A Guinea for your thoughts (and prayers)

My dad recently sold a Staber washing machine for use by a customer in Guinea.  (The Staber uses very little electricity, compared to a normal washer, making it a favorite for people using solar.)

It turns out this customer is Nathan Kendall, a missionary with WorldVenture.  I Googled him and found a short video (below) and longer, very sobering audio (click here) by Mr. Kendall.  Take time to listen to these and pray for families like the Kendalls.  Because they are looking ahead to the reward (Hebrews 11:26), they have traded the "treasures" of American comforts for life in a hard and spiritually dark place.
Missions Like Solar Panels from Drew Hayes on Vimeo.

The Age-old Debate

Sent to a father who is a friend of mine:

If any of your kids have an interest in creation science and/or apologetics in general, you might enjoy sitting down to watch this with them.

TBN had what amounted to an unplanned “debate” between Ken Ham, Eric Hovind, and Ray Comfort (representing young earth creationism) and Hugh Ross, Sean McDowell (Josh’s son) and John Bloom (representing old earth creationism). It ended up primarily being between Ken Ham and Hugh Ross. Matt Crouch (son of TBN founders) was the host. It’s a train wreck as far as debate was concerned (far too disorganized to actually cover anything adequately) but it is zany right from the cheesy introduction. And if one of your kids is interested in apologetics you could use this as a great teaching tool. Lots of examples of good, bad, and terrible apologetics.

In case you're wondering, I believe the Bible clearly teaches a young earth.

Favorite Snippets from Francis Chan's "Forgotten God"

I recently read Francis Chan's book on the Holy Spirit, called Forgotten God.  He doesn't delve into anything terribly controversial.  You'll find nothing on tongues, or and little on how discern whether an extra-biblical "word" is from the Lord.  I wouldn't say it's a deep or meaty book.  But what he does say, he says nicely.  Here are a few of my favorite sections.

Right now I want you to take a break from reading and spend some time asking yourself why you want the Holy Spirit. Is it for power? Is it for your own betterment and purposes? Or is it because you want to experience all that God has for you? Is it because you love the church and desire to be a better servant to your sisters and brothers?... As you look around at your brothers and sisters, do you think to yourself, I love these people so much. I pray God empowers me in some way to encourage these people toward a deeper walk with Him?

It is easy to use the phrase “God’s will for my life” as an excuse for inaction or even disobedience. It’s much less demanding to think about God’s will for your future than it is to ask Him what He wants you to do in the next ten minutes. It’s safer to commit to following Him someday instead of this day. 

I don’t want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit. I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn’t be doing this by my own power.

When he asked an ex-gangster why he'd stopped attending church:

 “I had the wrong idea of what church was going to be like. When I joined the church, I thought it was going to be like joining a gang. You see, in the gangs we weren’t just nice to each other once a week—we were family.”

Francis Chan speaks most compellingly when he speaks about radical generosity.  This comes out even in a book about the Holy Spirit.  He tells what happened after his church leaders examined Acts 2:43-47:

What followed was a beautiful time of sharing as our elders laid “everything” at one another’s feet. We surrendered the keys to our cars, homes, and bank accounts. The elders looked me in the eyes and said, “What’s mine is yours. If anything ever happens to you, I will support and care for your kids as much as I would care for my own. I will be your life insurance.” And because they had a history of genuine sacrifice for the sake of the gospel, I believed what they said.

And, later in the book:

My wife and I recently decided to give all of the royalties from my previous book, Crazy Love, to the Isaiah 58 Fund. All of the money goes to the needy in the world—the starving, sick, impoverished, and to those in the sex-slave trade...

People told us that we were being foolish and irresponsible with the gifts God gave us. They said we should have at least put some away in case of an emergency. My response back was, “Is it not an emergency that children in Cambodia and Thailand and even the United States are being raped every single day of their lives? Why is that not an emergency?”

Chan's writing shines not so much in content as in attitude: his genuine hunger for God's Spirit to rule his life is what makes this book stand out.

Ogden Outreach Outcome

Sent to a Christian friend in Utah who asked how last month's missions trip there went:

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for your notes and I’m sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I’m back in Arizona now. Had a great time there in Ogden.

I’ve uploaded some pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/CharacterComputing/OgdenTrip and videos here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22EBB9F05D320F6D&feature=plcp

We stayed in the home of Grant Kolkow and his family. He is planting a church in Ogden. They have been meeting for about a year in the Marriott in central Ogden, and are up to about 27 regulars. I was surprised at the maturity level of most of the people; most had already tried other churches in Ogden (some, for years) and were hungry for a church that teaches Scripture, not man-centered, seeker-sensitive fluff. Grant is a graduate of The Master’s Seminary (John MacArthur) and his doctrine and methodology are very close to MacArthur’s.

We went to the finish line of the Ogden Marathon and attempted to strike up evangelistic conversations and invite people to church. Gave out a lot of flyers but we found it very hard to get into conversations with people. I’m not totally sure whether it was just a tough crowd or we just were wrestling with too much fear of man. Most people were in a hurry to get somewhere (meeting family members running in the race, departing the race, etc.) or were exhausted from just having run the race.

