities. It’s been met with general acceptance and we’ve received several e-mails thanking us for the publication. We hope to be able to return several times to each campus, each time with a different issue of the Revista, thereby continuing to sow Gospel seed in the lives of the students.

Tuesday evenings we have our mid-week Bible study and prayer meeting. Three of my “up-and-coming leaders” in the church were ready for a new challenge in their development, so they are now directing the meetings and team-teaching through the Book of 2Peter. I’m beginning to put together some new material for after 2Peter, but for the time being it’s a great opportunity for my guys be stretched and grow.

Thursdays we are still going downtown during the lunch hour to open-air preach on Central Avenue, and God continues to bless with great crowds and not too much police harassment

Friday nights we’ve begun to meet at the church to go out witnessing on the UCR campus and in the bar districts, both of which are about a block from the church. Whenever we’re rained out (frequently!), we’ve had extra (and needed) time for fellowship and encouragement around God’s Word.

On Sunday mornings we continue to focus on God’s pattern for mission-minded ministry as I preach expositorily (verse by verse) through the Book of Acts.

PRAYER REQUESTS

Please continue to pray for us and the ministry here in Costa Rica. We long to see the blessing of God in much fruit that remains faithful to the Lord through the test of time. Here are some of the requests that are on top of my prayer list these days:

Leadership development among several of the men in the ministry here (and my wisdom and insight to know how to help them develop as the leaders God wants them to be).

Preparation for the “Million Tracts to Costa Rica”. In March of 2009 Brent Blaise will be coming down for a key planning session and a conference with Costa Rican pastors interested in participating. I need to make a few small changes to our discipleship material in order to offer them a simple “follow-up tool” that they could use after the activity. One million tracts to Costa Rica would mean reaching a quarter of the population of this country.

University Outreach, 2009. I’m in the initial stages (and preparation) for a new round of university outreach next year, and we’ll be changing it up a little bit, trying to focus on evangelism and discipleship (rather than just evangelism, like this year). Please pray for open doors with the administrations of the various universities I’d like to get into, and the permission to meet officially with groups there for studies.

Medellín, Colombia, October 16-27. I’ll be preaching at a conference in Medellín with pastor Fernando Garrido of La Biblia Dice Church. Please pray for God’s will to be done through the preaching and the outreach activities we have planned.

Thank you all very much for your continued prayer and support!

Greg Kedrovsky

I gave them 15 minutes… 10:15 a.m. No show! So, now what do I do? Go home? Go it alone!?!? I did what anyone else would do: I walked back to my truck to STALL A LITTLE LONGER in hopes that Rigo and David would show up! No show…

There I stood, by my truck, waiting, thinking… nervous. Ever been so nervous you get nauseous? I’m really not the “boldest” person when it comes to witnessing on the street (which is why I need prayer: Eph 6.18-20; Col 4.2-4). I get nervous every time I go… and sometimes it’s worse than others. This morning it was horrible! I don’t know why but the universities intimidate me a lot, and today it was no different.

And then I thought about Christ going to the cross… alone… to bear the burden of my sin and my sins. Ashamed! I was ashamed of Christ! Ashamed to go pass out a piece of paper with His name on it! Ashamed!

So, Rigo or no Rigo, I prayed and asked the Lord to forgive me for being ashamed of Him and His name, grabbed 500 of my Revistas and toodled off onto the campus. I made one pass around the “bottom half” of the university and… bumped into Rigo and David!

We eventually got booted off the campus (“no permit”), but we got quite a few Revistas passed out. David had to go to class (he’s getting his degree from the Tec) and Rigo and I decided to go into town (Cartago) and continue passing out the Revista. We ended up giving out TONS! Great morning.

Then Rigo took me to visit a pastor friend of his out there in Cartago. Great guy and he knows his Bible well. We had coffee and gabbed about God and evangelism and pastoring for a while. After it was all said and done, he invited me out to preach to his congregation on Sunday the 14th (on evangelism) and then to give our “Evangelism Workshop” the following Saturday.

I am very glad I didn’t just get into my truck and drive away… ashamed of the Lord… and missing out on the blessing of the day God had for us.

So, how was your Monday? :-)

Oh my friends, we are loaded down with countless church activities, while the real work of the Church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected. ~Oswald J. Smith

On the street yesterday: I went downtown to Central Avenue yesterday to do some open-air preaching during the lunch hour. It wasn’t the easiest time I’ve had going downtown to preach. If I don’t go regularly (at least once a week), it’s very (!) hard to get back into the swing of things. And the fact that I had to go alone didn’t help. But, my friend Oscar that works in the Central Bank downtown was able to get off for lunch and join me. He was a big encouragement!

After taking a deep breath (and fighting back the urge to go to the bathroom), I put my Coke crate down and got a foot up on it… No sooner had I done that than things went crazy! Some homeless guy with a kind-of portable amplifier started singing the most horrid song right in front of where I was going to preach (he was asking for money… I would have given him plenty to just STOP!). Some street venders on my left started selling some sort of puppet duck that made an obnoxious and loud QUACK!! And they were showing them off to all passers-by. Another homeless guy seemed to appear out of nowhere and started asking Oscar and me theological questions! I couldn’t believe it… Oscar got all tied up in a discussion with the fellow while I went back and forth, looking at the “singer” and the puppet ducks. And then what do I see? Right in front of me a naked woman! It took me a minute (I was a bit shocked) to figure out that it was a mannequin in a store window — but it was one of those “real life mannequins.” No shirt… britches unbuttoned… not very “Christian” at all. And all of this happened in less than a minute, just as soon as I put my foot on my upside-down Coke crate.

So, I showed Oscar what was going on: The singer… the ducks… the naked lady… the homeless theologian… And so we quickly excused ourselves from the conversation, and when the amplified hollering homeless guy stopped his song, I go up to preach.

I usually take some time and, with about $5.00, draw a crowd with trivia questions — each question is worth a dollar. People really like it, so it’s a good ice-breaker and it draws a crowd pretty quick (for example: What’s the most-watched cartoon of all time? Whoever guesses it gets a dollar). Well, I didn’t have to ask even one question yesterday. As soon as I got up on my soapbox, the people stopped, asked what I was doing, and started gathering around. So, I went right into my “Good Test” with the Law of God, explained the Gospel, and spent about 45 minutes preaching to a pretty good group of people.

God’s good. I’m a chicken! Scared to get up on a box and tell people about Christ (am ashamed I am so ashamed my Saviour!). But… God’s good, and He did a really great work yesterday using a couple of feeble men (Oscar and me — Oscar is great at one-on-one, so he “goes a fishing” in the crowd after the preaching).

UCR & bar district tonight: Tonight we’re meeting at the church to head down to the UCR and then over to the bar district to do some evangelism. It’s really threatening some nasty rain, but if we can we’d like to do some open-air preaching on the campus when evening classes get out, and then head over to the bar district and witness one-on-one out in the streets.

Please continue to pray for us! Please pray for me, that Christ would “make good” on His promise to make me a fisher of men (Mat 4.19). And please pray for all of us here that God would give us open doors of opportunity to preach the precious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (Col 4.2-4), and that He would grant us the boldness we need to preach like we ought (Eph 6.18-20). Thank you! ~Greg

Obviously we are very thankful to the Lord for the open door of opportunity to preach the Gospel to so many kids. And I know Will would appreciate any and and all prayer you would like to offer up for him (may the Lord give him boldness; Eph 6.18-20). Thanks!! ~Greg

I’ve found Mark Cahill’s advice to be gold when I’m just talking one-on-one. Just ask the person, “Could I ask you an interesting question? What do you think about God… eternity… what happens after we die?” Most people are more than willing to talk about what they believe, and then we can share what the Bible says.

Another proven tactic to break the ice and get into a spiritual conversation with people is to stand on a Coke crate in the middle of Central Avenue and start offering money for questions. :-) We finally got some new questions, thanks to Darrel Rundus of the Great News Network, and we street-tested them today. It went great!

If you want to see a short video of some of the preaching, just click here.

Several of us from church and my friend Oscar met downtown and had a great time preaching, passing out tracts (the Revista went over great!), and witnessing to folks. Here are some pics:

• Getting started (some days it’s easier than others… this wasn’t one of them… nervous!)
• Gathering a crowd with my new questions! (What is the most popular cartoon of all time? It’s worth a dollar on the streets of San José!)
• More questions, more people.
• The Good Test (using the Law to bring about a knowledge of sin and then revealing the sacrifice of Christ, and His resurrection, as the solution)
• Afterward we got to pass out tracts, talk, and continue to witness.
• Here are a couple young ladies that participated and talked a bit after.
• Here’s a “panoramic” shot. (Four pics pasted together. It’s not perfect, but it’s an interesting view.)

Oh my friends, we are loaded down with countless church activities, while the real work of the Church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected. ~Oswald J. Smith

I went door-to-door, leaving the Revista for folks to read and passing them out to people I saw on the sidewalks. I tried to greet everyone I could and see if God would open a door for me witness to them.

I eventually made my way down to the park in the center of town (in front of the catholic church; the picture above is the park from the NE corner). There are always several taxis lined up, waiting for customers, along with people sitting on the benches talking or reading the newspaper.

• On my way into the park I gave a Revista to a elderly gentleman selling newspapers and then I slipped him a Million Dollar Bill tract. He liked that!
• I didn’t have much time in the park because it started to rain. But, I was able to witness to two taxi drivers and talk with two more (though we touched on the Gospel, they didn’t have much time or interest in talking about it).
• I had one guy give me my Million Dollar Bill tract back, angry as an old wet hen. He got all bent out of shape about me “selling religion” or something like that, and just wouldn’t listen or stick around to talk. So, I let him blow his stack and then he left. Can’t win ‘em all…
• Since it was raining by then, I left the park and hid under an overhang beside my new friend, Alvaro (the newspaper guy to whom I gave a Million tract). He had a customer that was doing the same thing as I was — trying to stay dry. Alvaro wanted him to have a Million, too, so I gave him one and got to witness to the both of them for a good while.

I only had an hour, but God opened up quite a few doors and allowed me to witness to six or seven people. And I was able to pass out about 500 copies of the Revista. Now it’s time to get to studying (Sunday message, and I have a conference coming up in El Salvador next week).

Oh my friends, we are loaded down with countless church activities, while the real work of the Church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected. ~Oswald J. Smith

Since it rains here just about every afternoon, if we want to get out and evangelize, we have to try to take advantage of the morning hours. Even when we go downtown to open-air preach, we run the risk of getting drenched. So, today Andrés and I met at 9:00 am and spent about two hours on the streets and door-to-door, passing out our new “Revista” publication and using the Million Dollar Bill tract to strike up conversations with people and witness to them.

