Re-directing

I want to thank everyone who has visited this blog and have been following my journeys in evangelism.  As you may have seen, the posts have been pretty infrequent here.  In case you've been wondering why, let me clarify a few things.

1) My passion for and position on evangelism have not changed.  I still seek to share the Gospel daily in a variety of ways and will continue to do so. 

2) While I am passionate about evangelism, it is not my primary calling.  I am a man seeking God in my own life, while also balancing family and pastoral ministry.  I caught myself last summer getting too focused on evangelism.  While not to the neglect of family (I hope), I do feel my pursuit of God and my pastoral ministry were taking a back seat to my evangelistic endeavors. 

3) I began this site to share my journey from a shy, timid guy who could barely muster the courage to hand someone a tract to someone who has open air preached on Hollywood Blvd. and down things I never imagined I would do for the Lord.  I wanted to be an encouragement to others I knew who were taking their initial baby steps into evangelism.  However, I began to wrestle with why I continued this blog.  Was it now to "show off" what I was doing?  Was it to draw attention?  I guess I needed a break from the site to examine a few things.

With all that being said, this blog will still exist, but more as an informational site for my evangelism ministry - with resources, links, upcoming events, etc.  However, any future updates on events or ongoing evangelism-related posts will not be moved to my all-inclusive blog site, The Intentional Spiritual Life.  I want to maintain balance in my walk with Christ.  Focusing on an evangelism-only site was not proving to be helpful in this pursuit. 

So, I would love your continued prayer support as I seek to be a true and faithful witness.  Continue to stop back here as I will try to keep the calendar updated with upcoming events.  And I hope you will follow the ongoing journey over at the new site.

May the Lord bless you! 

100th Episode of On the Box

A Mini-Van and Mandisa

For the most part, you won't see a lot of posts here this summer.  I won't get into all my reasons now.  But I had to share something neat that God did this afternoon at the first Prayer Station of the summer at Lakewood Park. 

I was supposed to meet up with someone, but as I arrived at the park, I quickly realized they were not going to be joining me.  I was amazed at the fog coming in off the lake.  If you've been to Lakewood Park, you know how obvious Lake Erie is from anywhere in the park.  Not today - just a wall of fog.  It was also a good 10 degrees cooler this close to the lake than it was at my house, and I didn't bring a jacket.  To top it off, it took my about 15 minutes to find a spot to set up that wasn't swamp land from the onslaught of rain we have gotten over the past month.  I almost got back in the car to go home.  I was fighting strep throat this week and had a hundred other reasons to call it a day.

I knew I would kick myself all weekend if I didn't set up for a while.  I did.  The park only had a scattering of people.  I sat there and prayed and read my Bible for a bit.  A little over a half hour later, I was ready to leave.  I was cold, the park was empty, and nobody would ever know the difference.  I was about to get up and pack up shop when a mini-van pulled into the parking spot directly in front of me - about 20 feet away.  There were empty parking spots all over, but the van chose to park directly in front of me.  The driver turned the car off, but left the radio on.  Actually, they turned it up quite loud and opened the driver's side door.  I'm not sure what the driver was doing, they just sat there blasting the radio with the door open.  When the door first opened, I recognized the song right away.  It was "Stronger' by Mandisa.  The van was listening to the local Christian radio station.  As soon as they opened the door, the words blaring out from the song were, "Hold on just a little bit longer..." 

The mini-van sat there for just a couple of minutes.  The driver's door closed and the van drove away.  That's all I needed to keep me going until my intended departure time.  I almost wish this story would go on to say how someone came up, asked for prayer, and came to Christ.  Nope.  Not today, anyway.  Nothing eventful happened.  But that's not the point.  God does not always want us to obey for what results we can see.  Sometimes He wants us to stay at it just a little longer, not because an emotional event awaits us.  Sometimes He wants us to continue simply for the sake of obeying Him. 

