“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’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize… If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life… and you think that… well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward… How much do you have to hate somebody to NOT proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and NOT tell them that? I mean, if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming to hit you and you didn’t believe it… and that truck is bearing down on you… there’s a certain point where I tackle you. And this is MORE IMPORTANT than that.

Folks, an atheist understands what’s at stake and what a true believer will do. If we really believe the Gospel, how can we keep silent?

One of my biggest obstacles to witnessing has been fear (fear of man, fear of rejection, fear of… evangelizing). But one of the greatest ways to get over your fear is to get training. We would never consider sending a man to battle without proper training and weapons, but that’s exactly what happens to so many Christians today. They want to evangelize and they are exhorted to do so from the pulpit, but they don’t know how — they have no training and no weapons.

So, get trained up. Learn to use the “weapons” of our warfare: The Law of God. And then let’s get out in the battle because people are perishing in their sins…

• The School of Biblical Evangelism
• The Basic Training Course
• Training video for Open-Air Preaching
• Cahill’s Material (or better yet: Invite Cahill to speak at your church or ministry!)
• Tracts from Living Waters
• Tracts from Custom Tract Source

If we really believe the Gospel… If we really believe the Bible… If we really believe there is an eternal heaven and an eternal hell… How can we keep silent? Folks, even an atheist understands that much. ~Greg

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

The stunted professor

(Theodore Cuyler, “Beulah-Land” or, “Words of Cheer for Christian Pilgrims”, 1896)

“The righteous will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.” Psalm 92:12-14

The first quality of the cedar–is that it GROWS. It is a live tree. Where there is hearty life–there must be growth. It is the lamentable lack of inward godliness, which makes the stunted professor. There is not vitalizing sap enough in his heart-roots to reach up into the boughs of his outward conduct. There is not vigor enough in the trunk of his character, to stand erect. No showers brought down by fervent prayer, cleanse the dust of worldliness from his yellow, sicklied leaves.

There he is–just as he set out in the church a score of years ago–no larger, no broader, no brighter in graces than he was then! The caterpillars of lust have spun their unsightly webs all over his branches. He has not grown an inch–in any one Bible trait. He has not yielded one single fruit of the Spirit. He is a cumberer of the ground–fit only to be cut down. He is all the while drinking up God’s pure air and water–and yet fulfilling Satan’s purpose! Not of such a prayer-neglecting professor, not of such a time-serving, money-loving, fashion-worshiping professor, could we honestly say, “He grows like a cedar in Lebanon.”

I got this quote from Grace Gems this morning.

Much of leadership development seems to hinge on personal character and diligence (being a “self-starter” and disciplined in finishing things well). Those kinds of things can’t be taught; character is a result of spiritual growth and maturity (the work of the Holy Spirit) and diligence is a matter of personal choice.

There are, however, certain skills and a certain knowledge base that a leader in the ministry should have. I’ve always struggled with defining just what those skills are, and just what that knowledge should be. This last year, God has put two key tools into my hands that seem to be just what we need in order to get our leadership development where it needs to be: [1] Adsit’s Personal Discipleship and [2] Sam Mile’s “SOT.” I’ll be talking about “SOT” in a separate post soon, but I’d like to share with you the tool that’s coming out of some material Christopher Adsit put together under the title “Personal Discplemaking.” Here are the links:

• Adsit’s ministry web site: DiscipleMakers International
• Adsit’s book and “kit” (I got them both, and I’m glad I did — you need the charts and stuff).

Here’s what the whole thing is about (in a nutshell):

Adsit’s premise is that we shouldn’t rely on a “materials-based” discipleship, but rather learn to focus on the disciple and his personal needs in seven specific areas of growth: Prayer, Word, Witnessing, Fellowship, Personal Growth, Ministry, and Family. I found two major problems with his approach (in the context of personal discipleship):

1. The average Christian that wants to participate in discipleship almost always needs a material-based discipleship “program” because he works a full-time job, has a family, etc. etc. and cannot put in the time required to do all that Adsit suggests (which leads me to my second point).
2. Adsit’s book is thorough and quite complete. That means it’s complicated. I had to read the book through twice to get a handle on it, and then a third time to start breaking it down into practical steps… and I’m still chewing on some of it to get it worked out in a way I can easily teach it to others. I had to hang his “Disciplemaking Growth Grid” beside my computer and look at it every day just so I could make my brain figure it all out. The average Christian isn’t going to have the time to digest it all (or maybe I’m just not the sharpest knife in the drawer).

However, he really did his homework and his stuff is very, very good. I just don’t see it fitting into our “basic discipleship” area of ministry. I see it fitting in very well on the other end — the last stages of discipleship (”advanced discipleship”), or what we call “leadership development.”