If you haven’t seen our new “Revista,” it’s basically a four-page newsletter that uses apologetics (like evolution, the veracity of the Bible, the existence of God, etc.) to catch people’s eye and later walk them through a presentation of the Gospel. I also included an article or two for Christians, knowing that many are still struggling with finding a good church (and maybe they’ll come check us out). We’d like to be able to print up a new issue of the Revista each month.

We first went door-to-door just putting the Revista where people could find it — in their front gates, mailboxes, or under the wipers on their cars. Then after a bit we decided to go to a couple parks to see if we could strike up some conversations with people and witness.

• First got to talk to two municipal workers. I handed them a Million Dollar Bill and waited for the reaction (“Wow! I’m rich! Ha!”). Then I asked them, “Could I ask you the Million Dollar Question?” They said sure, so I asked them if they thought they were good enough to go to heaven. That got us talking about the Law (God’s standard of moral perfection), God’s grace in Jesus and the work on the cross, and the personal decision of the sinner (repentance and faith).
• Next we ran into some construction workers doing some remodelling on a church. I handed one a Revista; the title says: “GOD DOESN’T EXIST.” Well, that got a good conversation going and we had a good, five-minute talk about God and salvation.
• After that Andrés witnessed to a security guard and then we headed to another area of the neighborhood where there are always a number of taxi drivers just hanging out shootin’ the breeze. Again, we used the Million Dollar Bill and got into a conversation to witness.
• Next were a couple of skateboarders — 19 and 21 years old. Not interested at all! One of them says to me, “I don’t want to think about death because I just want to live life to the fullest now.” And that was that. Adios…
• There were a couple more opportunities to witness after that (as we continued to pass out the Revista to people on the sidewalks and at the houses we passed), and then as we were heading back to the car we bumped into one of the municipality workers we witnessed to at first. He was showing his Million Dollar Bill to another couple of workers (cutting grass, cleaning up, etc.). We he saw me, he motioned me over and I got to witness to his two friends — one was pretty interested, the other just kinda figured he was living out his hell right now, here on earth. I assured him he wasn’t and then after we talked for a bit, I left them with several tracts, a copy of the Revista, and an invitation to our church.

Next Monday the universities go back to classes after mid-year break (we’re on a calendar year). We’re making plans to take the Revista to the three largest state universities — the UCR (next Monday!), the “Tech,” and the National University up north in Heredia. Please pray that God would open doors of opportunity to speak the Gospel and that He would grant us the boldness to speak as we ought. Thank you! ~Greg

Oh my friends, we are loaded down with countless church activities, while the real work of the Church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected. ~ Oswald J. Smith

I taught our “Evangelism Workshop” yesterday morning and we had people from four different churches attend. A new friend of mine, David, opened the doors of his restaurant and allowed us to meet there (he also made us lunch!). The workshop is a combination of teaching and application. The teaching is a very “condensed” version of our discipleship material on evangelism (the very “essential” that one needs to witnessing biblically, using the Law, etc), and the application is basically “grab some tracts and go witness!”

Here are some pics:

• Another shot of the group
• Teaching: one | two | three | four
• The “stuff table” (tracts and books)
• Getting the tracts ready
• Orietta, armed for the street!
• Rigo witnessing (Rigo is the guy on the right, grey shirt and blue jeans, looking up at the guy he’s witnessing to; Rigo came with his 13 year old daughter, Raquel, and they both went out witnessing together)

We used Living Waters’ million dollar bill tract and I gave everyone specific instructions on how to use the tract to witness verbally to a lost person. Each and every person involved witnessed to at least one person! They did great! They paid very close attention during the morning hours as I instructed them in biblical evangelism. We had lunch together. And then, in spite of their fears and intimidation, they hit streets. After an hour and a half we met back at the restaurant and everyone had a story to tell about their witness encounters!

I challenged everyone before they left to set a specific time each week when they will go out and intentionally witness to the lost. At Eastside Church we have set aside Friday nights. One of the churches represented yesterday will be going to the park in Cartago on Saturday mornings. Amen! We will never fulfill the Great Commission if we do not intentionally and aggressively seek out the lost where they are, and witness to them biblically.

We covet your prayers, that God would open many hearts to the Gospel as we obey His command to “go and make disciples” (and we make disciples evangelizing!). Thank you! ~Greg

Several weeks ago God used Andres to witness to a young man named Andres (we call him, lovingly, “Andres #2″). He repented, put his trust and faith in Christ to save him, and now he’s working through discipleship with Andres #1. Now here’s the neat part…

That’s Andres #2 in the picture above preaching the Gospel open-air in downtown San José this afternoon! He’s been out a lot passing out tracts and witnessing (which is “essential discipleship training”), and today he preached open-air for the first time. Here are some pics:

• Getting started
• Using “money for questions” to draw a crowd
• Gathering the crowd
• Preaching the Law using “The Good Test”
• God gave him a great group of people!
• Preaching the Gospel
• Calling the people to repentance and faith in Christ.
• Finishing it up

After the open-air preaching we passed out tracts and witnessed one-on-one:

• Here’s Andres #2 passing out tracts just after he finished preaching.
• Stephanie went with us (she’s from the States, studying at the university here).
• Andres #1 is a GREAT one-on-one evangelist! God uses him greatly to witness personally.

If you’d like to hear some conversation (in Spanish), here are some audios of witness encounters I had today:

• Victor: Checking and double-checking to make sure he wasn’t a false convert.
• Javier: Lost and he knew it.
• Omara: Didn’t have but two minutes with her, so… I got in what I could and gave her a tract.

We spent between two and three hours out on the streets today, taking advantage of the lunch hour downtown (and the fact that it wasn’t raining!). It was a great time of evangelism and discipleship!

In the picture (just click it to enlarge it) you have, from left to right: Mario (from Esparza), Manrique (from Esparza), me, Johnny (what a geek… giving me bunny ears…), Alex (from Eastside), and Andrés (from Eastside). Stephanie took the picture, so if you want to see who Stephanie is, just click here — she asking for tracts out on the street.

We all had lunch together and goofed around for a while, then when it was getting toward evening we headed down to Puntarenas, a key city down on the Pacific coast about 20 minutes from Esparza. They were having some sort of “Community Days” so it was a great opportunity for some open-aire evangelism. We passed out a lot of tracts, got to witness to folks one-on-one, and even did some open-air preaching. Here are some pictures and videos:

• Video: Having lunch with the group in Esparza
• Video: Open-air preching in Puntarena
• Pictures: Lunch, Johnny, Puntarenas, Preaching

We had a great time of fellowship together, especially on the street witnessing to people. I’m very thankful for Johnny and his group. God’s doing a great work down there and it’s very encouraging and motivating. Please pray for Johnny, Mario, Manrique, Javier, Elizabeth, and the rest of the group from Esparza. Thanks!

• In front of a mechanic’s garage.
• At a bus stop.

As we were walking through the neighborhood of Vargas Araya, we ran across a bunch of men in front of a car mechanic’s shop, and they were just “shooting the bull,” so we gave them tracts and witnessed to them. The guy leaning on the top of the truck cab in the picture ask me, “Didn’t I see you on the news last night?” :-) Yep! In the last post (yesterday) I mentioned that a reporter filmed our open-air preaching, and I guess it made the news last night. What a riot… But, it was a good ice-breaker and we got to speak to these men for a good while about sin, righteousness, judgment to come, and what God has done for them in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The other picture is of a couple guys we bumped into at a bus stop. We got to witness to them, too, and a bus driver and a young lady who got on the bus before we snapped the pic.

When it was all said and done, we had hung about 400 “What if…?” tracts in Vargas Araya and talked to several people about the Lord. We also had a great time talking about “life, love, and happiness” in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s not every Thursday I can do stuff like this because I’m usually teaching a Bible study in the evening, and I have to prepare. Tonight is our monthly study of “Personal Relationships” (dating, marriage, family, etc.), so since it’s already written, it doesn’t take me as long to prepare and I can to extra stuff like this. What a blessing! :-)

~Greg

These kinds of outtings with my guys gives me the opportunity to just hang out with them and be a “regular guy,” while at the same time “discipling” them in the Mission of evangelizing the lost. We get to talk, laugh, and witness to the lost together. I love it! It’s like the icing on the cake in the ministry for me. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Andŕes on the Coke crate very soon.

I know the audios are in Spanish, but you can at least hear a little of what it’s like out on the streets of San José open-air preaching. The other links are to some pics we took; they’re in English… :-)

First time, around 11:00 am

• Audio, about 30 minutes
• Getting things ready
• Drawing a crowd
• Preaching the Gospel
• Explaining things
• Giving out tracts after

Second time, around 12:15 pm

• Audio, about 45 minutes
• Getting ready (I look so ALONE…!!!) :-)
• Starting to draw a crowd
• Getting serious about drawing a crowd
• Preaching
• The local news station showed up and videoed almost the whole message: cameraman_01 | cameraman_02 | cameraman_03
• Preaching and explaining
• The crowd, from above
• The crowd, from the street
• Giving out tracts afterward: tracts_01 | tracts_02 | tracts_03
• The reporter from the news station interviewed the guy I nabbed for my “Good Test.” His name was Leslie, and he spoke positively of the message: reporter_01 | reporter_02
• After preaching for a good while, I had the opportunity to use the curves to get it all going again.
• Here are a couple pics of the people with tracts: after_01 | after_02

I had several brief conversations with folks, and they were all very cordial and polite. And you what…? Most believed in God and Jesus Christ; most thought they were on their way to heaven.

I firmly believe that one of the greatest dangers of the days we live in (days of apostasy when the Scripture is not the final authority anymore) is what many are calling “false conversions.” Paul calls it “believing in vain” in 1Corinthians 15.1-2, and Jesus referred to it several times in Matthew 7.13-23.

The guys at Custom Tract Source have a tract that speaks volumes about this! Click the image above and check it out. It’s great! And then, go to the web site that’s on the tract: www.whatifimpretending.com.

If you’ve ever felt like all you’re doing is “witnessing to people who have already heard,” then get some of these tracts. Sure, they may have heard and they may have even “believed,” but that doesn’t mean they are saved!

I’ll be working with the guys at Custom Tract Source to get this one in Spanish so I can use it down here. It’s just a matter of saving my pennies. :-) Great tract! Great web site! Great resource for the days in which we live. Get a bunch and take a Saturday morning to go give ‘em out! Then, please, write me and let me know how it went.

~Greg

Johnny is a great evangelist — we love to go out together and witness at the parks. He’s a very lively character, and easy to get along with. God’s given him a group of about 5 or 6 young adults and he’s been taking them through discipleship slowly but surely.

