The Gospel

The Gospel is the story of how God reconciled man back to himself. Through the Gospel, I have been learning, we receive life, not just in our initial acceptance of God’s gift, but in our daily taking the grace that God gave us. I have had a conviction to share the Gospel with friends and acquaintances for a long time now, but I never had the guts to get over it and tell someone. This made me feel like less of a Christian, and made me wonder if I really believed what I told myself I did; if I really believed it, wouldn’t it be more important than social embarassement? On summer project we were taught in a very applicable way how to share the Gospel. We were given surveys to start spiritual conversations and “Knowing God Personally” booklets to help us walk someone through the story of how 1. God created us and has a plan for us 2. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s plan for us 3.God sent his son to die on the cross for us 4. By accepting God’s sacrifice we can receive eternal life and have a personal relationship with God. Because of the simplicity of this whole method, I began to worry that I was not making it seem real or personal enough. However, one of the big things that they taught us was that God working in a person’s heart through the Holy Spirit is what convicts them and leads them to make a decision to follow him, not our communication skills. God calls us to share the Gospel, to plant the seed, and if we really believe that God is real, and that his word is living, powerfull, and active, then we can trust him to work in peoples hearts. Even if don’t sell it right. After being shown how to share the Gospel in a simple way and practicing doing it, (however akward it was at first) I began to realize that it was what I truly believed; I began to see that the only way for the Gospel to be relevant is if God is working in our lives daily and through our lives daily. If we trust him to work through us, he can fill us through the Holy Spirit and empower us to see change. That is where the Gospel affects us daily. At some point I realized that I didn’t have the personal determination or boldness to share the Gospel on my own. One Monday morning when I hadn’t talked to God all weekend I simply told him that I was frustrated at work, angry most of the time when I was there, and never had opportunities to talk with people, much less share the Gospel with them. At that point the Gospel itself became real to me; I realized that only through the power of the Holy Spirit, God working through me because of the sacrifice that Christ made for me, I could serve God. When we confess to God that we can not “be a good Christian” then he tells us that Jesus died so that we don’t have to. At that point I was filled with a freedom and joy; it doesen’t matter what I do, God already paid for my sins. I then asked God to help me to serve him, because that was the only way I could do it. The Gospel came up naturally in conversation that day with a co-worker and God helped me to explain the story of how he created man and reconciled him back to himself. The Gospel is not merely a story that we accept as true and “become a Christian” through. The Gospel is the truth that we need God, and that God meets us where we are at. That God can work through us, because of the sacrifice he made for us, without us bringing anything to the table. The only way I can be productive in my walk with the Lord is to daily walk myself through the Gospel and accept God’s grace. The Gospel is a cycle; when we fail, we ask God for forgiveness and for him to empower us to do better, then we go out and attempt, and eventually fail again. Each time God helps us to do a little better, and in doing so we show more people what the Gospel truly means. God has already saved us, and can work through us if we let him.

Updates....I've been busy sorry

Wow I dont really know where to start. Its been like a month since I have posted. Since then project has pretty much gone on in the same way; its been really busy, especially since the staff left. Our week goes as follows; We work monday through thursday from 8:00 to 5:00, do service projects on Friday. Go camping on friday night, share down town on saturday morning, go to church sunday morning, and we usually have social events saturday and sunday nights. Monday nights we meet as a group to discuss the past and future weeks and encourage one another and share about our conversations at work or with locals. Tuesday nights we do an activity with all of the men, usually involving hiking or some other type of physical activity with a lesson. Wednesday nights we have the campus crusade meeting for the campus here, thursday nights we meet in small groups for bible study and accountability. So our week is packed. Lately I have been serving at the Methodist church camp on Fridays, which has been really rewarding. It has been neat to see the way the really solid people who run the camp invest in kids as a way of ministering to the future of Juneau. I have gotten in to a couple of spiritual conversations at work, which has been a huge blessing, but some times I get kind of frustrated by how difficult it is to talk to people at work; I am usually working by myself. Lately God has been teaching me to lean on his spirit to lead me and realize that I do not have the discipline or ability to even be positive all the time at work, much less be sharing the Gospel in my conversations. PLEASE PRAY that God would bring up spiritual conversations at work, especially in these last few days. As part of the evangelism team, I am helping plan a big event for this weekend. We are calling it an evangelism event but its really sort of a revival. We plan to have two events. The first event will be in the morning targeting churches; we are hoping to get as many of the churches in Juneau as possible to come for a worship session and pray, as the church body in Juneau, for the city. Following that we will give everyone the opportunity to come down town to share the gospel with us. We hope that God can use it to unite the church here and give them a vision for evangelising Juneau. The second event will be in the evening and will target non Christians. We will provide free food and have worship and a Gospel message. PLEASE PRAY for this event; that people will show up in numbers and that God will work in their hearts, and that the church will become more united here and that people will get plugged into churches.

