I need your prayers…
I need a team of prayer partners who will pray for my trip and what God would want me to gain from this experience.
Specific Prayer Requests:
- God to open Muslims’ hearts to the testimony of Jesus Christ and him crucificied.
- Safety, health, and team unity.
- To have a learning heart to understand the Muslim community and listen to their stories.
- Compassion, Love, and Patience when we share the message of Jesus.
- Dependence on the Holy Spirit for His Power, Comfort, and Love.
What does Gospel Centered Ministry Look Like?
May 28, 2008 by admin
Filed under Radicals Only, updates
I have always been bothered by the statement “Proclaim the Gospel…use words if necessary”…especially since St. Francis of Assissi, who supposedly said this, was an avid open-air preacher.
This Quote has been wielded by speakers who wish to push their agenda to not use words or share the Gospel because of what I believe is conforming to a tolerant culture that doesn’t want to be told that their belief system is wrong. This is contradictory to sound doctrine and following in the way of Jesus, Paul, the early church, and what God calls us to do today to spread His Name around the world and to confront false knowledge so that people can know the truth.
This video by Tim Keller reasons about why proclamation of the Gospel is central to being a Christian and ultimately defines if you know the Gospel to begin with. I pray this challenges you if you feel this way or were raised with this false doctrine. May God raise up laborers to Proclaim Jesus as Lord and share the Good News in words and deeds.
Excerpt from Tim Keller:
“The Proclamation of the Gospel is irreplaceably central, why? …if you believe the Gospel is Good News, preaching, declarative preaching, verbally proclaiming, will always be irreplaceably central to what we do. And if you really think that basically the Gospel is good advice on how to live a life that changes people and connects to God, if you’ve really lost your grip on grace, I think preaching then becomes…dialogue would be alright, stories, reflection, and modeling that’s more important…you really would believe then…what some people quip…Proclaim the Gospel, use words if necessary, you’ve probably heard that and that shows, I think, that they don’t quite understand what the Gospel is about.”
See Video (click here)
2 Great Messages to Ponder!
Today, I had some time to listen to 2 messages by Pastor John Piper and Pastor Mark Dever. Both of these men I highly respect and value their study of the scriptures.
Piper’s message on “Being baptized in the Holy Spirit” takes a look at the Acts 1 and 2 Scriptures about receiving Power to be His witnesses and being filled with the Holy Spirit. I need to listen again to this messages, but it gives more understanding to me on what Luke was writing in Acts about the Holy Spirit.
Dever’s message was on “The Gospel in the Church” and he looks at the call of the Church to embody the Gospel and to share the Gospel. This message will impact you and the leaders in your church with the responsibility from God’s Word to share the messages of Jesus, as Paul declares us to in Romans 10, and as we see throughout the New Testament.
Pray for the Earthquake in China
Today, I was catching up on my news and saw the reports of a 7.8 earthquake in China…close to 9,000 killed, including 900 college students!
CHENGDU, China - One of the worst earthquakes to hit China in three decades killed nearly 9,000 people Monday, trapped about 900 students under the rubble of their school and caused a toxic chemical leak, state media reported.
Please pray for those who have been affected by this and that God uses this to draw many to himself.
Engaging High Schoolers at Hollywood High
I spend the afternoon asking high schoolers if they were interested in “Spiritual things”…the majority said NO, but it opened the door to talk about God, eternity, and share the message of Jesus. It’s amazing how satan has blinded these young people to not think about eternity. Doesn’t this make you angry at the enemy to know this and want to do something about it??? Who has blinded your friends, coworkers or family members?
The last person I spoke with was a guy named Hayden…he was very interested in spiritual things and shared his thoughts on eternity, God, human beings, etc. It opened the door for me to share about my views on God and he said that he was interested in talking more.
I believe this could be the person of peace that I could disciple in the way of Jesus so he can start simple churches at Hollywood High. Pray for our future interaction that God would move in power to reveal the truth and love of Jesus of Nazareth. Lord, break down the walls at Hollywood High!
For Jesus Alone,
ken
How will anyone have faith without hearing the message?
I am constantly reminded by the call in the Scriptures to proclaim “Jesus is Lord” wherever I am. I see this in the Old Testament as Moses proclaimed the Greatness of God to the Israelites, as the old testament Prophets proclaimed the message to their audiences, as Jesus proclaimed Good News from village to village, as the disciples went out 2 by 2 to proclaim the Kingdom, as the early church were scattered in various cities sharing the message of Jesu, and of course as Paul vowed to preached Jesus Christ and Him Crucified.
But, why is this not the message that you here at your church?
Yes, let us show God’s love by loving each other deeply and let us care about the injustices in the world like homelessness in LA, poverty and AIDS around the world, orphans in Africa, human trafficking in Europe and Asia, and the list goes on! And I pray we are the first to care and embody caring for these causes.
But, we also have a message of spiritual brokenness to share! After all, all these injustices are a result of sin, and since Jesus defeated sin and death on the Cross, let us proclaim that in LA and Orange Counties, in our Country and to the ends of the earth.
Here is a great post I read this morning on this same topic!
How will they hear without someone preaching?
POSTED BY SEAN LUCAS
Today, in my morning worship, the section of scripture was Romans 9-11 and smack dab in the middle of it, of course, was these words from Romans 10:14. There were a number of thoughts that struck me:
1) While we rightly must think through all sorts of issues regarding contextualization in order to speak God’s Word into this moment in time; and while we must couple together appropriate deed ministry with word ministry to incarnate the love of Jesus; at the end of the day, the Gospel comes to people supremely, uniquely, ultimately through the preaching of God’s Word. That was the mission that Jesus had (Mark 1:38); that is the mission that he has given to his followers (Luke 24:45-46). We are witnesses to the reality of the Gospel and we must preach that word of witness.
2) These words again confirmed for me the importance of theological education. God’s means for bringing his good news to the world is through the ministry of the Word; his way of doing this is by sending preachers; and the way to equip those preachers is through theological education. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we must have degree-granting seminaries to do theological education; but that does mean that we have structures to provide essential biblical, theological, historical, and pastoral knowledge that can be used and shared with others.
3) And these words come again to me and challenge my sense of calling. My heart has always been for the church and for the ministry of the Word. Am I doing the right thing as a Seminary administrator? Should I be involved in the regular, weekly ministry of the Word in the context of a local congregation? Isn’t the preaching of God’s Word that supreme, ultimate, unique means of God’s grace to his people? Why can’t weekly preaching of God’s Word serve as theological education for God’s people to transform the world?
POSTED MAY 8, 2008 @ 5:07 PM BY SEAN LUCAS
TOPICS: Preaching
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The Harvest is Plentiful Video
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The Power of the Holy Spirit
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Check out “The Blueprint”
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Why this video?:
I read Jaeson’s book near the end of my 40 day sabbatical and could not put it down! It was an amazing follow-up book to The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch because it really gives practical ways to live on mission, become a person of prayer, have a passion for the lost and discipling them in the way of Jesus, and how to start planting simple churches without having to go to a bunch of conferences! God is using it to change college campuses for the Kingdom of God, and would be a great asset for any church that wants to reach the unreached people groups in their cities!