I was re-reading my blog, which is kind of a time capsule reminding me of the work of God and my understanding of it at the time in my life.  I saw my post, "Pregnant Dreams" from 2014, where we envisioned rebuilding the stage in our sanctuary at Here's Hope in anticipation of God doing something special, perhaps rebuilding a house of worship in our midst. 

Fast forward:  2015 - Lee Road Baptist Church Mission team came up for the second year in a row, and assisted us with our Faith Camp along with a Mobile Home outreach.  Some helped us by repainting the sanctuary and doing some much needed repairs.  As a consequence, our worship team began to change as well, as we prayed and sought God's leading for our future.  We began to train a worship leader and a bass guitarist came forward with an idea for a worship band.  We spent the early part of 2016 implementing some of this, as our band and worship team began to take shape.

2016 - Lee Road returned, and demolished and completely reconstructed our sound booth and helped prep our sanctuary for new carpet which was installed a week later.  Our sanctuary looks brand new.  Our worship feels new too.  Our worship band "Reaching Higher" began their first live session the week that Lee Road mission team arrived.  We have seen numerous new people come in with fresh vigor and excitement.  Now we wait for the fruit of salvations, conversions, changed lives and families with children and youth to press in. 

We feel as if we are giving birth RIGHT NOW.  God is doing His work in our midst.  Go God!

A Fresh Insight into Evangelism

Had an interesting conversation yesterday at Faith Camp with an adult helper from one of our partner churches.  She was sharing her political views pretty forcefully, and I struggled to try to keep finding common ground so as not to alienate her.  After about a half an hour of conversation, she made a broad statement that I felt that I had to challenge.  She was talking about Muslims and said, "we all worship the same God."  I was tempted to shoot her down and correct her, but felt led instead to ask her a question instead.  I asked her "why do you feel they are the same?" Her response?  "Well they all prayer toward heaven."  The question and her subsequent answer opened a dialogue that led her to admit she really didn't know the bible very well, or even really what she believed as a Christian.  We talked about the fact that Mohammad and Allah didn't give their only son to bear the sins of the world; that Buddha and Hare Krishna and the Hindu deities didn't either.  I encouraged her to read the book of Romans as it explains some of the misconceptions she had. 

I came away from this conversation with a fresh insight into evangelism for my own life:  Build rapport and look for common ground with every person - don't directly challenge their mistaken beliefs, but instead, ask them to explain them along with the reasons why they hold those beliefs.  I have to admit, my experience over the past 2 years in sales has helped me to hold dialogues with people over what they believe and hold value for.