A Big Team Again

2013 March 26 (25)

Exhortation

It's Testify Tuesday. Come out to Markville Mall at 6:30PM to evangelize with us. Text me if you are coming. More importantly, pray for us. You ARE participating when you pray. In fact, I would rather someone dedicate this time to prayer than to physically come out.

My family, my brothers and sisters, especially those at Harvest Bible Chapel York Region, Ephesians 2:10 tells us that there are good works "God prepared beforehand" for us to do. What are those works for you?

I'm tired of urging people to evangelize more. I'm tired of begging people to see Hell for what it really is. Church of Jesus Christ, wake up! Arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you! Millions are dying every day. Our very friends and loved ones are happily running into eternal damnation. What "work" are you doing to stop that? Btw, if you're one of them, please turn around and save your soul, trust in Christ. He is real, He is faithful, I know it.

Not everyone is an evangelist, I understand that. But if you're a Christian, you're called to do God's work. Not only so, if you're a Christian, Eph 2:10 says that God has ALREADY prepared work for you to do. If you have no God-given work, what does that say about your faith? My work is at the mall. What is yours?

Prayer, hospitality, teaching, giving, cleaning... There are many types of work, many types of gifts, but one Lord. Work for the Lord Jesus Christ using what He has given you. Ask Him in the Spirit what it is! It is a labor-intensive work, sometimes filled with pain, but oh is it ever joyful. Therefore my brothers and sisters, I want to urge you in love, work for God.

Testimony

Well, last night was our weekly adventure of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ at Markville Mall! It was so encouraging to see so many people come out and to even see several people we knew at the mall who prayed for us... this is only my third time out, but I can already see God building up this ministry. It's so not about the messengers, but just about willing people excited about what Jesus has done in their lives and ready to be used by God to tell others. (Of course, evangelism at the mall isn't the only way to do this, but this is what God has put on our hearts for the time being.)

It sounds like there were many conversations last night. Praise God for that, especially given how close we are to Easter, when the whole story of the Gospel reached its climax some 2000 years ago. I can testify to one conversation that Sam and I had where God seemed to be at work. A guy we talked to for a bit under an hour moved from open skepticism about Christianity to hostility before suddenly becoming much more open to talk about the God of the universe. We were shocked that wanted a Bible at the end (thankfully we had one) and even wanted to know where to start reading! We don't know for sure what he's going to do with it, but we can certainly be praying that he'll read that Bible and come to the repentance and forgiveness of sins that God offers me, you, him, all of us through His Son Jesus. Do you know this Good News? This is the true story of Easter - that God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21b ESV).

Again, thanks so much to everyone who came out! It was great praying with and standing alongside you all in the Gospel - Andrea, Carmelina, Josh, Sam, Mike, Ben, and Tony. Thanks for everyone who prayed as well; your prayers make a huge difference for this ministry! Let's keep praying for God to do a great work in this place for His Glory.

Souls (15) {Total: 168}

M, L;
A (Russian kid);
J, A (high school girls);
D (Christian);
J, J;
A, M;
Y, E;
T;
J (sunglasses guy);
J

Team (8)

Tony, Josh; Mike, Carmelina; Ben, Andrea; Jackson, Samantha

First Picture

2013 March 19 (24)

Exhortation

Testify Tuesday is now at 6:30PM instead of 6:00PM. I know, this changes everything! Whether by prayer or by being there, I look forward to partnering with many of you in sharing the gospel at Markville Mall tonight.

Each week I take the passage preached on at church (which for me is Harvest Bible Chapel York Region) and uses that to encourage people to actually practice what they're learning. For me, the practice often comes in the form of evangelism, which is sharing the gospel with myself so much that I can't help but let it overflow to sharing with others. I do wish everyone would come out with me! But alas, that's not how Christ established the church. Nevertheless, I pray that at least some are encouraged by what we do weekly and by this message.

This week's sermon contains Eph 2:8 - "For by grace you have been saved through faith..." This grace that revived us from death to life. This grace that loved us when we were enemies. This grace that is completely undeserved. This grace that saved us from everlasting torment. This grace that caused the Lord Jesus Christ to face the full wrath of God as He died alone on that cross... for me, for you... This wonderful, beautiful, amazing grace.... I don't just believe it, I know it's active in my life even now! Can you feel it too? So preach this grace to yourself today. And let it overflow into change and action, whatever it may be. How can it not!?

Perhaps you've never felt this grace in your life before. You can... today. :D

Testimony

At Markville tonight, we talked to so many people. Some conversations were more than an hour and some less than 3 minutes. God keeps growing the team and blessing our conversations. It's sometimes hard going out because you don't always "feel it". But I've been blessed each time. More than that, we are bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to all these people! Any amount of labor is worthwhile as long as the gospel is preached. But the laborers are still few, so please pray for more laborers for the harvest field.