Batesville

Lately God has been convicting me about the way I left my home town, Batesville, both physically and emotionally/socialy. One of the things the evangelism team leader was challenging us to do was to attempt to share the gospel with or just tell about what God had been teaching us to our old friends, whom we had already built relationships with. That made a lot of sense to me and I got all psyched up cause we are trying so hard to build relationships here in four months in order to share the gospel while already have quite a few relationships back home. Right?... Well I got on my computer and started thinking of people to share with and I realized that I hadn't really talked to anyone from home or old friends at all in a really long time, years even. Sharing with them what God has shown me after not keeping up with them for years wouldn't do any good and might weird them out. then it started to hit me that I had dropped all of my friendships back home when I left for Philmont last summer the day after graduation. The last time I talked to one of my best friends was in the parking lot after graduation. i think because I had a hard time socially in high school I kind of withdrew from everyone, in some ways even before I left. If you are from Batesville, especially if you are an old High School friend, I'm sorry. I didn't really realize what I was doing and I failed to show Jesus' love to a lot of people. I realized recently that Batesville is a ministry opportunity already set up for me. Instead of viewing at as an opportunity though, I tried to remove myself from it. Since leaving I have also failed to keep up with people through e-mail and stuff. Again, I am sorry to anyone who I ditched or judged. On the bright side, God has shown me grace by loving me through great friends in Fayetteville. I feel like I can be myself for the first time in a while, and that people like me like when I do. Its been pretty freeing. God is good.

I got to share with a co-worker!

I got to share with a co-worker at Fredmeyers yesterday! His name is Emmanuel. Emmanuel is from Puerto Rico, and has been living here for around four years. I prayed yesterday morning that God would use me and fill me with the Holy Spirit even though I wasn't feeling particularly spiritual and I was pretty mentally worn out at work. God answered my prayer and gave me an opportunity, as well as helping to lead into and get through sharing the gospel, by his grace. I think maybe he gave me more of an opportunity because I was completely dependent on his strength to help me be intentional that day. Any who I sat down next to Emmanuel at lunch, and we talked for a little while about where he was from, his background, etc. Another girl who is on project was eating there also, reading her Bible. Emmuel asked me if it was a Bible she was reading, and I told him it was, after which he asked me if we did a lot of Bible Study. (probably meaning our"crusader" group) I told him we did, and then asked if he did. He said he was not very religious, and began to talk about his doubts with the church and God working in the world and other thoughts. I was then able to tell him what we believed, (that the only way to know God or go to heaven was to daily confess sins to God and depend on the forgiveness given through Jesus Christ and let God work through you) how Jesus told us to love one another and disagreements in the church were our failure, how God gave us the choice to sin because he loved us, and how our sin is what causes bad things in the world. Since I had hit most of the points in the knowing God personally booklet but in a kind of un-organized way, I started to read it to him, but did not get past the first page before he had to go back because his lunch break ended. He had been to church before, and talked about going to mass with his wife. I think I am going to ask him what he thinks about what he said, if I can finish going through the booklet with him, and if maybe some time he would like to bring his family to the church that I go to and then tell me what he thought. PLEASE PRAY for Emmanuel; that he would keep thinking about what I said, that God would cause him to want to know more, and that he would one day have a relationship with God. I was extremely encouraged by the opportunity. I feel like it was definately something brought about by God, which strengthened my faith a lot. God is good! maybe one day Emmanuel can experience that too.

super convicting video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Pql9pbiJs

this video was really intense for me, it made a lot of sense. Its a video of a firm atheist really honestly telling how he felt after someone "evangelised" him. If we really believe in heaven and hell, and that faith in Jesus is the only way, then why don't we tell people? I think just having the guts to tell people would show them that we really believe in it. and maybe tell us the same.

Co workers

So now I have built friendships with three of my co- workers, and have made aquaintance with a hand full of others. WOULD YOU PRAY for Chris, Justin, Emmanuel, and Shiloh? Would you pray that I can make good friends with them, and that I will know when the Holy Spirit is leading me to share the gospel and obey? I got to tell a couple of them why we were here (I think that is becoming a great way to open up conversations). I told them that we were a group of college students who came here for the summer to get to know people in the community, get jobs, and share what we believe, our faith in Jesus. Please pray that I will have opportunities at work, and that we won't just be biding our time.

Serving at celebration

a few weeks ago we did volunteer work for about four days at celebration, which is exactly what it sounds like; a celebration, for the Native American people here in Juneau to help them preserve their culture. It was really interesting, and gave me hope for those people to come to know the Lord. It was good that we served at celebration; in like the 1950's Christian missionaries came and were very degrading to their culture and oppressive. By serving at celebration in the name of Jesus we could show them that we Christians were accepting of their culture. I got to tell a few people why we were volunteering; I told them we were a group of college students up here for the summer to serve the community and share what we believe, our faith in Jesus, with people. We didn't get to have any deep discussions with any of them but I think we made a dent in changing their stereotypes with Christians that were given to them by the missionaries in the fifty's. WOULD YOU PRAY for the tlingit people; that they God would soften their hearts to the Gospel and that tlingits would come to know him and then reach their villages?