Seeing is Believing?

Look at the image to the right. Are the circles moving? Focus on the black dot in the center. Come on, you know they are not moving, but your eyes are deceiving you. You can't always trust what your eyes are telling you. As a matter of fact, when you look at the sky, your eyes tell you that it is blue, when in truth, as astronauts can confirm, the sky is clear. They don't have to scrape the blue off the windshield of the shuttle.
When you look at a long, flat road on a hot day, you see water on the roadway, when it is nothing more than an illusion.
These are some of the questions I like to bring up to people who demand that they must physically see God in order to believe he exists. How could they believe it even of they did see it? Maybe it would be a hallucination! Those looking for excuses often will find them, and believe me, anyone who can look at the genius of creation and still profess ignorance concerning God's existence is inventing excuses.
Even if we cannot see the creator himself, we can conclude with absolute certainty by the vast complexity of things created that he must exist. Romans 1 describes in detail how the biggest problem in the mind of the skeptic is not the lack of evidence for God, but the suppression of it, thereby rendering him without excuse on the day of judgement.
Take the example of Stonehenge. No one is foolish enough to think that these massive stones fell together in order by themselves. No one knows who put them there or how they did it, but we all know that an intelligent mind, or minds, put them in order. You would get laughed out of the scientific and historical communities of you suggested that this were a mere cosmic accident. Yet these are the same people who will look you in the eye, with a straight face, and tell you God does not exist and everything else you see, the balanced order of nature and the universe are the result of time and chance!
Psalms 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.
We don't have to literally see God to know he exists. The promise of the Bible is that if you will seek him, you will find him. If you will humble yourself before God, repent of your sins and trust the savior, Jesus Christ, then he will manifest himself to you. If you will call on the name of the Lord, you will be saved. God will come and live inside of you, and give you a new heart with new desires. Jesus described it as being born again.
He said the wind blows where it wishes, and you can hear the sound of it but you can't tell where it comes from or where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
You can't physically see the Holy Spirit inside of someone, but you can see the effects. You can't see wind, but you can see its effects. You see the trees moving and the dust blowing around. When a person becomes a Christian you start seeing the effects of what God is doing in his heart. No one, especially the Christian, can deny a changed heart and a changed life.
You and I may not be able to see God face to face, but we experience the effects of his creative hand in everything we see, hear taste, feel, etc.
Don't ever be afraid to defend the existence of God. Look around. He is defending it quite well all on his own.

See you on the streets!!

Liberty

Independence Day is a wonderful day of reflection and gratitude for the liberties we enjoy and the benefits of living in this great nation. As we look back on the sacrifices that men and women have made for our country, we are humbled and thankful for their efforts, and now we celebrate our independence as a free nation.
If you are a born again believer in Jesus Christ, you have a reason to celebrate freedom as well. The ten great cannons of the Law of God were once pointed in your direction, and you were held under the curse of the law, with no way of escape, until Jesus Christ fulfilled it on your behalf and then bled and died to pay the penalty for your sins. You were powerless to overcome the strength of sin within you, until you were forgiven of your sins and given the Spirit of God. Then, He proved he had power over sin and death with the ultimate victory of the resurrection.
Now you and I live in a constant state of gratitude, thankfulness, joy, and celebration as we look back on the sacrifice of the Savior, and look forward to the Day of the Lord.
When we stand before the Lord, the Law will have no power over us because our sins have been blotted out. We can have great boldness and assurance in the presence of God because we are covered with the snow-white righteousness of the Son of God. Our names are written in the book, and we have an inheritance in the kingdom because of the death of the Savior.
All glory, power and honor belong to the King, our Lord Jesus Christ!