I took some time this last Sunday to go visit Johnny. It’s about a two or three hour drive, so I just left after our morning services and stayed until about 9:00 that same night then drove back home. The group got together at Johnny’s house, we ate too much, and had some great fellowship together. They are starting the “How to Study the Bible” portion of discipleship, so we’re all pretty excited about the next several months.

We also set a date for next get-together: Sunday, July 13th. I’m going to take a few of my guys with me (Andrés, Bimbo, maybe some others if they want). Johnny is going to take all of his with him. And we’re going to meet in the middle (half-way between San José and Esparza), at a town called San Ramón. They have some sort of festival there that day and so we’re going to go pass out tracts and witness to some folks. Then we’ll all head down to Esparza for… more food, fellowship, and discipleship.

So, for all of you who know Johnny, I wanted to let you know that he’s doing well. He struggles sometimes with being so alone down there. But, for the most part, he’s trusting in the Lord and doing fine.

If you remember Johnny and Esparza while you’re praying, please mention them to God. I think Esparza would be a wonderful place to start a church…

~Greg

I would also like to take advantage of this post and let you all know that I made a mistake in my most recent update (the one that went out in PDF, also). In the context of these door hangers I mentioned that the soccer field (donated by Tom Gang and Rory Wineka’s church, First Baptist of Jackson, OH) generated the funds to pay for this project. I need to apologize, set the record straight, and explain myself a little bit…

Decatur Baptist Church (pastor: Doug Ripley) donated the money for these tracts — right down to the last penny. I forgot all about it, and I apologize! They decided to help us out with the door hangers months ago, and it just slipped my mind when I was writing the last update. Because of the way we handle our financial support, we didn’t get the money until last week. And since our support was quite low this month, there was no “red flag” of an additional special offering. When I remembered about the donation, we checked our records and sure enough there it was! Thank you, Decatur Baptist Church!

I am still very grateful for the help Tom, Rory, and First Baptist of Jackson have given us over the years, especially with the soccer field. We take a “tithe” (10%) of all the money that comes in from the rental of the soccer field, and we put that in a special account along with a tithe from all our church offerings. That’s our missions and special projects fund. With that money we pay for tracts and books that we print, special outreach events, and anything else that has to do with the mission of reaching people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s why I said in my update letter that the soccer field paid for the door hanger. It basically pays for everything else! But, I had forgotten about the generous offering from Decatur.

But, do you know what all this means? This means we have more money in our special project account for more special projects! God’s good, isn’t He?

Thank you everyone for supporting us with your prayer, friendship, and finances. If it weren’t for you, we couldn’t be here in the service of the Lord. Please pray God would use these 11,000 tracts to lead people to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

~Greg

We are not called upon to witness to everyone we meet… Some years ago one of Scotland’s great saints was walking across the Highlands with a young friend. They passed a shepherd. The younger man, perhaps to impress his colleague, accosted the shepherd, asked him if he was saved and gave him a tract. Expecting, perhaps, a word of commendation, he was surprised and rebuked when the old believer said, “Did you have the Holy Spirit’s permission to speak to that man about his soul?”

What a sad commentary! What an awful thing to say to a young, zealous believer who wants to witness! And… what a tremendous misunderstanding of God’s call to evangelize.

First and foremost, to judge the intentions of the heart of someone who is zealous in witnessing is a bit presumptuous. How does this commentator know that the young man was trying to impress his friend? Why does he assume the worst in his motives? Why not simply assume that he has a burden to reach people with the message of Jesus Christ? And, why is it “accosting” someone to give them a tract and inquire about their salvation? I’m sorry, I couldn’t disagree more.

So, let’s answer the old Scot’s question: “Did you have the Holy Spirit’s permission to speak to that man about his soul?” Yes, he did! And, not only did he have God’s “permission” to do so, he had God’s call and command to do so. We are called and commanded by God to preach the Gospel to each and every creature.

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. [Mar 16.15]

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! [Rom 10.13-15]

But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. [2Tim 4.5]

And what if we do so in a manner that is less than “diplomatic” (a manner that might seem as if we were “accosting” someone, though we do it from a sense of obligation and duty toward God, and love for the lost)?

What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. [Php 1.18]

Is the power to save a soul in the sower of the seed or in the seed itself? Is the power to save a soul in the way in which that seed is sown, or in the seed itself? Again, Scripture speaks clearly:

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. [Isa 55.10-11]

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God… For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe… Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men… [1Cor 1.18-25]

In the very same chapter of Acts, God shows us that Philip, the Apostles, and other believers gave every effort they could to preach to every person the encountered.

Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word. [Acts 8.4]

And they, when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans. [Acts 8.25]

But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Cæsarea. [Acts 8.40]

Here’s the truth of my life: I don’t witness to everyone I meet. But, do you know what? I want to! I want to get to the point were the first thing on my mind when I speak to someone is their eternal destiny—God’s glory in their life; His goodness magnified through their salvation. Mark Cahill witnesses to everyone he meets. So does Ray Comfort. So do many of our Christian brothers and sisters.

Let’s not use a passage like this as an excuse for our lack of compassion… our lack of zeal in evangelism… our lack of dedication to the Mission of making disciples through evangelism. That’s not what the passage is teaching. We should all desire more zeal in evangelism. We should all desire to witness to everyone we meet (or at least desire to desire to do so!).

What does that mean in practical terms? Well… let me “peddle some goods”…

• Listen to the 10-minute testimony called “George Street” (a true story about a man who “accosted” people the same way that young Scot did).

Get trained up in evangelism. I don’t agree with everything coming out of Way of the Master and Ray Comfort’s ministries (obviously). But they have an outstanding training program. Mark Cahill is a tremendous resource, too. Take advantage of this stuff and get trained up. Do it with a friend so you’ll have a little bit of accountability.

• School of Biblical Evangelism
• Mark Cahill’s Book “One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven” (scroll down on that page to find it)

Get some tracts and give them out. If you get good ones (ones that you like), you’ll WANT to give them out. It won’t be a chore. Here are some of my favorites:

• Ten Most Popular Scratch Off
• Million Dollar Bill (new design from Ray)
• Million Dollar, July 4th edition (great time of year for this one!)
• Check out Custom Tract Source (My favorites: What if…? and their “Cash” tracts; 4th of July).

Oh, my friends, we are loaded down with countless church activities, while the real work of the Church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected. [Oswald J. Smith]

It’s true that many are praying for a world-wide revival. But it would be more timely, and more scriptural, for prayer to be made to the Lord of the harvest, that He would raise up and thrust forth laborers who would fearlessly and faithfully preach those truths which are calculated to bring about a revival. [A.W. Pink]

Dear friends and family,

Best News First!

Alejandro and Michael have returned to our church! Alejandro (father) and Michael (son; just graduating from college as a physical therapist) left our church several years ago and this last Sunday I had the greatest blessing in baptizing them both. You see, like many other Bible-preaching and Bible-teaching churches, we have seen many people leave after only a short time with us. Sadly, most “Christians” today prefer an entertainment-based ministry that makes them feel good rather than a cross-centered ministry that exhorts them to repentance, holiness, and service to the Lord (which, in all honesty, is what makes a true Christian feels the best!). So, what’s so special then about Alejandro and Michael (besides the fact that they are my friends and that it hurt to see them leave)? Their testimony!

When Michael left the church he kept going farther and farther down the path to carnality, worldliness, and sin. During his testimony before I baptized him, he admitted to even having actively followed the devil. Then one day he was curious about what was going on at Eastside Church, so he logged onto our web site and started following some of the links. He ended up on Ray Comfort’s site reading an article about “Why Don’t Christians Act Like Christians?” The answer was obvious (in the article by Ray and in Michael’s mind also): “Because they aren’t Christians!” And then it dawned on him: “I’m not a Christian!”

Michael had the standard “Christian family” testimony of having prayed a prayer to “accept Jesus” when he was about eight years old. But he never repented of his sin and that’s why as a teenager and young adult he lived the life of a hypocrite: Calling himself a Christian, going to church on Sundays, and then living in sin throughout the week.

That all changed a month or two ago, after God used Ray’s article to convict Michael of his false conversion and his need to repent. Michael got saved! Then he shared his testimony with his Dad, Alejandro, who got right with the Lord, too (repenting of his sins). They knew they needed to get back into a church and grow in Christ. Michael told his father there was only one church he would attend because it was the only place where he actually learned the Bible: Eastside Church. And God gave me the great pleasure of baptizing both Alejandro and Michael last Sunday! God is good, isn’t He?!

Good News Second!

We almost have our next Gospel tract printed up! A few months ago I started the long, tedious process of trying to get another tract printed down here: The “What if…?” doorhanger in Spanish from Custom Tract Source (these guys do great work: customtractsource.com). My printer promised me the tract weeks ago, so they should be ready very soon! We’ll have between 10,000 and 12,000 to take door to door all over the east side of San José.

And I would also like to say THANK YOU to Tom Gang and First Baptist Church of Jackson, Ohio (www.fbcj.com). Because of you guys we have an indoor soccer field that generates the money for these projects. Thank you very much!!

Ministry Opportunity in Medellín!

If you would like to take a team on a short-term missions trip in September, I would like to invite you to go with me to Medellín, Colombia. God has opened a tremendous door of ministry opportunity with pastor Fernando Garrido and his church “La Biblia Dice…” We would be helping them prepare for a major outreach event. Our mornings would be spent teaching the team members about cross-cultural ministry, and then in the afternoons we would hit the streets and the universities to apply what we learned in an actual “cross-cultural” setting. Exciting stuff! If you would like to participate, please contact me as soon as possible. More information is available on here. Thank you!

Greg & Sue Kedrovsky

We got downtown around 11:00 am and had time to preach twice — I went first and then Will had to hurry through the Gospel because it had already started to rain. Regardless, we had a great time and we were able to witness to many.

I know the videos are in Spanish, but if you’d like to see them, here are the links:

• Greg, by the Plaza de la Cultura
• Will, Central Avenue

I grow weary very quickly with the watered-down, don’t-offend-anyone, let’s-tell-stories messages that many pastors choose to “preach and teach” in an effort to become the latest Christian celebrity of the latest, greatest “mega-church.” Kyle is different. He’s not interested in winning a popularity contest; he’s interested in pleasing God and feeding his sheep.

Pastor Kyle Stephens is a Bible believer with a pastor’s heart and God is blessing his preaching and teaching. If you like to listen to sermons when you’re driving, mowing the lawn, working out on the treadmill, or whatever, download some of Kyle’s stuff out on av1611audio.com. And then shoot me an e-mail and let me know what you think.

~Greg

P.S. All downloads are free (and you can’t say that for everyone’s sermons these days, can you?).