One of Adsit’s strong points is his focus on evaluation and planning. He has a really good series of questionnaires that, if answered honestly, will give you a fairly good idea of where your disciple (or future leader) is at in the process of growth through his seven areas (mentioned above). You “plot” that growth and evaluation on the big “Growth Grid” (like the one I hung by my computer).

Basically what it does is show you where you have “holes” in the development of your men.

I needed that! So, here’s what I’ve done with this stuff so far:

• I translated all his questionnaires and his Growth Grid.
• I put each one of the seven areas of the Growth Grid on a separate sheet of paper, while maintaining the large Growth Grid with short descriptions of each element evaluated.
• This way I have a tool to put in the hands of others who want to do the same kind of evaluation. They don’t have to wade through all the “how-to” stuff that’s buried in Adsit’s book. They grab the questionnaires, give them to their guys, and then when they get them back, they just have to go through the one-sheet summaries of each growth area checking off what’s “done” and what needs to be “shored up.” If they want, they can also check off the same things on the big Growth Grid to get an “at-a-glance” snapshot of a leader’s spiritual growth and development.

Nice! I love it! And like I said, it was something I definitely needed because I was constantly looking out at my men wondering, “What does this guy still need…? What does the fellow over here need…?” Now at least I have a tool to help me define needs. It’s not an end-all-be-all, but it’s shaping up to be a good leadership develpment tool in that it’s showing me the holes in the develpment of my men as mature disciples of our Lord.

Of course, along with all that, I’m combining Adsits “philosophy of discipleship” (four levels of growth) with my stuff from KCBT (seven stages of discipleship and five primary goals in spiritual growth). I’m hoping to have a good, solid discipleship course I could give in a week at a conference, and then I’d leave our Biblical Discipleship material with the people to begin to put it all into practice. This type of “philosophy” or “how-to” teaching has been something that’s always been lacking in our discipleship. With Adsit’s help, I think we’re going to get this shored up nicely.

We had some wonderfully fun “family time” this morning, so I thought I’d share the blessing! Today was the first day in WEEKS that it hasn’t rained all day, so I got to go out and do some needed yard work. The kids pitched in and helped.

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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

I often think of a plaque I saw at the Old Seatack Coast Guard Station, which is now a museum in Virginia Beach. This building housed guards who would watch the sea, keeping track of steamers plying along this often turbulent coast. During rough weather or poor visibility, ships would strike the shoals and breakup — always at times of merciless surf and current. Without outside help, their passengers and crew would perish, crushed by the pounding surf, pulled out to sea by the heavy tides, and drowned. Their only hope was specially rigged lifeboats, know as crash boats, that the coast guardsmen would row through the furious surf. I saw sketches in which these crash boats were almost vertical as the rowers pulled on the long oars and tried to make it beyond the surf to rescue the ship’s helpless crew.

Many times during the rough weather I would stand on the beach watching the surf and thinking to myself, “How could anyone make it through that incredible surf? Even it was humanly possible, how could anyone work up the courage to try?”

Then I found a small brass plaque mounted next to the exit doors near where the boats, ready at a moment’s notice, rested on their perches. The plaque is hard to read because the coast guardsmen used to rub it for luck. The wording is short and to the point:

“You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.”

What made these men go out? I’m sure their pay wasn’t much. The work was grueling and the risk was high. They didn’t save everyone. The decision was made long before the storms arrived. They knew that by signing up for this job, they were agreeing to go out with no guarantee of coming back.

Likewise, when [we] sign up to follow Jesus, we say we’ll go out into the lives of our family, friends, associates, and neighbors. We agree that our mission is to bring back as many people as we can. If we’re more concerned about the comforts of having our own needs met, then we’ve missed the point of our calling and of our salvation.

We don’t staff the life station to earn our salvation, we staff it because of our salvation; not so that God will love us more, but because He already loves us; not so He’ll bless us more, but because He has redeemed us.

This quote is from the book Lost in America by Tom Clegg and Warren Bird. Although I can’t really recommend the book for its content, I haven’t been able to get this quote out of my head ever since I read it five years ago.