Portland, OR June 20th

Our time in Portland was a total blast! At first, it looked like we were going to get rained out. As Joel Mattila and I made our way down to Portland from Vancouver, it rained all the way through Vancouver and across the I-5 bridge, and then quit as we entered downtown Portland. We were encouraged to see people hanging around at the Waterfront Park, so we parked and made our way in. The rest of our team was to be arriving shortly, so we set up our ladder, speaker and heckler's mic and away we went. Here you can see me as I am trying valiantly to gather a crowd on a wet Saturday afternoon.
Our first attempt was rather bleak. I could only muster up a crowd of about 10-15, which dwindled down to about 6 by the time I finished preaching. The Portland PD decided to make an appearance and we had a long discussion with an officer about our rights of free speech and how far we were allowed to take it in our open-air endeavors. The officer had a surprisingly good handle on the law, which can be rare when it comes to exercising free speech. His only concern was that someone could trip over our equipment and we would be liable in that case. So, even though it was not against the law, we decided we would do some pure open-air and go for it without amplification.
A tour-guide boat was just docking up nearby, unloading about two hundred passengers, so I took advantage of the situation and began to gather a crowd. Things went extraordinarily well, as I was able to preach to a good size crowd, including dozens of bystanders who were listening in from a distance. They were very open and receptive to the gospel. It was one of the most fun times of open air that I have had.
The other members of the team showed up just as the people began spilling out of the ship and onto the sidewalks, and they boldly began dishing out tracts. Giselle actually went right to the gates where they came off the ramp and gave a tract to each passenger as they stepped onto the concrete! Giselle lives near Kelowna, B.C., and is also a member of the Ambassador's Alliance. She shares a passion for soul-winning with Joel, Darren and I and it was a blessing to have her as a part of our team for the day. She is one of the most fearless female evangelists I have worked with.
Darren is a seasoned street evangelist who I have had the pleasure of hitting the streets with on a number of occasions. It is always a blessing to work alongside a brother who comes prepared and loaded for bear. He is great at overcoming fear and stepping into situations that make me nervous, which in turn encourages me to be more bold. Here we found an ideal spot at the Saturday Market where there were lots of people moving about. We were discussing how and where we should set up to preach when all of the sudden we hear this booming voice open up with the gospel. Darren doesn't mess around. He just jumps right in and goes for it.
The afternoon went by quickly, as it usually does when you are in good company. The rain never did come to ruin our efforts, and many people heard the gospel and received the written word in a tract. Please pray for the city of Portland, which is especially known for being very liberal and full of witchcraft and homosexuality. Pray for more laborers to reach out in this city to those who need the message of salvation. Stay tuned to the website for events coming up in your area that you can be a part of.
www.sowingtheseed.com
See you on the streets!

Another Big Year

As many of you know, this past weekend was the second year we went to the Hoopfest event in Spokane, the largest 3-on-3 basketball tournament in North America. This event fills up Spokane Riverfront Park, as well as 40 city blocks, with over 2,400 teams and 25,000 players, with 175,000 fans! An evangelist's gold mine! This is by far the largest event of the year for us in the northwest when it comes to street evangelism.
This year, we had a small but effective team. Only myself and a brother named Rick Thursby made the trek from Tri-Cities, but we met up with brothers and sisters from Spokane who also took advantage of this incredible opportunity to get the gospel out. An aquaintence of mine named Ken brought down a team from his church in Spokane, and they spread the word from about 9:00 am till noon. We tried to link up with them, but most of the team had gone home by the time Rick and I made it from our parking lot to the meeting place. It took us over an hour to walk 6 blocks! Of course, we were handing out tracts as we went along, which slowed us down. In 6 city blocks, we handed out over 1000 tracts!
Rick is a faithful brother in Christ who shares a burden for the lost and is committed to bringing the message of salvation to the world. He is active in a local jail ministry where he holds Bible studies twice a week. Rick is an absolute machine on the streets, and proved himself to be an invaluable member of any evangelism team. He fearlessly approached strangers and handed them tracts all day long. When people asked what they were, he was not ashamed to admit that they were gospel tracts. I would estimate that Rick single-handedly forked out probably 2,000 tracts in one day! We left the truck with at least 3,000 tracts, and I know Rick gave out more than I did, because for a good portion of the day, I was setting up for and open-air preaching. Rick was tireless as he stood with his hands full of tracts, offering them to passersby with a pleasant smile, "Did you get one of these?"
A little later in the afternoon, we were joined by Calvin and Debbie Matson, along with their family. As soon as they met up with us, both they and their children were anxious to get started right away. It was encouraging to see their kids taking the bull by the horns and boldly offering tracts to young people and adults. Unfortunately for them, we had long since run out of our most popular tracts, but even those that we had remaining seemed to go quite quickly. We set up and preached once while they were there as well. Here you can see Debbie approaching some strangers with tracts.
Most of the pictures you see here were taken on a side street which we utilized for preaching. We didn't want to disrupt the flow of foot traffic on the main streets, or we would have certainly been shut down by the authorities, so we found an ideal area where there were still plenty of people to gather a crowd. The tracts went as fast as you can hand them out on the main streets. In fact, by the time we left, we had a meager 40 or so tracts left in our pockets.
There are so many people crowding the streets at this event, it would take a large team and a substantial effort to make a big impact. However, we were very encouraged to have brothers and sisters approach us and tell us they had been seeing people all over the event reading our tracts! I personally had several people tell me they had been looking for us to get their own because the tracts were so cool.
I know that everyone on our team this year had the time of our lives, enjoying fellowship and the fulfillment that only comes from serving the Lord and being used greatly by Him. Maybe next year we will have a few more recruits to join in the festivities. Until then, stay tuned into the website for events coming up in your area where you can be used to reach your community for Christ!
www.sowingtheseed.com