I wrote the book for the “common Christian” rather than the “scholar” and designed it to ground the Bible student in the basics of how to study the Bible for himself. The chapter titles are as follows:

1. The Requirements of Bible Study (the right attitude, the right Bible, etc.)
2. The Rules of Bible Study
3. The Theme of the Bible
4. Old Testament Survey
5. New Testament Survey
6. How to Rightly Divide the Word of Truth (Dispensations)
7. The Kingdoms in the Bible
8. Things to Come (Eschatology)
9. The Transitional Books: Matthew, Acts, and Hebrews
10. Key Words and Phrases
11. Types and Pictures in the Word of God

Thanks to an anonymous donor at KCBT we were able to print up 500 copies of the book (8.5×11″, 350 pages, softcover). Please pray that God would use them greatly to preach and teach truth in the Spanish speaking Church.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. [1Tim 2.3-4]

Ministry opportunity in Medellín, Colombia

During any of the first three weeks of September, 2008

I have a tremendous open door in Medellín, Colombia, and would like to extend an invitation to whomever would like to participate.

During the last week of September, the national “Book Fair” conference will be held in Medellín. There will be thousands of people in and out of the convention center every day and Fernando Garrido (pastor of La Biblia Dice church, Medellín) has obtained a booth and will be able to put up a “display.” Obviously we are making plans to preach the Gospel, and pass out literature, Bibles, and promotional materials for his church and biblical discipleship.

Here’s the plan…

I would like to arrive in Medellín before the week of the Book Fair with a team from the United States. We would spend a week together ministering with Fernando and his people (mostly in preparation for the Fair, but also focusing on the team members, too). Here is an example of a possible itinerary:

• Arrive on a Saturday and get settled into houses (we will likely be able to put team members with families–members of the church; that means you would not have to pay for room and board).
• Sunday would be spent at church and getting to know the members.
• Monday through Friday we could have teaching sessions in the mornings on missions and cross-cultural ministry. In the afternoons, we could apply the principles we’re learning in the mornings out on the streets. There are several large universities in Medellín and many of the students are eager to speak English with native speakers (gringos).

These types of “open-air outreach” activities on a short-term missions trip are very powerful and life-changing. We spend time in the morning talking about the “theory” (learning biblical principles of missions and cross-cultural ministry) and then we hit the streets in a cross-cultural setting to apply those principles in “real life.” It stretches your faith and opens your eyes to the harvest!

I would like to say that I have ministered on the streets and in the universities of Medellín many times, and it is completely safe. Most of the “bad reputation” the city has is because of its history. Much has changed in the last ten years.

Special Needs

Fernando is going to need literature (tracts) and Bibles for the Book fair. We are also hoping to do an “iPod Outreach” in order to get people to take our “Good Test” and explain the Gospel to them. That means we’ll need at least one iPod.

We would, therefore, like to ask the team coming down to invest in a much of this material as is possible. Fernando will also be printing up additional literature in Medellín (if someone would like to fund that effort, that would be great!).

I can give more details to those interested in considering pulling a team together to help. Just shoot me an e-mail.

Medellín

Medellín is a very developed city that has a population of over 4,000,000 people (larger than the population of the country of Costa Rica). The need is great; there are only a handful of non-catholic churches (“evangelical”) and the great majority struggle with doctrinal issues because of a lack of Biblical training and teaching.

God is doing a great work in Fernando’s church and the door is wide open throughout Medellín for evangelism, church planting, discipleship, and leadership development.

Would you prayerfully consider going with me in September and investing in the work of God in Medellín, Colombia? I can assure you that it would also be a tremendous eternal investment in the members of your team. They’ll be exposed first-hand to cross-cultural ministry on the streets of Medellín!

Evangelism, according to the Bible, is going out to where the sinners are, preaching the cross of Christ (Law and grace; justice and forgiveness; wrath and love), and leading the lost to repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. When that happens with two or three sinners, then those two or three new converts can gather together and… you got a church!

Todd Friel addressed this issue on his radio show yesterday (Monday, March 31, 2008). You can listen to the 2.5 minute clip here if you’d like. When I heard what he had to say, I remembered a couple of messages I preached at a church in the States a couple years ago. I was one of several invited speakers and the thrust of the conference was church planting in the region’s growing cities (amen! wonderful vision!). I spoke first on the Mission God gave us to seek and save the lost, and my second message was about calling men to repentance. The two-part series centered around these two foundational truths:

1. If we are not actively evangelizing (which is our Mission: “seek and save the lost”), then we will fill our churches by transfer growth. We’ll be the new church in the new suburb that attracts the “already churched” that are looking for a change of scenery.
2. If we are not actively calling men to repentance in our evangelism efforts, then we will fill our churches with false converts (lost people who think they are saved because they “prayed a prayer” or “accept Jesus”).

If you’d like to listen to those two messages, I’ll put the links below to the mp3s. I would like to say this, though, before you listen to them: Please do not mistake my passion for a “mean spirit.” I was sick the whole week of this conference and a bit out of sorts, so I wasn’t feeling well at all. Coupling that with a “passionate delivery,” and some have taken the passion with which I spoke as me being “mad and angry.” To the contrary, I am very excited about these concepts and am putting them into practice here at Eastside Church. Also, since the church that hosted the conference is where many friends of mine attend, you might hear “casual comments” or jokes that I’d not use in another context (one in particular comes to mind with a friend of mine from college who brought me some water and I said he’d make a good wife someday; it was a “jab in the arm” to a friend of mine, so please take it in context).

The important thing I think we need to understand is that we don’t see “church planting” in the Bible as a means of evangelism. Paul’s “missional model” of ministry was to evangelize first (open-air preaching, outreach in the Jewish synagogues, etc.) and then gather the new converts together for weekly preaching and teaching. Evangelism was first and that resulted in a new church. Paul didn’t hang out a shingle and say, “We’re here! Y’all come!” He did the “heavy lifting” of “cold-contact” evangelism first (and continually), and then started a church with the new converts God gave him.

This is the five-step Pauline pattern that we are trying to following here (and will develop more in the next year as we make plans to start a new church):

1. Evangelize (go out to where the lost are and speak to them about Jesus Christ, heaven, hell, repentance, etc.).
2. Start a church with the new converts God gives.
3. Disciple them (establish them in the faith and train them for the Mission).
4. Develop local leadership.
5. Missions: Go and do the same in another “key city” (leaving the previous work in the capable hands of the committed leaders that were developed during the process of biblical discipleship in the local church).

Church planting is not evangelism. It should be the natural result of evangelism so that the new believers can experience fellowship, encouragement, discipleship, the preaching and teaching of God’s Word, etc. Without a clear focus on evangelism, we’ll simply fill our churches by “transfer growth,” and the lost will never be reached.

1. First message: Radical Zeal for the Mission
2. Second message: Calling Men to Repentance

~Greg

KCBT has not stopped supporting us.

The Kansas City Baptist Temple is our sending church. They have generously and graciously supported us ever since we were sent out of by them to the Latin American mission field. They continue to do so.

A few months ago I mentioned in an update letter that a church had decided to stop supporting us, and I did not mention the name of the church in order to try to avoid misunderstandings about their decision to do so. It was not KCBT. It was Grace Church (pastor Tim Howey) who decided to invest their “Gospel resources” in other, less “reached” fields.

Now before anyone gets bent out of shape over their decision, I want you to know that Tim and I (and his missions pastor) had a wonderful talk on the phone about all this late last year. They were very gracious and I am in total agreement with their decision. In our conversation they were very clear as to why they were making the decision: They want to move more resources into areas of the world like China, India, and the Muslim nations (commonly referred to as the “10/40 Window”) — areas where there are large “unreached” people groups. Praise the Lord! Good for them! I’m all for that and more! There are absolutely no hard feelings on anybody’s part over this decision. As a matter of fact, Tim and Grace Church promised to give us this year’s entire support in one lump sum at the beginning of 2008 so that we could seek to replace that monthly support without the pressure of making ends meet. That is how our relationship has been with Tim and Grace Church since they began supporting us over a decade ago. They have been faithful and gracious, many times going over and above what they had promised. I’m thankful for the years they supported us and I’m excited to see what God does with them as they continue to invest in world missions.

This brings me to the next point, because for some reason there seems to be a misunderstanding about my role in the ministry here and why Grace decided to stop supporting us financially. The misunderstanding has been stated like this (and I quote):

“Greg is just a pastor… and he is focusing specifically on the work of a pastor IN PLACE OF missionary church plant work.“

We are whole-heartedly committed to missions (including church planting).

I honestly don’t know where to start with a comment like the above. That statement not only shows a complete ignorance of our ministry here, but it also shows a complete ignorance of the biblical role of a local church pastor (who is called to train men and women in the mission of making disciples of all nations). So, please bear with me (because this is going to get lengthy), and let’s start at the beginning.

Our Original Plan from 1995

When we were sent out of KCBT in 1995, I wrote our first update letter that was basically a two-year, five-year, and ten-year plan for the ministry here. I have a copy in front of me right now. Our plan has never changed. We are doing what God laid on our hearts to do over a decade ago, and we have not deviated from that plan. I have not changed in my vision of ministry on the mission field.

Our five-year goals centered around a “key city, key church, and key men” (the following is a direct quote from my plan of 1995)…

1. KEY CITY: Locate our ministry in a strategically positioned Latin American city of God’s choosing (a strategic location for reaching all of Latin America).
2. KEY CHURCH: To structure our ministry within the biblical pattern of the local, New Testament Church. We planned to either submit to a current local church or to establish a new church (obviously, God has led us to do the second).
3. KEY MEN: To begin building relationships with faithful men in order to minister the Word of God to and with them, and thereby mold them into the image of Christ (2Tim 2.2).

Those goals have been reached. We are currently in a very strategic city in Latin America — it is very easy to get anywhere in Central and South America from San José, Costa Rica. We started this “key church” (Eastside Church) six years ago this month. And God has graciously given me several men and women who are being trained as leaders in our ministry.

Our long-term (10+ years) goals were and are these:

1. MISSION STATEMENT: To mold individuals into the image of Christ and to equip them to participate in Christ’s commission to make disciples of all nations.
2. We desire to reproduce in God’s people a heart and life committed to fulfilling God’s mission of “making disciples of all nations.”
3. We desire to equip God’s people with the necessary tools so that they might be able to invest the Word of God in the lives of others.
4. We desire to commission and send the men God raises up to reproduce around the world the work of “making disciples of all nations.”

Like I said, all of that (and more — I can send you a copy of the original if you’d like) was written as our original plan before being sent out of KCBT. I have not changed in my ministry vision and mission. It still remains the same.