If we don’t “go out” and preach the Gospel, warning sinners of the judgment to come and calling them to repentance… how will they be saved? ~Greg

Porque todo aquel que invocare el nombre del Señor, será salvo. ¿Cómo, pues, invocarán a aquel en el cual no han creído? ¿Y cómo creerán en aquel de quien no han oído? ¿Y cómo oirán sin haber quien les predique? ¿Y cómo predicarán si no fueren enviados? Como está escrito: ¡Cuán hermosos son los pies de los que anuncian la paz, de los que anuncian buenas nuevas! [Rom 10.13-15]

[A preacher in Ocala, Fla.] told me of a girl in a wheelchair who had cerebral palsy. Her arms and legs jerked so hard that she could not write. So, she had her arms and legs braced and tied to the chair so she could type enough to do two letters a day. Those two daily letters were mailed out for more than ten years to lost people, and dozens of people got saved through reading them. When asked about her “great testimony” and “monumental work” as a “great defender of the faith in this century, etc.,” she said, “I only regret that I can’t do enough for Him.” (Now, don’t you know there are going to be a lot of surprises at the Judgment Seat of Christ!?) ~ Dr. Peter S. Ruckman

If you’re reading this and you don’t know what Dr. Ruckman was referring to when he said “saved,” please visit this site. And if you’re a Christian that doesn’t believe in the “saved, born again” stuff, please visit this site. If you’re a Christian that can “identify” with the above quote, you’ll really like this audio (it’s only about 5 minutes long, and it’s easy to listen to). ~Greg

Preach abroad… It is the cooping yourselves up in rooms that has dampened the work of God, which never was and never will be carried out to any purpose without going into the highways and hedges and compelling men and women to come in. ~Jonathan Edwards

When people used to crowd around George Whitefield and praise him because of his marvelous preaching, he would stop them like this: “The devil told me that just before I came down from the pulpit.” Then he would add, “There are many who can preach the gospel better than I can, but none can preach a better gospel.” It is the message that counts. The servant is really nothing, and the more we realize this and are willing to take the place of nothingness, the more God delights to come in and work through His servants. ~ H.A. Ironside

The fact of the matter is that we will practically worship the men of old through whom God did great things—the Whitefields and everyone else. But we wouldn’t let them preach in our church nor teach some of the things they taught. Never forget this: The worst thing that could ever happen to a preacher, young man, is that he gets civilized. When he gets civilized and elegant and proper and respectable, he’s worthless! And that’s the problems with some of our seminaries. We’re wanting to produce these respectable intellectuals and these great reformed theologians, and all these different things… I do not see reformed theologians turning the world around. I see preachers who are reformed in themselves by the truth turning the world around. ~ Paul Washer (original audio here)

• Paul_Washer_mean_spirit.mp3

• True Discipleship: The Gift Nobody Wants, part 1 (excerpt; 4:28)
• True Discipleship: The Gift Nobody Wants, part 1 (full message; 52:02)

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. [Mat 7.13-14]

Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. [Mar 1.14-15]

Now beginning here with Mark, I think it is quite telling what’s going here, and it’s quite a rebuke to our modern evangelistic methodology. If we were to re-write this based upon what we see in the modern evangelical community, it would be something like this: Jesus saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Now who would like to ask Me into their heart?”

Do you see the problem? The language that we use today is not used in the New Testament, in any place. “Who would like to repeat this prayer after me? … Oh, I see that hand! … Come forward!” We see none of that. But, in the message of our Lord we see: “Repent and believe!” In the Apostolic invitation we see: “Repent and believe!” In the great confessions of the Church we see: “Repent and believe!” It is only until we come into this modern time that we hear nothing of repentance and faith unless it’s redefined in the context of “receiving Jesus” (which means, “Pray this prayer and ask Jesus to come into your heart. And if you’ve done that sincerely, then you can stand on the fact that you’ve been born again”).

Now that is serious, folks! This is serious! I preach in many churches where they’re absolutely appalled that I do not lead people in prayers; that I simply command, with the authority of Scripture, that men repent of their sins and believe the Gospel, and then sit down with them (at times for hours) explaining to them repentance and faith, and praying with them, hoping that Christ be formed in them! They would rather have me get people to raise their hands, come forward, pray a prayer, and then go out to eat somewhere!

This is the reason for all the noise about personal, one-on-one discipleship. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s there was just this birth of personal discipleship. And if you talk to many people about the reasons for discipleship (personal discipleship) they would say this: “There are just as many people walking out the back door of our church as are walking in the front door of our church. They’re coming in, they’re not staying, and the reason is that they’re not being discipled personally.”

Well, first of all, I believe that personal discipleship can be of great benefit. But, here’s something I want you to know: The history of the Church knows very little about that sort of thing. Most men were discipled through the preaching of the Word of God. So, maybe we need all this “discipleship” because the pulpit is so weak.

But, I think that they entirely miss the point. Our brother talked about men seeing the problem but giving the wrong answer. The reason there were just as many people (and still are just as many people) going out of the church as coming into the Church is because the Gospel that we’re preaching is not the Gospel. It’s a truncated version of the Gospel. And the invitation we give cannot even be found in the New Testament! Now, does anyone have a problem with that?

