Glimpses of the Gospel
Ok so my “indefinite time away” turned out to be not so long. It’s been 10 days since I commented here, and 2 weeks since I posted an article. New world records! It has been a crazy time off, having to deal with the emtional angst of finding out yet another abuse story that has not been dealt with properly by the ubf echelon. But onto today’s topic: affirming gospel messages in culture.
Missions Conference 2014 Synopsis
There was a Missions Conference at Moody Bible Institute October 14-17, 2014. I wish all of you could have attended. It was completely free. I decided to make a synopsis so that you could know what happened even though you didn’t attend.
Day I: Tuesday evening session
Speaker: Pastor Oscar
Anecdote: George Mueller
Challenge: 10 hairy audacious prayer topics
This sermon was based on George Mueller. His goal was to live in a way that showed people God can be trusted. He built orphanages throughout England, but never asked for a penny. In the morning he would wake up and tell the orphans that there was no food for breakfast, but they should pray and thank God. Then someone would usually come and bring breakfast because God put it on their heart to serve. He never took a salary. When he was 70, he decided to go out as a missionary and for more than a decade he went out traveling the world and preaching. The Pastor challenge us to pray prayer topics that “make God sweat.” Usually we pray things like: give me an “A” on my exam or in the mall, “Lord give me a parking spot.” But the Pastor dared us to pray 10 hairy audacious prayer topics that God will answer. A few I thought of was WL having its own building and not one more death from gang violence in Chicago. Or praying for my cousin, D, who is a hostile atheist to serve the Lord or C to have a job in finance paying more than 45K a year. These are crazy scary prayer topics and I realized I don’t pray them because I am scared that God will not deliver. But he is God and he can be trusted. Continue reading →
The Symposium
I have only been in my current chapter for a little over a year now, but I feel like what happened last night was something, by accounts of many former and current long standing members that at the very least was very new. Instead of having a bible study, testimony sharing bible symposium my pastor decided that we should do something to minister to non-believers, or sceptics. This was a key idea in Stephan Lutz’s book that was required reading for UBF leaders recently. The idea that book, of which I cannot recall the name, is that if only minister to the churched we are not really fulfilling the great commission. As followers of Christ we must take the message to the places that need it the most and this includes hostile arenas. In my experience colleges offer the most hostile arenas for the modern evangelist. I can recall just two days ago a pastor coming to SIUE to preach on the quad. He was assaulted by an atheist after affirming that Levitical Law was the word of God (to be fair to all involved, his wording could have been a little bit better in light of Galatians…) I was very inspired by the change I saw in my pastor’s move for this. Here are some things of note. Continue reading →
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