Let’s Clear Up a Misunderstanding About “Church Planting”

To say that I am “just a pastor” and “not committed to church planting” is ridiculous. I am so committed to church planting that I planted a church. Eastside Church was started six years ago by us going door-to-door and inviting people to our services.

What I am not committed to is a “Titus model” of church planting (and using that term is gracious because many are simply following “tradition” and have no idea why they do it). Paul left Titus on Crete in order to establish leaders in the various churches that had none (Titus 1.5). Churches had been started, but they had no local leadership, and so Titus was in charge of building up the men in those works so that they could continue pastoring their churches by themselves. A typical missionary today will follow a very similar pattern. He will start a new work and when he sees a promising young man come up through the ranks, he’ll place him in charge (with the missionary’s continued supervision, of course) and go off to start another work in another area. When that second work produces a young man that shows promise, the process is repeated. Many Latin Americans who have seen this pattern in action call it “kingdom building.” Why? Well, because after several years the missionary has started several churches, but because he never spent the time with the “heavy lifting” of discipleship and leadership development, he continues to have to oversee his men in the ministry. In effect, he becomes a “pope” overseeing his “kingdom” (those are not my words, but rather the words of the Latinos). Many missionaries still tell their national pastors what to preach, not only giving them the texts but also the outlines (and sometimes even the full sermon). Not all missionaries are like this, obviously. But I state the case to simply say that I am not committed to the “Titus model” of starting new works and leaving them in the hands of young men who have received little training in the ministry.

Our ministry is based primarily on the “Timothy model,” taking into consideration the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul (understanding, of course, that his was a special ministry and a special call at a special time in history — he was the last of God’s Apostles). What does that mean in practical terms…?

It means that we have established a “key church” in a “key city,” and we have developed (and are developing further) the “key tools” we need to train up “key men” who will work along side of us as we start new works. They will also be those who are commissioned and sent to pastor those works and to also start others on their own (both locally and internationally).

To say that “Greg is just a pastor” and that I have chosen to “specifically work as a pastor in place of missionary church plant work” is misinformation or a misunderstanding. First and foremost, I believe the work of a pastor IS “missionary church plant work.” We planted a church! And we have labored for six years to care for this church! In second place, we plan on planting new churches in the future, but I do not plan on pastoring those new churches (unless God sees fit to indicate that I should; I’d love to! but my commitment is primarily with the church He has given me: Eastside). Our plan is apply 2Timothy 2.2 and train up the men God gives us to do the work of the ministry so that we can labor together to evangelize in other areas of Costa Rica and Latin America, plant new churches, disciple new believers, train local leadership, and leave healthy, functioning local churches that are also committed to the same vision and mission.

We are at a point in our ministry here where we are, in many respects, waiting on God. We’re not sitting around twiddling our thumbs — there is much work to do. After six years we have a core group of people, but most of them are in “stage five” of the seven stages of discipleship (for those of you who have seen the material on the “Seven Stages of Discipleship”). This stage deals with “re-evaluation and separation.” My people have received much teaching and training, but they lack in character and commitment. That only comes through God’s work in their hearts as they re-evaluate their lives in light of Scripture and eternity, and separate from “their lives” in order to separate “to” the Gospel. As much as I’d like to speed that process along, I can’t. My job is to faithfully teach them and exhort them as their pastor, pray for them and love them and their friend and co-laborer, and then wait on God to mold them and move them through this stage.

Maybe in six years a church in the States could produce pastoral level leaders like we desire to see here. But, in Latin America we are up against an entirely different value system, and in order for a young man or woman to grow through the discipleship and leadership development process, they have to exchange many of their deep-seated values. That’s not an easy process, nor is it quick. But, it’s happening. God is working, and He is bearing fruit. But, it’s slow and hard. Even the smallest steps sometimes take an extreme amount of effort.

In the next several years, though, I believe we’ll see many of my “up and coming leaders” become committed leaders. They will be the ones God will send out to pastor new works or be missionaries on the foreign field. And when they are sent out, I’d like them to know that Eastside Church is their home, and that we are here to support them and make sure they are taken care of while serving God in other locations around the globe.

Consider the Desire of Our Heart: Mission and Missions

One of my constant prayer requests is that God would make me like Paul — I want to be obsessed with the Gospel just as Paul was (Rom 15.20-21). I believe we can see a very practical pattern of missions in Paul’s ministry (later reproduced in Timothy, Titus, etc.). Just read the Book of Acts and you’ll see it easily:

1. Evangelism: Paul entered into a new town and evangelized. There were no established churches (maybe a synagogue), and therefore much of his work was done “cold-contact” and “open-air.”
2. Church Planting: When God gave Paul a group of new converts, he began meeting with them regularly to teach them of Jesus Christ.
3. Discipleship: In addition to regular (weekly) meetings with the congregation, we find Paul spending more time with “disciples” — with those who showed interest and promise, like Timothy for example.
4. Leadership Development: After a while of working with his disciples, some rose to the top as “leaders” and we see Paul leaving them in charge of churches (for example, the elders in the church at Ephesus in Acts 20).
5. Missions: Paul would then leave the work in the capable hands of the local leadership and go to another key city to repeat the process.

That’s it; that’s our plan. That’s my heart’s desire. That’s what I want to do. I want to do that while also being “just” a pastor at Eastside Church. Here is the broad plan for the next five years…

In 2008: “Intentional Evangelism”

This year our focus is on intentional (deliberate) evangelism. We are studying the Book of Acts during our Sunday services, and we are looking at it as a “missions manual.” What did the early church do in order to fulfill the mission to make disciples of all nations? We want to follow them and their example.

Our “intentional evangelism” strategy consists of three key components:

1. Constant Evangelism: Our people are learning to carry tracts on them at all times. They are learning to take advantage of those “divine appointments” in daily conversations. They are learning to be constant in their witness, so that they can evangelize constantly.
2. Strategic Evangelism: We are taking Gospel literature door-to-door each month (something different for each house, each month). Our desire is to systematically blanket our community and / or our city with God’s Word, especially the Gospel. Just as the reformers, like Wycliffe, used “pamphlet wars” to bring light to the dark ages, we desire to do the same today.
3. Aggressive Evangelism: Many of us are committed to being on the streets regularly and preaching open-air, witnessing one-on-one or to small groups, and passing out tracts wherever we can find sinners. Many more are getting the “itch” to do the same. God is raising up men and women who desire to evangelize like the early church did.

This is our focus in 2008 because we must have a solid foundation of evangelism if we hope to continue to develop the vision God has laid on our hearts. In 2009, we build on this foundation.

In 2009: “Intentional Regional Missions”

Our desire is to begin to pinpoint key cities in Costa Rica (for example, Esparza) and go there to do the same thing we are doing here. Lord willing…

1. We will evangelize on the streets and door-to-door.
2. We will gather the new believers weekly (Sunday afternoon is our current plan) for fellowship and expository preaching.
3. We will disciple the new believers (our “key tools” include our discipleship material of over 1000 pages contained in 6 modules and 10 courses; it can be completed in approximately 2-3 years).
4. We will begin training local leadership to care for the flock in our absence during the week (local leadership will be present during the weekdays while we will only be able to be there on weekends), using the weekends to further their training.
5. When God places competent leadership in that new work (estimate: 3-4 years), we’ll leave it their hands and go to another key city to do the same.

In 2009 I am planning on preaching through the Book of Leviticus at Eastside in order to emphasise God, His holiness, and His call on our lives to that very same holiness (a separation from sin and separation to God and His use in His work).

In 2010+: “Intentional Missions”

I believe that this pattern of ministry is cross-cultural and that our “regional” work in Costa Rica will train men to take what they are doing here, and transplant it in other countries (either Spanish-speaking or not). After having received teaching and training at Eastside, they will put it into practice with Eastside as we begin other works in other cities in Costa Rica. After that experience, they will have the tools they need to go and do the same work (evangelism, church planting, discipleship, leadership development, and missions) in another country. That is our desire. That is our vision.

Other Stuff “On the Side”: A Publishing Ministry

In addition to the work I’ve briefly described, I’d like you all to know, too, that God has developed a publishing ministry through Eastside Church. I’ve always been drawn to Bible study, Bible teaching / preaching, and writing. A lot of what I do during the week in the ministry of Eastside Church is done in such a way as to take what we are doing here and provide it as “key tools” to other Spanish-speaking Christians.

We have designed many different tracts that we sell in our bookstore and that we give away on the streets (we also give away our original designs so that others can print them up in their own countries). I have written several books, booklets, and our discipleship material. For example, here are some of the publications currently available (all in Spanish, of course):

1. Biblical Discipleship (like I said, it’s over 1000 pages of material, structured in six modules containing ten courses)
2. How to Study the Bible (over 350 pages of teaching on how to study the Scriptures; many at KCBT will recognize much of the material as the old “D2″ stuff).
3. Commentary on the Book of Revelation
4. Commentary on the Book Esther
5. Topical book on “Signs and Wonders in the Church Today”
6. Topical book on the Pentecostal Movement (a huge influence in Latin America).
7. A book on “The Sevens” (The seven sevens, the seven covenants, the seven baptisms, the seven resurrections, etc.)
8. Detailed study notes on the Books of Ephesians, Genesis, Philippians, Ezra, and Romans; along with another on Church History.
9. Booklets on Fasting, Tongues, Healing, Casting out Demons, Repentance, True and False Conversions, The Work of the Holy Spirit, the Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit, The Use of the Law in Evangelis, and others.

I could go on, but if you want to browse our web site, you can get an idea of what we have to offer, and we are working on getting more materials available. The books that we print are generally sold at a price to cover only cost (and we give away many).

All of our material is offered free of charge on our web site. Anyone anywhere can log onto www.iglesia-del-este.com and download copies of any and all this material without infringing any copyright — we offer it all with no rights reserved, free of charge.

I have a simple statistics program installed in our web site so I can keep track of how many hits we have and from where. On any give day we’ll have over 200 hits, and sometimes we’ll have over 700. Many times people will find our site when they use Google to search for something. Here are some examples of what people have searched for and what has led them to our site (my comments are in parenthesis):

1. Evangelism book in PDF (we have two)
2. The Book of Esther (I have a 750-page commentary for free)
3. How to study the Bible (I have a 350-page book on this topic offered for free)
4. Preaching on evangelism (there is more than you could listen to in a week on our site)
5. Spiritual maturity (they need our discipleship material)
6. Ephesians study (I have verse-by-verse study notes on the whole book)
7. Outlines of the Epistles (I have begun to write a new book called “Outlines and Charts,” and I’m putting all my stuff up on the site as it gets finished)

Obviously the search strings were in Spanish, but I just put that in here to say this: We desire to preach and teach God’s truth to the global Spanish-speaking community and we are doing just that. To say that “Greg is just a pastor” and that I (or we) have no interest in “missionary work” is ridiculous. Not only are we laboring daily to build a strong local church with strong local leadership, we are focused continually on the need outside our borders, too. I regularly converse with Hispanic pastors and lay-leaders in Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, and the United States (most of which is fruit from our simple, little web site).

