During our road trip, we were able to spend the weekend in Charleston SC.
We visited with friends from Seacoast Church, spent some time with their missions director about our work in Panama, and I had the opportunity to preach in two churches, and expand the vision of our work.
Rockville Presbyterian Church
The first church we visited, Rockville Presbyterian Church was at the southern Tip of Wadmalaw Island.
The church was established in 1850 and is a beautiful white country church. The congregation that meets there now is generous, and loves the Lord. Elders cornered me for prayer before the service starts (as an itinerant evangelist, I can tell you how rare that is).
The little waterfront town of Rockville was truly at the end of the road, a quiet respite on our journey. The old trees, the Spanish moss, and the quiet ocean breeze all made us feel like we had just walked into a Southern Living photo spread.
I shared a message based on the story of Phillip And The Ethiopian Eunuch, the foundational teaching for our model of evangelism.
El Buen Pastor
Later that evening, we visited a Spanish language congregation that meets inside a Presbyterian Church. I had a translator help me share a similar message on Phillip.
Most of this church was made of immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico. In fact, as we asked some of the members if other countries were represented, no one could think of any others.
The difference:
The opening introduction to the message that I am using on this trip is about Fears of Evangelism.
What I discovered in comparing these two churches is that many of these evangelism fears are more common in typical Mainline, North American churches.
The people at Rockville quickly identified with these fears, but the Hispanic church seemed surprised that evangelism could be so scary. This gave me further insight into how to adapt the teaching material for different audiences.
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