On Sunday afternoon there was a public baptism in the creek in the Ogden Botanical Gardens. (Beautiful!) About 50 people showed up for this, and there were plenty of non-Christians walking by on the trail. None of them stopped to talk, although again we did give out some flyers.

On Monday evening we went door to door in north Ogden, in what is apparently a strongly Mormon neighborhood. We were hosted there by a man who just became a Christian back in January. His wife is “on the fence”, and he has 3 kids. I admire his guts in having us over to his own neighborhood; to some extent this will be the first time for some of them to know that he is no longer a Mormon. We went door to door (split into 5 groups) and basically the line we settled on was “Would you be interested in an invitation to a Bible teaching church?” We held out a flyer while saying this. It was interesting to watch the people’s faces when they heard this. Most of them said “no” although most were friendly. 4 of the 5 groups had at least one good conversation. My group had just one, with a woman who was a Christian already (former LDS) and was very excited to learn that there was another Christian in her neighborhood. She seemed interested in attending church. It will be interesting to hear whether she actually comes tomorrow.

On Tuesday we went to Weber State University. We were there from about 10:30 to 1:00 PM. The Kolkows had already arranged that we could set up a table in the “free speech zone” which is the square right behind the statue, in front of the administration building. I don’t know whether they had to notify the university that we were coming, but I don’t think so. We could also have done open air preaching in that location, if we had wanted. (The square is a central location in the campus, but at least that morning the foot traffic was light, and our energies were better spent doing one on one conversations than attempting to collect a crowd.) We were also allowed to walk anywhere on campus (outside the buildings) and talk to people and distribute tracts. And we were allowed to go inside the student union building and talk to people. I was amazed that we had so much access. Now I want to find out whether I can do the same thing at the community college near my home in Arizona. I had a number of great conversations (including one with three guys from Saudi Arabia) and this was my favorite part of the whole trip.

Tuesday evening we went door to door in the Riverdale community (the neighborhood of another man in the church). This neighborhood seemed a little more receptive than North Ogden. My partner and I spent about 40 minutes talking with one sparky 80 year old woman who was raised LDS and raised her kids LDS, but is now more of a spiritual “freelancer” who doesn’t want to submit to anything or anyone.

The team went to the Mormon Temple in SLC the next day. Two female LDS missionaries approached two of our women there to proselytize. Our women evangelized them back. It was a cordial conversation and they were surprised when 3 male LDS security guards came up a couple minutes afterward and said that they had been “intimidating” the female missionaries. The team left the visitor center at that point, under escort from the guards. (One of our guys did get to witness, on the side, to one of the guards. He actually seemed receptive!) As the team members were leaving the building, they saw the female LDS missionaries from a distance, and they looked like they’d been crying.

I hope that this encourages you and gives you some ideas about possible outreach strategies. Let me know if you have any questions!

In the joy of the gospel,

Daniel

A Dead Neighbor, and God's Power

On Wednesday my Dad was visiting an elderly neighbor when the neighbor suddenly keeled over, dead.  In the video below he tells the story. 

A Foray into Mormon Territory

Tomorrow I leave with some friends from church for a 9 day trip to northern Utah.  We will be doing evangelism and assisting a new church.

I've been reading Wurmbrand's Marx and Satan lately.  In it he shows surprisingly compelling evidence that Karl Marx was a deeply devoted satanist who strongly believed in God -- and hated Him. Normally we think of Communists and Socialists as being pure materialists: believing that life is all atoms and molecules.  Doubtless that is true of many of Marx's followers, but definitely not of the man himself. 

We tend to think that to witness to an unbeliever we need to have all kinds of facts and scientific data.  There is, to be sure, a rational basis to our faith.  But the problem runs much deeper: there is always satanic interference at some level. As Paul says,

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  (2 Corinthians 4:1-4, NASB, emphasis added)

So if Satan has blinded their minds, how are we to respond?  Paul answers in the previous two verses:

Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.  (verses 1-2, NASB)

That is what we hope to do in Utah.  Although Mormonism is at the opposite end of the political spectrum from Communism, it is nonetheless also demonic.  Mormons need more than better information; they need eyes that see.  We feel compassion, not scorn, for those deceived by satan into following Joseph Smith.  Pray for us, and them.

A Back's Need and a Knee's Back (Mostly)

It's been too long since I posted an update on Mom's knee.  She has improved remarkably since my last update on March 3rd.  She has regained almost all abilities that were taken away by the knee injury.  She can (without assistance from Dad or myself) get in and out of bed, in and out of her recliner, and in and out of the shower.  Each of those were an exciting milestone.  And God's not done yet.

She got to go to the Good Friday evening service at our church, the first time she'd been to church since the knee injury.

Right now the main thing holding her back is her back.  For some reason, the pain level there has worsened even while the knee has improved.  It makes it difficult for her to stand or sit upright for any length of time without a lot of discomfort.

We are so grateful for your prayers and support.  Jesus has been very good to us.  Keep praying!