The reason why they are leaving… well, “they went out from us because they were not of us.” They were not truly converted.

And sometimes the Lord will send unique individuals to our church as a rebuke. For example, you’ll try to win someone, you’ll try to manipulate someone, you’ll try to get someone to “make a decision,” and then you’ll work very hard at discipleship, calling them on Saturday night to make sure they’re ready for Sunday, going by and picking them up, and following them around like a little puppy trying to make sure that they walk the Christian life. And then one day some drunk, that you don’t even want in your church, walks in, gets saved, and you can’t chase him out! Why? Because God saved him.

Am I against personal discipleship? Absolutely not! But that is not the reason why people, after they are “converted,” continue on in their ungodliness [it's not for lack of personal discipleship]. They continue on in their ungodliness because they are still ungodly… because they weren’t converted. They were not.

I got this letter in my inbox today and thought I’d pass it on to everyone. HeartCry is Paul Washer’s missions organization. If you can help them, would you please get in contact with them? Thanks!

Greetings to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am hoping you may be able to help us with something.

Dr. Nathan Berry, our Mission Coordinator, is trying to locate Christian physicians or other medical personnel who could offer advice and/or assistance in establishing a Christian medical clinic. If you, or someone you know, fits this description, please send me a reply email. Please include your name, phone number and your area of experience.

Please note that anyone who has experience in establishing or operating a clinic could be a tremendous help in this effort. You may forward this to anyone you believe could be of assistance.

Thank you for your help. May God richly bless you in Christ Jesus.

Looking to Him,

Shannon L. Ayers, Donor Relations Coordinator (sayersATheartcrymissionaryDOTcom)

Here’s an excerpt:

When I graduated from a Sourthern Baptist seminary I was versed in Karl Barth,…and Jugen Multmann; all the German theology that closed every church in Germany. And it wasn’t until I got in the Bible that I realized that most of what I had learned was worthless. And so you get into God’s Word; you get—you want to learn how to preach? …

Read the whole quote (it’s short) and get the link to the audio at the Apprising Ministries blog.

…corporate worship at church today has become largely obscene and unscriptural; because we no longer believe God, much less obey Him, being totally focused on amassing Results and Relationships rather than preaching, teaching, learning and obeying the Word of God, whatever it costs us personally or the church collectively. -Paul Proctor

http://www.newswithviews.com/PaulProctor/proctor86.htm

• The Ten Indictments web site (audio, video, transcripts, pictures)
• Direct link to the mp3 audio file of the sermon

I certainly think we need to take “Indictment #1″ one step further than where Paul left it (he doesn’t touch on the translation and version issue which I think is key; you can learn more of that here). But, don’t let that be a stumbling block to taking in the rest of what he has to say.

The ten indictments are:

1. A practical denial of the sufficiency of Scripture
2. An ignorance of the character and attributes of God
3. A failure to address man’s malady
4. An ignorance of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the doctrine of regeneration
5. An unbiblical gospel presentation and invitation
6. An ignorance regarding the nature of the Church
7. A lack of loving and compassionate church discipline
8. A silence on separation (holiness)
9. Psychology and sociology have replaced the Scriptures in regards to the family
10. A departure from the faith and a devotion to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons (1 Timothy 4:1-16)

What marvel the devil does not love field preaching! Neither do I; I love a commodious room, a soft cushion, a handsome pulpit But where is my zeal, if I do not trample all these underfoot in order to save one more soul? ~John Wesley

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:

• Medellin2008_01_display.jpg
• Medellin2008_02_display.jpg
• Medellin2008_03_from-back.jpg
• Medellin2008_04_from-podium1.jpg
• Medellin2008_05_from-podium2.jpg
• Medellin2008_06_presentation.jpg
• Medellin2008_07_handing-out.jpg
• Medellin2008_08_guest1.jpg
• Medellin2008_09_guest2.jpg
• Medellin2008_10_guest3.jpg
• Medellin2008_11_guest4.jpg
• Medellin2008_12_guest5.jpg
• Medellin2008_13_greg_with_guest.jpg

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.

Etiquette nowadays often demands of a Christian that he should not intrude his religion on company. Out on such etiquette! It is the etiquette of Hell. True courtesy to my fellow’s soul makes me speak to him, if I believe that soul to be in danger. ~ Charles H. Spurgeon

If we had to preach to thousands year after year, and never rescued but one soul, that one soul would be full reward for all our labor, for a soul is of countless price. ~ Charles H. Spurgeon

So, if you get an e-mail notifying you of all the posts we’ve made since the beginning of time… sorry. As soon as I get the configuration right (again), that should stop. Thanks f