I am continually amazed at the things God does.  If a Christian ever complains that they don't see God working or answering prayer, they need to be urged to take a step of faith into evangelism.  He is so good, even in the little encouragements in a mini-van and Mandisa.

A Word to My Evangelism Brethren

Here in rainy Ohio, we are ready to get back into our "nice weather," which means an increase in our outreach efforts.  This is an exciting time.  But with that, I again pass on the burden of my heart.  We can be very zealous in evangelism.  In fact, many of us travel great distances and make personal sacrifices of money, time, and energy to be a part of an outreach event.  My question for myself and others is this - to what degree do we sacrifice to take part in a time of prayer with other believers?  Let us not "hit the streets" this summer in the floesh, but may we go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit.  May we be as fervent in prayer as we are in evangelism. 

Could This Be Us?

Recently, I have been wondering how Jesus views Christianity in America.  Sure, we can shake our fists at all the bad stuff out there.  But would He truly look upon conservative Evangelical Christianity with any better affection?  Consider these words, based on Jesus' words to the Ephesian church in Revelation 2, and consider if they might be true of your life.

I know your works of evangelism, your toil in studying theology and your patient endurance of hecklers and skeptics, and how you cannot bear with abortion and homosexuality, but you have tested the Rob Bell's and Joel Osteen's of the world and have found them to be false.  I know you are enduring patiently with false converts and bearing up for my name's sake among those who profess my Name, and you have not grown weary.  But I have this against you, that you have lost focus of your First Love.

We have nailed down truth, and seek to do so more and more.  We preach the Gospel with passion and study Scripture with zeal.  But have we ceased to fix out eyes on Jesus?

Keith Green on Me-Centeredness

A Part of History (April 2, 2011)

In partnership with Bezeugen Ministries, we took part in a nationwide effort of taking the Gospel to every major league ballpark for each team's opening weekend.  We were excited to take part in this exciting opportunity, as well as to see the warm weather sport of baseball return! 

As always, we were watching the weather forecast, and it wasn't good.  Even the night before, they were calling for it to be in the low 30's with a rain/snow mix heading into the first pitch.  We trusted the Lord.  It ended up being in the 40's with sunshine and blue skies.  It was still really chilly being so close to the lake, but much better than forecasted!  We were praying that God would bring together a team of 15 people for this event, and He saw fit to bring together 20 laborers!  Praise God!  So, we met for prayer, gathered our 2,500 tracts and made our way to Progressive Field. 

We got down there at 11 AM, two hours before the game started, and we were delighted to see that we had arrived before the crowd starting coming in.  Perfect!  The first hour was pretty slow, as people just weren't coming, other than a few here and there.  Well, that just meant that the second hour would be a fast-paced rush, right?  Twelve o'clock passed and we approached 30-minutes before game time and the crowd flow was still really light.  Not only that, we were also getting a lot of rejections. 

We pressed on, knowing that the stadium holds over 40,000 people and they were bound to pour in any minute.  Maybe people were waiting until the last minute because it was so chilly.  We were ready for when they came - we pretty much had every entry point to the stadium covered.  We even had a little open air preaching take place. 

As the National Anthem began at 1:00, things still hadn't picked up.  We made our way home feeling a little discouraged.  Where were all the people?  Well, it turns out that we were a part of history.  With just over 9,000 people in attendance, it was the lowest attendance in the history of Progressive Field.  Of the 2,500 tracts, we probably gave away around 1,000.  And when you factor in how many rejections we had, we probably reached out to a hefty percentage of the people there!

We went there to glorify God by reaching out to the lost, and that is what we did.  We have tracts left over, so we will come back again for another game when the weather warms up.  Please be in prayer for those who did get a tract and/or who heard the open air preaching.  I praise God that we were able to get the Gospel to so many, even if not as many as we thought.  And I praise Him for allowing the weather to defy all forecasts.  And I praise Him for bringing together such an amazing team!