Ask any of us if we want to hear testimonies because we have many, too many to share here. ;) Praise God for the marvelous team full of people with beautiful feet. Mike, Ben, Andrea, Dorothy, Jackson, Jacqueline, I look forward to partnering with you more in the days to come. We have a picture this week!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151335146643202&set=a.10151100742103202.433888.503748201&type=1&theater

Souls (16) {Total: 153}

F, T, T, J;
S, A;
M, M;
B; S, C;
K;
4 different girls

Team (7)

Tony, Jackson; Ben; Mike, Andrea; Dorothy; Jacqueline

First On the Spot Convert!

2013 March 12 (23)

Exhortation

Testify Tuesday is here again. Join us in person or in prayer. We'll be at Markville Mall from 6PM to 7:30PM sharing the gospel. Why you ask? Well...

Rom 7:24 says, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" I am wretched. I try to do good things but I fail horribly so often. Those of you at Harvest Bible Chapel York Region know more deeply what this is like. There is nothing good in my body. But yet God has put His Spirit in me and Christ has saved me by His blood. Me! A wretched man! Obviously God sees something in me that even I have trouble seeing, or more likely He just loves me that much. I will not disappoint Him.

This is why I share the gospel. And this is how we do it: we use the law to reveal sin, then we point them to Christ. Then the Father won't see our wretchedness anymore! Instead He'll see Christ, as will we.

Testimony

God always does great things for those doing His will. Tonight: We got to witness SALVATION!!!

There were these two teenage boys eating Taco Bell. Turns out one of them is a Christian. Jackson, Dorothy, and I sat down with them and started sharing the gospel, going through their sinful state in full detail. When we asked the non-Christian Ryan where he'd go if he died, he responded with a solemn look, "I'll probably go to Hell."

Then we shared what Jesus died for and how we can receive this gift. He plainly said that he wanted it! We asked, "So you're saying you want to be Christian?" He said yes! We then spent the next 10 minutes trying to scare him away. We shared how he has to repent and stop doing some things, how following Jesus sometimes mean suffering, and how personally, it led to rejection within my own family.

We asked if, even after understanding the costs, he still wanted to follow Christ. When he still said yes, we were ecstatic (but trying hard to hide it). We prayed with him right there in the food court for him to enter into this new saving relationship with God! We made sure to say after that he will know the reality of what he did today by the fruit he sees 5 years down the road.

I want to rejoice, I want to scream that we now have a new brother in Christ. And I can! And I'm happy! But ultimately, like every follower of Christ, we will know them by their fruit. That's why I pray that God will cause him to bear fruit, that he'll be discipled into a man of God and not choked by the thorns of this world. Pray for him.

Despite all that, I'm still incredibly blessed to have been a part of this. You can be a part of this too! All you have to do is put yourself out there, God will do the rest. For those who prayed, you were a part of this! God bless you! There are few joys greater than knowing you were part of God's plan to bring someone to salvation. So rejoice with me church, again I say, rejoice!

PS. Mike and Hope Linda talked to this group of 12 teenagers. It looked intense. Next step for them: open air.

Souls (19) {Total: 137}

S, A (salvation later through Kevin), S;
Group of 12 teens;
M;
T;
R, D (R believed, D was Christian)

Team (5)

Tony, Jackson, Dorothy; Mike, Linda

And then He Comes to Church!?

2013 March 5 (22)

Exhortation

On this Testify Tuesday, we will only be evangelizing at Markville Mall from 6:00PM to 6:45PM so that we can pray with our church family at 7PM. It's gonna be short and sweet tonight.

Those at Harvest Bible Chapel York Region heard from Rom 7. Rom 7:4 says that we have died to the law "in order that we may bear fruit for God." Let's not go out because the law demands, since it doesn't. Let's go out because we want to bear fruit for He who died for us! So let's bear fruit brothers and sisters, a hundred or even a thousand times more!

Grow in holiness, pray, evangelize, whatever you do, don't stop bearing fruit.

Testimony

‎Harvest Bible Chapel York Region: On Tuesday, a couple of us went out to Markville to share our faith. We got into a couple interesting conversations. I spoke to a young man named Mikael. He invited me to take a seat, since I was standing when I started talking to him, which is a rare thing. Most people are just waiting for you to leave! It turned out that he was a very spiritual guy and interested in learning more about the gospel and what Christ had done for us. Truth be told, he was also interested in many other religions, but he said that our discussion cleared up some misconceptions about Christianity that he had. After realizing I was late for church wide prayer, I told him that I had to leave. He expressed interest in possibly talking about these things again so I gave him a Harvest Bible Chapel card and put my number on it since I didn't have any paper. As soon as he saw the card he exclaimed that he knew Curtis. He also told me that he was planning on attending the new believers classes that started just recently. It turns out that Curtis had previously shared the good news with him. I would not pronounce him a Christian, but I feel that God is drawing Him unto Himself. I always wonder if the people that I share the gospel with ever hear it again, or if they ever surrender their lives to Christ. Remember, it's not anything that we do that saves people, but like Paul said in 1 Corinthians "...God gave the increase"!

Souls (4) {Total: 118}

D;
M (knows Curtis, later goes to new believer’s class);
K, woman

Team (5)

Mike, Kevin; Ben, Tony, Curtis