In case you were wondering what happened to the “Five Points Fridays” posts, I have a good explanation. Two weeks ago I did not go out because I had stayed up all night the night before and was just too plain tired to go down to Five Points after working all day. A small team went regardless, and we praise the LORD for all He is doing.
This reminds me. When I post these reports, I can only best tell the stories I am directly connected with. While there are as many as 20 team-members who go out doing evangelism, I cannot report everyone’s story. They are strongly encouraged to do their own journaling and/or blogging, but what I give you here is just a small slice of what God is doing.
Last weeks “Five Points Fridays” post simply never got written, 'till now. It was clear and very cold. We left CIU with about 13 people, but so many more showed up I think I remember counting almost 24 people total. Since it was so cold it was hard to get people to stop and talk, so my team stayed at Starbucks until we got kicked out.
The highlight of the evening was our impromptu Street-corner Bible study. Our team is often joined by another team from a local church, mostly young men as young as 15 or 16 with hearts burning for the LORD. One of their team members began asking me some very good questions as we walked back to my car for more tracts (we gave out all we had and I, for once, failed to bring extras). We decided to sit down and talk and he kept asking great questions.
So here we are, sitting on a wall on the street corner, right by the cross-walk, Bibles out and searching the scripture. It was not long until his other team members joined us. Picture this: 15 men (one white “old guy” and 14 African-American young men) standing around in the middle of a very cold night at a stop light near downtown Columbia having Bible Study! IT WAS AWESOME!
We talked about the gospel, the death of Christ, the glory of God, the Victorious Christian life, spiritual warfare, love of God, love for God, love for others, aspects of ministry and I can’t remember what else.
At one point in the conversation, one guy thanked us, told us how much he enjoyed the conversation and that he got a lot out of it, and he left! As another young man was bringing up another question for us, it occurred to me that I had not seen the guy who just left before. I asked the other fellas if the guy who just left was with them. Nobody had seen him before. Apparently, while we were talking and people were passing us by, this one guy came back and stood within our group hearing the gospel and having Bible study! When we all realized what had happened, one young man chased our visitor down and talked to him for a few minutes. I really don’t know how their conversation went.
On another note, this last week we visited
Calvary Chapel in Lexington and heard an incredible message from 1 Timothy. How refreshing it is to hear the Word of God preached (they prefer to use the word “teach” at Calvary Chapel) book-by-book, chapter-by-chapter, verse-by-verse. We went back Wednesday night to hear Charlie Campbell of
Always Be Ready speak on “The Deity of Christ and the Cults.” Though I took a plethora of copious notes, here is a link to his presentation, “
An Examination of the Verses the Cults Use to Disprove the Deity of Christ”. I strongly recommend a period of devoted attention to the content as it is one of the best, concise presentations I’ve heard on the subject—complete with a rebuttal and some great suggested talking points.
Now, to close in prayer:
“Oh, precious Saviour! save us from maligning Thy Gospel and Thy name by clothing it with our paltry notions of earthly dignity, and forgetting the dignity which crowned Thy sacred brow as Thou didst hang upon the cross! Like the Apostles, let us be willing to push our limbs into a basket, and so be let down by the wall, if need be, or suffer ship-wreck, hunger, peril, nakedness, fire, or sword, or even go to the block itself, if thereby we may extend His kingdom and win souls for whom He shed His blood. The Lord fill us with this love and baptize us with this fire, and then the Gospel will arise and become glorious in the earth, and men will believe in us, and in it. They will feel its power, and they will go down under it by thousands, and, by the grace of God, they SHALL.”
(
A prayer by Catherine Booth (1829-1890))
