Evangelism Training at Church - Week 1

Tonight was the first night of the Way of the Master Evangelism Training at our church, Tri-Lakes Center in Branson, Missouri. Our pastor, Pastor Mark Shorey, really has a heart for soul winning. He is excited about this training and is ready to take it to the streets of Branson!

Wednesday night church begins at 6:00pm. We arrived early and set up a table with the Way of the Master and Living Waters books, dvd's, gospel tracts, etc. We were also selling the Study Guide so as to follow along with the lessons. We sold all but 3 of our study guides (the church ordered 80, which we were asking only one per couple to be sure we had enough). It looks as if we'll be ordering more of them. Tonight we had approx. 105 people attending the class. The church is located in Branson, so there are many visitors. The visitors are taking the Study Guides back to where they live and are interested in getting it started in their church, or at least attend the foundation training course.

They wired me up with a wireless microphone and we were set. We sang songs, pastor made announcements and asked people to buy their study guides if they haven't gotten one yet. At roughly 6:30pm, it was time to begin. I introduced my wife(Leann) and myself, gave a short bio on Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron and their websites, as well as mentioning The Great News Newtwork (GNN). Then read a "Letter from an Atheist" that has recently posted on his xanga site. There are a few of us GNN Seed Sowers that have been posting to his topic of Christianity. It was very moving. He mentioned how Christians should be very concerned about the fate of the unsaved, if we truly are Christians and believe what the Bible says. We then began the video for Week 1 - The Firefighter. We have Wednesday night service out in the concession stand area, because we eat right before the service (not too bad!). Here are a couple of pictures taken during praise and worship right before the class began. (Click on pics to enlarge)

After watching the video, we discussed the questions in the study guide. This allowed us to talk a little about what we just learned during the video. Like any first time class, the answers started in a little slow, but it picked up during the question and answer session. The class ended at approx 7:30pm.

This lesson discusses the Christian's obligation to witness to anyone that is unsaved. It also shows how it is the responsiblility of the church to seek and to save the lost, not just be a gathering place for other activities. It was very moving.

I am normally a shy person when I don't know someone, but I thank God for giving me peace and courage for this class. We will be having 7 more classes during this course.

After class, we were passing out the "Letter From an Unsaved Friend" and the million dollar gospel tract. Many people talked to us, saying that this is going to be a very good class. Some wanted the xanga website address to the atheist that wrote the letter I read. Others wanted us to have available for them to purchase the gospel tracts that we had on the table. We will be ordering some of these to sell during the foundation course.

During the class, I mentioned that my e-mail address and phone number was stamped into the study guide book, and that people can contact me if they are interested in going out into Branson to street witness. Pastor got up at the end of the class and said that after some of the training, we will not be waiting for people to call us. We will instead be setting a time to meet and we will be going out to witness in Branson, so come on. Praise God.

There is a young man at church that goes on missions trips. He is headed for the Netherlands for a 10 day missions trip. He really liked the class tonight and wanted to know if he could borrow the dvd's and watch them before he leaves...next week. We loaned him one set of the foundation course. Praise God again!!

Please keep us in your prayers.

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