EVANGELIVING UPDATE

This week our church family said “good bye” to sister Mary Reeve, who for more than a half a century served our children, teaching, helping, being there faithfully every Sabbath for Adventurers and Sabbath School.  Preparing for the sermon I listen to her sister Viola sharing her life, spoke with the family, and listened to testimonies.  Earlier this year as we started Spirituality Class we looked at 10 diagnostic questions of person’s spiritual growth: Mary displayed them.  Here I will list a few:

·   Governed increasingly by God’s Word.  Just this year alone she read the Bible twice.

·   Having a growing concern for the spiritual and temporal needs of others.  Bill Dowdell shared that Mary was instrumental in leading his parents to Christ.  She was an evangelist in their lives.

·   Delighting in the Bride of Christ, the Church.  Closer you are to the Lord, closer you will be to believers, willing to endure all things for the sake of the elect.  Mary never missed church when her health permitted.

·   Being more loving.  Kids testify to her kindness.

·   Yearning for Holiness of Heaven and to be with Jesus, wishing he would come soon.  That was Mary’s talk and song.

The list can go on.  My point – I wish everyone in our congregation would be an evangelist, leading others to Christ, spending time in God’s Word and serving others.

Last November we had introduced a Master Plan Evangelism, a process to engage all members in soul winning.  We started with the Month of Prayer, inviting people to seek God’s directions in choosing who to pray for, and who to invest in leading to Jesus this year.  If you aim nowhere, you’ll get there.  To bring even one person to Christ you must be certain and intentional about it.  So, in December we encouraged you to show genuine love to those you have selected to pray for and to lead to Christ.  Through winter months the intent was to boost the friendship through acts of kindness and hospitality.  In March we provided resources and opportunities for you to give spiritual gifts to your friends, books, DVDs, to show that you are interested in their spirituality.  This month the focus is on personal witness.  You actually taking a time and sharing with your friend your faith, your conviction.

Starting in May it’s time to invite your friends to church, to events, to demonstrate who we are as a family of faith, as we are preparing for fall harvest program, when your friends would be invited also to make commitments.

Let people know you want to see them in eternity with Jesus!

MEANINGFUL PERSONAL WITNESSING

Last week at our elders meeting we were reading through a few pages of Elders’ Handbook and one phrase caught my attention “The pain stops here!”  That is the ideal description of what our church should be, a place where pain stops.

What a blessing if our church could honestly place such a sign above the door, visible from the street “The pain stops here.”  People would come swarming to a place that stops their spiritual pain.  One of metaphors for the church is that of a hospital.  People in pain go to a hospital, where their pain is promised to stop.  No matter how expensive hospital is, people keep right on going, to stop their pain.

We were considering with our spiritual leadership team the former and inactive members.  Could it be that instead of categorizing them as quitters, undependable, worldly, we should consider them as people whose pain we failed to stop?  Maybe it’s time for us to take a responsibility.  Maybe, at times, instead of stopping peoples’ pain we inflict more on them.  It has to stop.  What if those who still attend go away with their pain not attended to, or ignored?

Ask yourself honestly today – am I better off when I leave this place, am I better off after attending this spiritual hospital we call church?  Because if you are not, we’ve got to make changes, we’ve got to change ourselves.

Meaningful personal witnessing is about one beggar telling another where to find bread; it is about one healed person telling others where to find healing.  That’s what evangelism and church growth is all about, people discovering liberty, healing and nourishment in the Presence of Loving God, through Christ.  We are the Body of Christ, and authentic Christ in us would offer everyone we come in contact with the healing, nourishment, peace, and liberty.  This is how the Gospel Message was first preached, proclaiming the nearness of the Kingdom of God, where sick were healed, oppressed were set free, sorrowful rejoiced, a place where pain stopped!

This month of April, the month of personal witness, I invite you to make your personal contact with people meaningful, by stopping pain, emotional, spiritual, physical, relational all around you.  People will be attracted to Christ in you, when your presence would emanate God’s presence, stopping pain...