See you on the streets!!

Combine Demolition Derby .... What's that???

This year marked the 22nd annual Combine Demolition Derby in the small farming town of Lind, in eastern WA. This event attracts crowds of up to 4,000 to the community of about 450 people. Instead of having a demo derby with old cars, they use combines! Yeah, that's right, combines! What a great opportunity to get the gospel into the hands of lost and dying people!

A fellow evangelist and I took the 1 hour trip into the boonies to the small middle-of-nowhere town to reach out to the people there with the gospel. To my delight, admission into the event was free, and there were people wandering around all over.

We started out handing out tracts, trying to keep a low profile while observing the situation to see what kind of security measures were in place before we became too bold.
At one point, there was a break in the action and the crowds swelled out of the bleachers and to the concession stands, and I saw my opportunity. I quickly ran to our vehicle and grabbed my ladder and amplifier. Then, when I was about to set up in a perfect place, crowd management services personnel came by and scared me off. They had no idea what I was about to do, and did not speak to me, but these were the same people who had shut me down just a few months ago in Tri-Cities at a hockey game.

I chickened out because I didn't want to get booted too early.
So, I just continued doing what I was doing, handing out tracts to random people.
Then, just before we left, I went up the bleachers, row by row, handing out wads of tracts saying,"Take one, pass them along, please." You should have seen it! People loved them. I was using the Giant Money tracts. I gave out hundreds of them like that! HA! I was wanting to do it all the while, but I was afraid of getting caught and being booted too soon. But it worked great! I just acted confident like a normal vendor and the security didn't say a word. Hee hee!
My buddy had great success handing out tracts as well. Marshall is a seasoned veteran of street witnessing who has a passion for contending for the truth of the gospel, especially concerning the cults. He is a valuable asset to any evangelism team. The new Obama Trillions (the bailout bill) are quite a hit, especially in rural America, where he is not exactly adored. Now that I know how big the event is, I will take a bigger team up next year and maybe get a little more bold. I really think the crowd management services were only there for alcohol monitoring. It was a really good atmosphere, so I'm hoping I can contact the organizers and get permission to preach next year.

Please pray for me. I attend a church of about 1000, and the pastors just asked me today to do an 8 week series on evangelism training. I'm really nervous. I have a lot I would like to go over, but I know that I may have to tread lightly to start out. I don't want to come on too heavy at first.
Also, there is one gentleman in particular who is very aggressively pursuing an alliance with me to combine our ministries, but I don't know him that well and am a little apprehensive about getting too involved right away. Please pray for me to have wisdom, discernment, and a gentle and loving touch when dealing with him and with my church. Thanks, brothers and sisters!

Next week, we'll be in Portland hitting the streets, and the following week we'll be in Spokane. If you can make it to either of these events, contact me. We'll see you on the streets!