Costa Rica (and Latin America) Has NOT Been “Reached”

The last thing I’d like to say is that God is not done with Latin America. Yes, there has been a Gospel presence here for more than three generations, but just like in the United States, there are millions of unreached people here. God has us here because the Mission has yet to be fulfilled here. There is much to do! We need pastors, leaders, evangelists, disciplers, preachers… We need your prayer and your faithful support. We need you to be of one mind with us, and that one mind is the mission God has given us:

Evangelize to make disciples. Disciple to make evangelists.

That’s the work. That’s our heartbeat. That’s what we are all about, both here at Eastside and, in the future (if God would permit), in new cities with new churches. I know I am not the best pastor around (or the best missionary), but I want you all to know that I love God and I committed to glorifying Him by finishing the work He has given me to do. I’ve tried to briefly describe that work in this letter (“briefly” because I could go on).

If you have any questions about anything I have written, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. I wrote this with the desire to clear up misunderstandings that have spread among many people (many of whom have contacted me personally). So, I wanted to publicly declare our vision, plan, and passion for God’s work on the Spanish-speaking mission field. I trust I have done so, but if not please get in contact with me.

~Greg

I’ll be visiting a friend of mine, Luis Salazar, in a suburb of Washington DC and preaching during his Bible conference. Luis is the pastor of a growing Hispanic ministry at Capital Baptist Church in Annandale, VA.

Luis is originally from Costa Rica and has been in the States now for quite a while. He’s dedicated to evangelism, discipleship, and expository preaching. I’m excited to be with him and his people again, and I’m very thankful for the invitation to visit.

The conference runs from Thursday (April 24th) through Sunday (April 27th) and we’ll be focusing on the importance and necessity of discipleship in the lives of God’s people. Luis has a lot of new folks attending his services and he needs disciplers! I think that’s a great problem to have, but it’s still a need that has to be addressed. So, we’re going to gather together around the Word of God and see what the Lord does in our lives as we spend a week together preaching and teaching on biblical discipleship.

For right now the plan is to fly into DC on Tuesday (April 22nd) and then return to Costa Rica the following Monday (April 28th). Those dates might change by a day or two depending on flights and ticket costs, but that’s the general idea.

Thanks to everyone for praying for us between now and then! God is bearing fruit among the huge Hispanic population in and around Washington DC. Our desire is for the saints to be faithful to call to disciple the new believers so they in turn can seek their own disciple in the Lord.

Teen Challenge is a Christian organization that is dedicated to helping people get free of their addictions (drugs, alcohol, etc.). Here in Costa Rica they are sponsored during their 13-month stay at the Teen Challenge facilities. It costs about $200.00 a month for room, board, etc. They seem to have a pretty good commitment to Scripture, too.

The executive director of Teen Challenge saw us preaching open-air downtown a while back and took one of our tracts. He later got in touch with me and then stopped by the church to visit. He invited me to teach his men how to evangelize biblically–using the Law before presenting grace, etc.

So, Will and I spent the morning at the Teen Challenge facilities teaching about 30 guys our Evangelism Workshop material. We had lunch with them, and then took the whole bunch down to an area of San José called Desamparados to put what they learned into practice. There wasn’t a big enough crowd of people in the park to preach open-air, but they did very well using tracts to strike up conversations and witness to people on the street.

We had a great time and the Lord really took good care of us, so I thoughtI’d post it and share it with you all. ~Greg

We hope all of you are doing well and walking with the Lord in submission to His good and perfect will. There’s really no other way to be “doing well,” is there?!

What’s been going on…?

This year we are focusing on “The Mission” and how we as a church can fulfill that mission. The Bible is clear that God has left us on this earth to “evangelize to make disciples, and disciple to make evangelists.” We preach the cross of Christ to the lost (evangelism) and then we train up new Christians to do that same work with us (discipleship). It’s not very complicated, but so few seem to be doing it.

During 2008 we have determined to be “intentional” in our efforts to fulfill our mission, and that means we are committed to intentional and strategic evangelism efforts in our community. We are trying to be out on the streets more and more this year as we also develop other methods of reaching the lost with the Gospel message. One of those methods is door-to-door distribution of literature. We don’t bother the people, but rather simply leave them something (a tract, a brochure, a booklet, etc.) each month. We’re hoping to have the resources to be able to blanket the east side of San José, Costa Rica, several times this year with the Gospel of Christ and the truth of God’s Word. We’ve already been over several areas twice and we’re saving our pennies to print the next tract in order to do it again.

Our discipleship ministry has also grown a bit and it’s begun to diversify, too. We still have small groups meeting at church on Thursday nights, but this year we’ve seen several maturing members begin to take on the responsibility of working one-on-one with new or growing believers.

On Sundays we’re studying the Book of Acts in order to saturate ourselves with biblically based patterns of ministry. The early Church glorified God by fulfilling the mission of making disciples, and God recorded their example in the Book of Acts. How did they do it? What does a “mission-minded ministry” really look like? It’s all in the Acts! And we want to follow their example so that we, too, can finish the work God gave us to do.

What’s planned for later this year…?

Lots! We are going to continue to focus heavily on evangelism so that we are ready for God’s further direction in 2009 (we’re on the verge of beginning to start new works in other areas of Costa Rica). We are going to continue to diligently disciple new believers. We’re busy publishing another four or five of the books I’ve written, along with our discipleship material (trying to get good, sound doctrine into the hands of Spanish speakers everywhere).

And we’re hoping to team up with a couple churches from the States to do some short-term missions projects:

1. Medellín, Colombia, in September of 2008: We have a tremendous open door and opportunity to do a work of intense evangelism with a solid local church in Medellín. There would be both training and practice involved (time on the streets and university campuses, in English). I’ll have more details about this trip up on our web site soon. Please consider taking a team to Medellín with me in September! It will be an intense “evangelism boot camp” with a focus on cross-cultural missions exposure.
2. Work project here (San José, Costa Rica): A very faithful (and poor) member of our church (Andrés) needs help with his house and I’d like to help him. We’d need money for materials and people with construction and welding experience. If God would lay this on your heart, please get in contact with me as soon as you can.

God is still working in the hearts and lives of people today, and we can be involved in that work if we so desire. The work has not changed since the first century—we are still called to evangelize in order to make disciples, and then disciple new converts in order to make evangelists. It’s not complicated; it’s a very simple mission. But it takes a lot of work. We must be on the streets. We must be out among the lost. We must preach, print, and publish the Truth of God’s Word. If we simply sit inside the four walls of our church buildings, we will have failed our Lord. He said, “Go! and make disciples,” and so we need to get out in public to seek and save the lost. In a time of apathy and indifference, let’s be different! Let’s be on fire for intentional evangelism and diligent discipleship!

Thank you all for your continued faithfulness in praying for us and supporting us in the ministry here. We appreciate you and thank the Lord for you!

Greg & Sue Kedrovsky

Yesterday a group of about six or eight of us spent the afternoon at the Saprisa soccer stadium where there were literally thousands of people standing in line to get in and see Iron Maiden live in concert. There were people here from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and the U.S. Some had been camping out in line since last week!

With that many people in one location, just standing in line… what a great opportunity to witness and pass out tracts! We ended up giving away over 3,000 tracts including 600 “10 Commandment Pennies” (with a card explaining the Gospel), a couple thousand “Million Dollar Bills,” and several other kinds of cards and pamphlets.

I apologize for the quality of the video. My camera isn’t the best, and so we had to use an external microphone hooked up to a digital voice recorder, and then try to mix it afterwards. All of the footage after my quick intro was lost because of some continuous error the camera gives me. I tried to mix in some still photos so you could at least get an idea of what the afternoon was like.

Only a few tracts were refused, and even fewer were thrown down. About 95% of the folks gladly received the information, and we were able to politely talk with many. God is good and the power to save is in the seed sown! We’re praying that the Lord would use those tracts to convict many of sin, righteousness, and judgment so that He might also lead them to the cross.

He was able to spend quite a bit of time with pastor José Guerrero and La Roca Fuerte church, explaining discipleship and showing them how to use our discipleship material. Will met personally with José, he taught various times during the week, and then he was invited to preach during their Sunday services. There was also plenty of time to visit with some of the folks he got to know while in Monmouth a year o so ago.

Here are some pictures of José, his wife, Will, and the congregation.

We would love to be able to go back to the Monmouth area later this year — possibly focusing more effort in the Galesburg area (a larger city than Monmouth). There are several Hispanic congregations in and around Galesburg, and it would be a wonderful opportunity to have some sort of conference for area pastors and their people. The idea would be to focus on the mission of evangelism and discipleship, and to encourage them to diligently grow in sound doctrine. But, for now we have no plans to return, just a lot of desire to see a good work done among the Hispanics of rural Illinois.

Thank you all very much for praying for Will. We appreciate the hospitality of the Dean and Julie in Monmouth, and that of Josh Green in Kansas City (Will was able to visit friends at the Kansas City Baptist Temple after a week or so in Monmouth). Thanks for taking care of my friend!

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Will preached first, and God gave him a big crowd. Then I was able to preach, too, a little farther down Central Avenue. Hundreds of people heard the message of the cross (Law, Grace, and personal decision) and we were able to pass out well over 500 Gospel tracts.

If you have a few minutes, please watch the videos. I know we preach in Spanish, but I put in some English commentaries so you could follow along.

1. A brief introduction to the outing
2. Will preaching by the Plaza de la Cultura
3. Me preaching at the intersection of Central Avenue and Central Street

You may notice that I’ve changed the host I’m using for videos. YouTube is full of smut and vulgarity, so after a bit of looking around I found VideoPile. For now, I’m liking it a lot. If you have any problems or comments about the videos or where I host them, please let me know. I can always use the help!

And thank you all for praying for us! Boldness and “intentional evangelism” comes only from the Lord.

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. [Eph 6.18-20]

Many of you know Will; he’s one of the “up and coming” leaders here at Eastside Church, and my right-hand man in most every area of the ministry here. About a year to two ago, God opened the door for Will to team up with Mike Blake and Maple City Baptist Church to reach out to the Hispanic community in Monmouth, IL. He spent approximately six months with Mike in Monmouth and made many contacts among the Hispanics there. Those contacts are still bearing fruit!