APRIL – MONTH OF PERSONAL WITNESSING

I had been following the General Conference Spring meetings updates to learn more about agenda for the upcoming session, and some news items are too grand not to pass along.  The most significant restructuring takes place in the Inter-American division, where the church almost doubled in the last 5 years. The Adventist Church in the island nation of Jamaica will become its own Union, administering over quarter million of believers.  Churches in Columbia, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador also will become autonomous Unions, each administering to about a quarter of a million believers.  It is exciting to see growth of our church around the world.  And my heart yearns to see the growth also here in Canada, especially in London, Ontario.

I am reflecting on a recent conversation with counselling professionals where John Regier from the Caring for the Heart Ministries, made a comment about Ontarians – “the most difficult segment of population to counsel,” with the top two barriers being pride and hypocrisy. Could it be true that our communities in Ontario had been blessed too much and became prideful, independent, isolated, individualistic, and cover the real needs all too well?

There is only one way to find out – taking an initiative and calling people into relationships, introducing them to Christ in you.  Last weekend an elder of Windsor Church, Charles H.Shad conducted a 4-session evangelistic series on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  He is also a senior consultant to CICA, and he did not shy away from inviting his clients to the meetings.  Pastor Kossovan shared with me that when he, elder Shad, made an appeal for baptism and further discipling, all his clients and secular invitees stood up, and signed up for Prophecy studies that are ongoing weekly, on Sundays 2 pm.  Personal invitation and involvement in people’s lives brings people close regardless of barriers that may exist.

From the beginning of this year we had been communicating and encouraging each member to select 7 people to pray for, people who are away from Christ, who need to discover Jesus for their lives.  For the winter month you were encouraged to show intentional kindness and hospitality to those you are leading to Christ through your prayers.  Last month we had an opportunity to share spiritual gifts with our friends, by giving books, DVDs and more resources.  This month we invite you to share a personal testimony with those you are praying for, to give a personal witness of what God has done for you.  Invest time in people you want to see in eternity.

Corporately we are organizing opportunities for you to demonstrate your faith by inviting your friends to events where they will learn more about God’s will.  Men’s Conference, Depression the way-out seminar, Healthy living in mid-May, and more opportunities are planned for each month.  And you are the front-line missionary! Witness your faith!

LORD’S SUPPER, A SHADOW OF THE TRIUNE GOD

As with all aspects of church life, which is organic, flowing from living relationship with God, the Communion experience is an illustration of the Trinitarian Community.  Reading of Scripture shows that God the Father is “food” to God the Son (Matthew 4:4;  John 4:31; 6:27,57).  There is no mentioning of the Lord’s Supper meal in the Gospel of John, only footwashing, and the challenge of Christ to eat the bread which is God in chapter 6 is “in place” of it.  In turn, God the Son is “food” to us (John 1:29;  6:27; 32-35, 53-57)  He is also a “drink” for all (John 4:10; 6:53; 1^st Corinthians 10:4;  12:13;  Revelation 22:17).

From theology I’ll move into a practical application.  Just as God shares all aspects of His activity in three Revelations, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, where co-participation flows, it is at the Communion table that we see this image of co-participation through eating, drinking and humility. We enact divine participation in the Triune God and make it visible on the earth.

This supper we come to celebrate today is rooted in an eternal activity within God.  This Supper transcends time.  It is a re-proclamation of the Lord’s sacrificial death in the past.  It is re-declaration of His ever-abiding nearness with us in the present.  It is a re-pronouncement of our hope of glory – His coming in the future.  This Lord’s Supper is a living testimony to the three chief virtues: Faith, Hope, Love.

Through co-partaking of God and co-participating with each other we reground ourselves in the glorious salvation that is our only by faith.  We reexpress our love for each other as we stand united in one Body.  We rejoice in the hope of Christ’s soon return.

In history two extremes exist – Catholics see it as a literal sacrifice ritual, Protestants reacted by considering it only a commemorative symbol.  Yet, it is more than a symbol and more than a sacrifice – it is a living reality, of experiencing the Mystery of the Holy Spirit through partaking and participating literal emblems, by which we reaffirm and are reaffirmed in Christ and membership in His Body, the Bride, the Church.

Welcome to the Experience today!