Tony's Last Day

2013 Aug 13 (45)

Exhortation

Today is Testify Tuesday. 6:30PM, Markville Mall.

Should I give an exhortation as to why we need to evangelize? No, that's saved for Harvest York Region Young Adults on Thursday. Come to that. However, I am going to ask you to pray and wait. Join me and the team in praying for God to do something great tonight.

This will be the 45th week that we have been out in Markville. 45 weeks of sharing the gospel,This will also be the last time I'm consistently there. Mike Fenty is taking over as I move to Chicago.

So if God is leading you, I would very much like to go evangelize with as many of you as possible. Will you consider it?

Testimony

This will be my last testimony sharing from Testify Tuesday... Sad times... My biggest takeaway: Prayer.

We started going out and sharing the gospel weekly at Markville Mall on October 3rd, 2012. Since then, we've gone out every single week (except Nov 7, arghh). Every single week, we were there talking to random strangers about who Jesus Christ is and why they should care. Many weeks we were discouraged, saddened that we faced so many rejections and so few opportunities to even share the message. Many weeks we begged God to save someone but seemed to face stone walls. But every week, we were faithful.

The biggest thing I want to leave with everyone is the importance of faithfulness, especially faithfulness in prayer. Testify Tuesday started with just one person. I went five weeks by myself, until I couldn't take it anymore. But when I took a break on Nov 7th, God convicted me of my sin and I had to repent. As I went back the next week, I pleaded with God to send someone with me. God answered and brought Mike Fenty. Shortly after, Ben Sampson joined too and the three of us have been going consistently since.

Since we started, we've shared the gospel with 365 individuals, faced many more outright rejections, and only encountered 11 actual Christians (not nominal ones). That's about 0.03% of the population. The harvest is very plentiful but the laborers are so few. Nevertheless, God is good. Over the span of the ministry, 29 different evangelists have come out with us. And we've had 5 people come to trust Christ as Lord and savior. We rejoice over these five souls. But please be praying for us as evangelism is hard, HARD work. We often wish for more fruit but know that this is not the nature of our ministry.

Last night, the team consisted of Mike, Ryan, Matthew, Ambrose,Samantha, Melinda, Linda, and myself. Norman even joined at the end. God has grown us from just one to this many! And we represent not just one church, but many. I know God can do more if we are faithful in prayer, so please keep praying for this. Please keep pleading for more souls to be saved. I know for a fact that our God answers prayers!

In the month of May, we prayed on our knees that God would do two things: 1) Save someone, 2) Add a team member. (http://testifytuesday.blogspot.ca/2013/05/2013-05-08.html) God answered both of those on the very last week of May. See, faithfulness in prayer is what pushes our ministry, nothing else. Testify Tuesday is a prayer movement more than it is anything about evangelism. Many weeks, within our team, we pray almost as long as we evangelize! Evangelism is merely a natural outflow of passionate prayer for the lost. Never forget that.

And why do we do it? Soli Deo gloria.

Souls (7+) {Total: 365+}

J (weird church);
J;
K;
M;
M;
M;
K

Team (8)

Tony, Samantha; Mike, Matthew; Ryan, Ambrose; Melinda, Linda