Some of the friends Will made while in Monmouth now attend an Hispanic church close to Mike’s Maple City Baptist, and the pastor (José Guerrero) has invited Will back to Monmouth to teach a week-long conference on biblical discipleship. We are excited, to say the least!

Will is to arrive in Monmouth next week, the 6th of February, and he’ll be teaching the rest of that week in the evenings about biblical discipleship, presenting our discipleship material as a key tool for that ministry. Since he won’t be coming back to Costa Rica until the 18th, we’re hoping he has the opportunity to catch the train to Kansas City and visit with friends. (For all you KCBT’ers, please look for Will on Sunday the 17th. I know he’d be very encouraged if you’d find him and love on him!)

This trip came up quite suddenly because of a number of odd circumstances, so we’re having to move quickly to pull together all the details. Please pray for Will, pastor José Guerrero (U.S. resident originally from Mexico), and the “Roca Fuerte” church in Monmouth, IL. May God give them a passion to win souls and preach the Word of God!

I would like to clarify one thing about the trip, since it’s already been brought to my attention that it could cause some confusion if someone doesn’t know all the details involved. Because of financial problems here in our ministry we had to give Will “unpaid vacation” during the month of February. So, Will can’t pay for his ticket. The church can’t pay for his ticket (we can barely pay our own rent!). And we’ve just experienced another church cutting our support, so we’re not in any position to pay for it. But, God is faithful and has laid it on the heart of a man in Monmouth to pay for this trip. His name is Dean, and he’s a farmer that lives and works in the rural area around Monmouth. Dean has a tremendous burden for the Hispanic people in his community and has been a constant encouragement to us in our efforts in that city. Dean is a member of a church that belongs to the denomination called the “Disciples of Christ.” Obviously we (that denomination and our ministry here) do not agree on every doctrine, essential or secondary. However, I do not believe that should inhibit our choice to receive Dean’s generous gift with a thankful heart. Neither Dean nor his church have asked for any influence whatsoever on the material being presented and taught during this week’s discipleship conference at José Guerrro’s church. They are just happy that Will can return and continue to minister to their Spanish-speaking community! But, I do feel the need to let you know and to also give credit where credit is due; I am thankful that God put Dean in our path to provide for our needs.

Video on YouTube

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the aspects of our outreach ministry here is “strategic evangelism” where we try to reach each person in our geographic area with the Gospel. The easiest way to do this is through door-to-door literature distribution and this month we are placing 12,000 brochures in houses all over the east side of San José. You can see the brochure in detail clicking the images below.

Next month we’re planning on passing out those “tract packs” we put together a couple weeks ago. I’ve also been in contact with Custom Tract Source and they are going to be doing their door-hanger for me in Spanish (maybe for March or April… if I can get the money together). Same houses, same families, different “literature.” I’d love to get something different into each house every month.

1. May God give me the radical passion and zeal of Jehu.

And the watchman told, saying, He came even unto them, and cometh not again: and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously. [2Kings 9.20]

2. May God give me the commitment of Josiah.

And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him. [2Kings 23.25]

3. May God give me the strategic mind of Joshua (to “make war”).

As the LORD commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded Moses… So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from war. [Josh 11.15-23]

4. May God give me the perseverence of Caleb (at 85 years old he was still looking for a fight: “Give me that mountain…”).

As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said. [Josh 14.11-12]

5. May God give me the determination of Shammah (to stand firm, and to stand alone if I have to).

And after him was Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite. And the Philistines were gathered together into a troop, where was a piece of ground full of lentiles: and the people fled from the Philistines. But he stood in the midst of the ground, and defended it, and slew the Philistines: and the LORD wrought a great victory. [2Sam 23.11-12]

6. May God give me the obsession of Paul.

Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation: But as it is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand. [Rom 15.20-21]

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. [Ef 6.18-20]

7. May God give me the love of Christ (love for my Father and love for my neighbor).

Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. [John 4.34; love for my Father]

For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again… And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God… [2Cor 5.14-21; love for my neighbor]

God gave us His promise (and He cannot lie) that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, then we know too that we have the petitions we desire of Him (1Jn 5.14-15).

Juan Carlos (or “JuanCa” for short) is what many today are calling an “indigenous missionary.” He’s a friend of mine, he’s become part of our ministry here, and so I’d like to introduce him to you.

JuanCa is originally from San José and has pastored a church in a rural area of Costa Rica called San Mateo for the last three years; it’s about 30 minutes from the Pacific Coast (and two or three hours from San José where we live). His church is actually in a small town in San Mateo called “Jesús-María,” and from the name you can guess that it’s very catholic. He also pastors a new work that he started in a town just down the road called Labrador (you may remember we did some outreach with JuanCa in Labrador a while back).

He is very committed to evangelism and does a lot of house-to-house witnessing, visiting with the families in his area. He also likes to preach open-air, and that was the reason for my visit this last Thursday.

JuanCa has decided to have open-air services in different areas of San Mateo each Thursday night during our dry season (up until about March), and this last Thursday was the first. He invited me down to be with him and to preach. We had a wonderful time preaching the Gospel in a very “hard” neighborhood in Jesús-María (drugs, violence, prostitution, etc.).

This guy is a faithful Christian who is doing the best he can with what he has in a very difficult area of the world (rural Latin America). We support him with our prayers and fellowship, and we’ve shared our discipleship material with him, too. I would love to see JuanCa get involved with KCBT’s Spanish Bible Institute, “¿Qué dice la Biblia…?” So, please pray for JuanCa, his family, and his works in Jesús-María, Labrador, and other areas in San Mateo.

As I mention in the video, if anyone would like to come down and do a work project while getting exposure to evangelism and cross-cultural ministry, JuanCa’s work in Jesús-María is perfect. Just send me an e-mail and we can work out all the other details.

First Baptist Church of Jackson, Ohio, is a Bible-believing church dedicated to evangelism, discipleship, expository preaching, and the teaching of God’s Word. They have many of their teaching materials available on-line. If you’d like sound Bible study materials in English, please check it out:

http://www.fbcj.com/min_audio.htm

I need to get the art work to the printers this week, and then we’ll work out the details of doing the run. I’ll keep you posted.

Thursday nights around Eastside Church you can alway find someone discipling. Since many people find it easier to be responsible in discipleship if there is a specific night they have to “be ready” for, we’ve set aside Thursday nights for them.

This last Thursday night, I invited anyone and everyone that wasn’t involved currently in a discipleship course or group to come to church and help assemble “tract packs.”

We printed up some 60,000 tracts for our ministry a while back, and the printer used the wrong paper (C10 instead of C12), and the guy who was running the cutter… well, let’s just say he was having a bad day. The whole run of 60,000 was a loss, but many were salvageable. So, instead of throwing them away, the printer donated them to the church. Cool!

We took one of each tract (there were six or eight different designs) and put them in a plastic bag with an “awareness bracelet” (silicon bracelet with the church name on it with our web site) and some candy for weight. Since everyone lives in houses with bars all around them, you have to “pitch” the tracts about five yards to reach the front door. A Tootsie Pop is perfect weight to make the five-yard pitch!

These tract packs form part of our “strategic evangelism” strategy for reaching our community. This month (January) we are passing out 12,000 color brochures of our church (each with an invitation to our services and a biblical presentation of the Gospel). Next month we’ll be going back through our community with the tract packs.

God’s good. He pretty much just gave us several thousand tracts, free of charge! So, we want to be faithful and sow the seed he’s placed in our hands.

Here’s the video, if you want to see what Thursday night looked like here at Eastside Church.

I think I’ve settled on three different types of evangelism that should form part of our outreach as a church body. Not everyone is going to open-air preach, but we should all be intentional about evangelizing the lost. How can we do that? How about the following…?

1. Constant Evangelism

• Every Christian should always be prepared to witness, either verbally or through some sort of literature (tracts, invitations to your church—where hopefully the Gospel is preached! or something of that sort).

• At Eastside Church we just printed up 12,000 full-color brochures that give an overview of our ministry, an invitation to our Sunday services, and a presentation of the Gospel. We also have several “business card” sized invitations that people can carry around for those conversations where you have the opportunity to say, “Well, if you’d like, you can check out my church… either Sunday or on the web.”

2. Strategic Evangelism

• Every Bible-believing, Christian church should have some specific, focused, methodical plan to get the Gospel to all of the people in their geographic location.

• This year (if the Lord permits) we’re planning on going door-to-door each month with various types of literature (like the brochure). As a matter of fact, we just had a meeting today after church to coordinate the distribution of the brochure by our people throughout the entire east side of San José.

• I have a couple more ideas that I’ll be sharing with you later (one of which should go up today, after this post).

3. Aggressive Evangelism

• You gotta have aggressive evangelism! You just gotta! What would the Christian Church be without spiritual bellicosity?! (Sorry… got carried away there…)

• If you have the desire (and I understand that not everyone does), you should do this. If you don’t do this, be sure to do the other two types of evangelism.

• Aggressive evangelism is direct confrontation with the lost where they gather and live. It takes various forms: Passing out tracts (at concerts, malls, sporting events, bar districts, etc.), one-on-one “cold contact” witnessing on the street, and open-air preaching.

The purpose of God in giving us His Holy Spirit was to give us the power (power that manifests in boldness; Acts 4.31) to be witnesses.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. [Acts 1.8]

So, let’s draw close to God in the Word and prayer… and be intentional about evangelism!

1. The Requirements of Profitable Bible Study
2. The Rules of Bible Study
3. The Theme of the Bible
4. Summary of the Old Testament
5. Summary of the New Testament
6. How to Rightly Divide the Word (Dispensations)
7. The Kingdoms in the Bible
8. Things to Come
9. The Transition Books: Matthew, Acts, and Hebrews
10. Key Words and Phrases
11. Types and Pictures in the Bible

This will be our second book (the first was Signs and Wonders in the Church Today — I just posted a little something on that book so you can see what it’s all about) we’re making available to the Spanish speaking community. Yes, it is written in Spanish and only available in Spanish, but I wanted you all to know about our continual efforts to disseminate God’s truth through the written word.

One of the greatest problems in the Latin American Church today is ignorance of Scripture. There are many people involved in movements that value personal experience over the authority of Scripture, so Bible reading and study are downplayed. Others love the Lord and love His Word, but have never had the opportunity to prepare themselves formally in biblical studies. Though what we can offer to meet this great need is indeed small, it’s our desire to provide good teaching materials that are rooted and grounded in sound doctrine.

