After teaching on evangelism this weekend Vida Abundante in Calidonia, Maria (not her real name) pulls me aside and tells me

Your teaching has relieved a giant burden I’ve been carrying. . ..

It’s Not Our Job

Maria had heard teaching on evangelism over many years that could be summarized like this

• Here is a script to memorize.
• Share that script with as many people as possible.
• Rejoice with those that pray a prayer.

This is a common teaching paradigm that focuses exclusively on the skills of sharing your faith and in many cases has divorced ongoing discipleship from evangelism.

For years, Maria had faithfully obeyed this teaching. She grew confident in talking to strangers, using gospel tracts, and fine tuning her presentation.

Yet in all her years of energetically “working the program” she hardly ever saw a conversion experience.

In spite of all her confident theology about God working mysteriously, she experienced

• the mounting feelings of disappointment,
• the growing pain of continued personal rejection, and
• the mental energy drained in trying to fight self-criticism.

Her desire to share her faith was diminishing.

She felt totally responsible for all the outcomes.

Evangelism had become a human work.

• If they don’t repent, I’m doing evangelism wrong.
• If they don’t accept Christ, it’s my fault.
• If they don’t repent now, it must be because of some problem in my life.

Evangelism becomes a burden after repeated failures and rejection.

Nobody wants to do that all the time.

There are better ways to enjoy life than experiencing rejection every time you talk about faith.

Finding Freedom

Maria heard me teach on How the How the Holy Spirit draws people to faith.

She saw how God works through a process of bringing people to faith — a conversion to Christ is often at the end of series of key events that God uses.

Watching her respond through the teaching, her face showed evidence of the proverbial “light bulbs” going off.

The emotional burdens that had grown on her from all her rejection experiences in evangelism were fading.

What was building in it’s place was a confidence in God’s sovereignty and a joy that comes with relief from burdens.

She pulled me aside and said

Your teaching has relieved a giant burden I’ve been carrying. . .

She proceeded to tell me how this teaching had

• transformed her view of evangelism,
• helped her to see God’s responsibility
• given her a new fearless freedom to be a vessel in God’s work.

What a joy

There is a profound joy in watching people accept and apply this teaching.

For our ministry partners, this is the fruit of your work — people finding liberty to be more effective witnesses for Christ.  You enable us to fulfill our vision for 2010 of impacting churches in the Americas to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the work of missions and evangelism.

If you remember, one of my students is Narcisso.  He was in one of my classes on evangelism and has regularly contacted me outside of class to talk about his work, his calling, and his dream.

He is self-employed as an ambulante, a salesperson who walks around selling little wares like crackers and posters on the street.  Pictured with him is his box of stuff he was selling that day for .25 to 1.50. 

“Hermano,” he greets me as I answer his phone call after I return from Nicaragua.

“I’m going to Peru to study missions — to take a 6 month course on high speed, down into 60 days — focused on working with indigenous groups.”

Knowing his plans, his dreams, and his diligence in pursuing those dreams of being on the mission field, I’m eager to find out how I can help.  I know he’s been working on this dream for a while.  The time of fulfillment is now.

Narcisso is a man of faith and has displayed the character over time that has convinced me of his calling.

He’s raising $400 to finish out some funding issues and needs it in 3 days.  Panama has a hold on issusing passports, so he needs his passport to come through.  His travel visa is set to expire if he doesn’t use it. 

There is a lot of prayer requests in what he tells me — mountains need moving into the sea.

We give him an offering — so many people have invested in our dream to serve in Latin America.  We want to help Narcisso reach his. 

Over the next few days — all the funds come him for Narcisso.   Passports come through.   His visa is clear.  It’s clear that God’s hand is on Narcisso.

He left for Peru. 

I can’t wait for his return to see how he’s grown in his calling.  To watch him grow in his calling is a blessing that we get to see.  Our supporters enable us to invest in the lives of future missionaries such as Narcisso to make an impact around the world.

Yesterday, I met one of my students out in the market.

He’s taken the evangelism training and it has impacted his confidence in talking about his faith.

He now looks for those moments where the Holy Spirit prompts him to speak with spiritually thirsty people.

I’ve gotten to know him outside of class,

• Sharing lunch with him on occasion, and
• Hearing his heart for working among immigrants, and
• His calling to work on the other side of the world.

Working the market

He’s self-employed as a “ambulante.”

In other words, he who walks around crowded areas in the hot sun of the day.

He carries his inventory of cookies, cards, and posters

He calls out as he walks to draw attention to himself.

He sells his brandless stuff for quarters and dollars at a time.

In picture above, he’s got some Mother’s day cards in the box (.50)

He’s got cookies (.25).

In his hand (off camera) were some posters he sells for $1.50, and off his right shoulder was a canvas bag of other goodies.

He changes out his inventory regularly based on what sells, and the season of year.

He goes to crowded areas, bus stops, markets, and simply walks around trying to sell his merchandise.

If he doesn’t walk and sell, he doesn’t make any profit.  He doesn’t have income to pay for his rent or groceries.

It’s a hard living, eeking out by quarters and dimes at a time.

Preparing for Global Missions

He wants to work in one of the former soviet republics, so he’s learning business principles here to fund himself.

He dreams of growing his work into a micro-enterprise so that he can fund missions work.

As we stood on the noisy and crowded street corner that morning in front of a busy shop, he told us stories of God’s provision in his life to grow his business next year.

Donors who believe his call to missions that give him money

• to grow his business,
• to buy better inventory
• and hire another worker.

He also continued to tell me how he’s had Spirit led evangelistic conversations with people along the way as he walks the streets.

I see this student working hard to join in the plan of gathering the nations.

He wants to grow a successful reselling business to fund himself in his work.

Meanwhile, we get the joy of investing in his life, giving him training to do the work of evangelism and nurture his missions calling.

He’s beginning to teach some classes on missions, and occasionally gets to preach in churches about the missions calling, and I can see that he is anointed of the Lord to do that.

Your support helps us invest in this man

Your partnership in prayer and giving enables our work to make an impact.

Thanks for helping us invest.