Here are some of the other works I have written, but that still need to be proofed, corrected, formated, and printed:

• The Seven Study (a full length book on the seven baptisms, the seven resurrections, etc.).
• Esther (commentary; approx. 700 pages)
• Revelation (commentary; approx. 350 pages)
• Ephesians (detailed study notes)
• Genesis (detailed study notes)
• Evangelism, One Simple Mission (book, approx. 100 pages)
• True and False Conversions (booklet)
• The Work of the Holy Spirit (book; approx. 120 pages)
• Fasting (booklet)
• History of the Pentecostal Movement (booklet)
• Tongues (book; approx. 100 pages)
• Healing and Casting Out Demons (booklet)
• Pictures of Christ in the Old Testament (study notes)

Everything I write that we print in books, booklets, or other formats are distributed either for free or for a minimal price in order to cover cost. For example, the How to Study the Bible book will cost about $10.00 per book to print since we don’t have the initial capital to print a large quantity. A local copy shop can print them and bind them in hardback (full-color cover) for about $10.00 each, whether we need two or two hundred.

In addition to paper books, we provide a copy of our didactic materials in e-book form on our web site (PDFs). This way anyone anywhere in the world can download it and either read it on his computer or take the file to a copy shop to be printed and bound.

Even though all written material is automatically copyrighted, we provide a disclaimer with all our materials stating that they may be freely copied and distributed. The only thing we ask is that if someone chooses to change the content, that they remove any and all references to me, the author, and our ministry. Otherwise, it’s our desire to “get the Word out,” not to make money.

The first book of mine that we have published is called Signs and Wonders in the Church Today (in Spanish). This is a shorter (“Readers’ Digest”) version of a larger work I’m putting together on the Pentecostal Movement, their history and doctrines.

I believe one of the principal responsibilities of a pastor is to protect his flock from false and dangerous doctrine (Acts 20.28-31). That’s been the purpose of the “Signs” book and its bigger brother “The Pentecostal Movement” (due out later this year). It’s not written to attack our brothers in Christ, but to simply teach biblical doctrine on the following topics:

1. Tongues
2. Healing
3. Casting out Demons
4. The Baptism of the Holy Ghost
5. The Filling of the Holy Ghost

As with all of our published works, this book is sold (hardcover) with a disclaimer stating that it may be freely copied and distributed. The entire book is available for free download (PDF) on our church’s web site. We want to preach God’s truth to the Spanish-speaking world, not make money.

I wanted to show you all a couple of the tracts that have caught my eye lately. They are both in Spanish, but on Custom Tract Source site you’ll see they have many more English tracts than Spanish. It’s very (!) hard to find good quality, biblical tracts in Spanish. So, I wanted to put these two up to show you.

You can give tracts to people personally. You can leave them where folks will find them. You can put them on cars or leave them on doorsteps. With good tracts, it’s easy to give them out because you like them and want people to have one (you’re not ashamed of handing out something “weird” and “religious”).

Check out Custom Tract Source. Get some good tracts. Witness.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God… For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. [1Cor 1.18-21]

Hi, everybody! We’re getting toward the end of the year, and that means… planning for 2008 is happening. I’m pretty excited about the coming year, but before I touch on some details let me mention a trip to Medellín. In about a week I’ll be going to Medellín, Colombia to visit a friend, Fernando Garrido. Will Mata (one of my key leaders) will be going with me. I’ll be preaching a conference on personal and family relationships, and we’re hoping to be able to get out on the street and evangelize, too. Do please keep the Medellín trip in your prayers! Here’s a pic from last year’s trip.

Focus on 2008

Like I said, the end of a year is a great time to evaluate what you’re doing and make changes for the following year to do it better. We’ve been evaluating a lot in the ministry lately, and it’s been very refreshing. I can’t tell you how excited I am about the changes we’ll be making in the church in 2008. They’re not big changes, but they still have me pretty fired-up. Let me just share a few with you…

First, many of my people have noticed a need in our ministry for what some are calling “community.” That’s a Churchianty-fad buzz-word for what old-school Christians call “fellowship.” We need more! We don’t have enough! And I agree with the assessment. But, is “community” or “fellowship” just about sitting around, sipping coffee, and munching muffins together? Or is it something more… something more biblical? It has to be! Fellowship in the Bible (the community of the saints) is always built around the mission of seeking and saving the lost—true fellowship happens in ministry, not at Starbucks. So in 2008 we are going to be working hard at building friendship and loyalty through ministry activities. True soldiers build loyalty when they’re in battle together, watching each other’s back, and making sure they accomplish their mission. That’s what we need, and that’s why I see this need for “community” finding its solution in the next element of our ministry that we’re planning on shoring up next year.

Evangelism! We are not doing enough. We are too “hit and miss” (too “random”). There are not enough of our church members actively (weekly!) involved in seeking and saving the lost. That’s why in 2008 a great majority of my time and resources will be poured into developing our outreach efforts into a strategic, methodical, and aggressive ministry designed to fulfill the mission that God has given us to make disciples (and how do we make a disciple? by evangelizing!). We’re working on several ideas, and I’ll be sharing those with you as they become a reality in 2008. We want to continue preaching open-air, passing out tracts, and witnessing on the streets, but we’re also going to be adding some “lower intensity” outreach activities. Many folks are very intimidated by the aspect of getting out on the street, but they want to be involved. So, we’re going to get them involved with us in the mission, and that means we’ll have fellowship in the ministry!

God has also given us several maturing Christians that can now teach our discipleship one-on-one. We’ve struggled for years with getting responsible disciplers, and thankfully we’re beginning to see the fruit of God’s blessing. As God gives the increase through outreach, we’ll be able to help the new members grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, we’ll be laboring together in discipleship and that’s called… fellowship!

I’m excited about 2008 and the changes we’ll be making to better fulfill our mission to seek and save the lost. I’ll do my best to keep you posted with updates, pics, and videos.

Open-Air Outreach

Speaking of videos… Check out this YouTube video.

Last Saturday a good sized group of us went downtown to Central Avenue to preach open-air, pass out tracts, and witness to anyone and everyone we could (even to the police!). What a great time! Like I said before, there is no true Christian “community” outside the mission, but when you’re out doing the work of the Lord and trying to fulfill the mission… there’s some really good fellowship!

Even though open-air preaching isn’t the only way to evangelize, it’s important that we do it because the open-air preacher will reach certain people who otherwise would never hear the Gospel. When you go out among the lost, you have contact with certain elements of the society that would never step foot in a church building or attend anything even closely related to a church activity. And since the power to save is in the seed and not in the sower (and certainly not in the method of scattering the seed), we are committed to aggressively seeking the lost out in the world wherever we can find them. I just wish we could do it more and more often!

A Great Big Thank-You!

I would like to extend a great big “THANK YOU!” to a church who has faithfully supported us ever since we left the United States 12 years ago. They have been one of our biggest and most faithful church supporters, and we are forever grateful to them for their kindness, their friendship, and their confidence in us as an investment of so many of their resources.

I bring this up because they have chosen to focus more on what some are calling the “unreached 10-40 window” (which would include China, India, and the muslim nations). They feel God is directing them to become more actively involved in that area of the world, and I say, Amen! Have at it! We need more missionaries over there! I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to be one of their missionaries, and I hope that their investment gives eternal dividends for them in heaven.

I’m also bringing this up for a very practical reason… We need money. (I know I always say that, but…) If you know of a church that desires to invest in Latin America, and if you feel comfortable mentioning us, please do. Most of you know me personally. I am very committed to the final authority of Scripture, expository preaching, sound Bible teaching, discipleship, and evangelism. I’ve always believed that “if God orders it, God will pay for it,” and so if He desires to keep us here, He’ll send the supporters our way. I just want to be faithful to put the need out, and ask Him to provide.

Thank you all for everything! Our whole family will be at KCBT on December 16^th. Hopefully we can see many of you then. Take care and write when you get a minute! ~Greg

Dear friends and family,

I apologize for not getting a letter out to you sooner. I just looked over my files and saw that the last update we sent out was in May. I have had some serious problems with my computer and have been trying to patch it together and keep it running. First it was the motherboard, then the power supply, after that I got hit with some nasty viruses, and the latest has been bad RAM. However, I think things are okay now, so let’s get to the good news…

Romería 2007

God gave us the wonderful privilege of passing out 200,000 Gospel tracts last week during the four-day celebration of the annual “Romería”—the catholic pilgrimage out to Cartago to (supposedly) honor the “patron saint” of Costa Rica. An estimated million and a half people walked into Cartago last week. We started passing out our “new and improved Pope tract” on Monday the 30th and continued doing so until the official mass at noon the following Thursday, August 2nd.

Last year we experienced some “potentially violent” reactions to our outreach efforts when we passed out tracts on the grounds of the Basilica where they celebrate the mass. So this year we made plans to move farther out and “greet” the walkers as they came into Cartago. In order to do that, we needed to have permission to use some property on the road where the people were walking (that would give us rights to be in the street in front of the property, and the police couldn’t make us move).

Thankfully God put Isaac in our path. Isaac owns a tire repair shop just inside Cartago, right on the road into the Basilica. And what a coincidence: Isaac’s shop needed a new roof!

A big THANK YOU to Tom, Rory, and the team from First Baptist of Jackson, Ohio; they were instrumental in replacing Isaac’s roof. In exchange for the roof, Isaac loaned us his property (and his bathroom, praise the Lord!) for the week of the Romería. We were set! You can see the whole week on a blogspot here:

www.fbcj-costarica.blogspot.com

Decatur Baptist Church (Decatur, Alabama) sent a team of seven down to help us pass out the tracts, and they were a lifesaver. I had them on the street early Monday morning and they passed out tracts from eight to ten hours straight each day of the event. Thanks, y’all!!

My kids helped, too! They were out on the street on Monday since they had the day off from school.

The largest movement of people into Cartago was the night before the mass, on the 1st of August. The Decatur team and I were relieved around 6:00 pm by a good group of folks from my church here, and they handed out around 100,000 tracts that night alone! They said it was crazy, just people and tracts all over the place.

The response to the tract has been good. There have been six or eight “angry e-mails,” but for the most part the people have been very thankful to have received something that’s caused them to reflect on eternity and their salvation.

The Gospel is clearly laid out on the back of the tract with a presentation of the Law, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and the individual’s responsibility to repent (confess and forsake sin) and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. Please pray that God would give much increase to the many seeds that were sown!

December Trip to Kansas City

We are making plans to be in the Kansas City area to visit friends and family from December 10th through the 18th. We haven’t seen many of the folks there (including my—Greg’s—family) and we’re looking forward to the trip very much. Hopefully we can make plans to see as many of you as we can. It’s always a tremendous encouragement to see you!

Thank you all very much for your continued support and friendship. With your prayer and your help, we’re able to continue the ministry God has given us in Latin America. We appreciate you all!

Greg & Sue Kedrovsky