Hey everyone! I just want to let you all know that we went out to the Sparks Farmer’s Market last night, and it was great. We once again rose $65. It is funny. We rose that exact amount last time too! I just wanted to let you know that it went great, and we even had some good conversations with people about Jesus and our church.
Tonight a few volunteers from my church and myself are going to be manning a booth at the Farmer’s Market on Victorian Avenue. This booth is going to be to raise money for an organization called Blood:Water Mission. We are hoping to get people to simply donate one dollar which will provide one African with clean water for one year. It is such a small commitment, and it can, and it will make a huge difference in a person’s life.
I am inviting you to come out and pay us a visit. We will be there from open to close (4pm - 9pm). So come by and show your support for this cause, donate as little as one dollar, and you will be giving someone the gift or clean water, who knows you may even save a life.
I am not sure if you remember, but about 3 months ago I wrote a post called Christianity and Social Networking (part 1). My goal when I first got onto this topic was to show the usefulness of the popular social networks in sharing our faith with others.
I have decided, after a long time, that I am not going to do that. I just want you to think about taking advantage of your Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, or Twitter account to talk to people that you have stopped talking to. I am sure that you can reach many of your old friends and acquaintances through the use these tools.
Just simply take a few minutes out of your morning to send some friendly messages to some of your old friends, and you will be surprised that they actually are willing to talk to you!
As a young generation we need to be honest when we evangelize by sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others. A lot of people have a very twisted view of what the Gospel is. The people who have this twisted view may not actually know that their presentation of the Gospel is actually corrupt. So, it is our duty to show and speak the true Gospel every time we get the opportunity.
We need to remember these things:
The Gospel is not here to make you rich.
The Gospel will not make all your troubles go away.
The Gospel isn’t here to make you more important!
but…
The Gospel will give you an eternal hope.
The Gospel will allow you to do something with your life.
The Gospel brings glory to God!
I know it will be an awesome day when this world no longer has a corrupt view of the Gospel. When this world can truly understand the most fundamental part of Christianity, I believe that more people will come to have a true relationship with their Creator.
The people of my generation don’t want to hear lies. We are smart enough to discern between garbage and truth, although, many of them don’t believe in truth; but that is a totally different topic. So please, be honest with what you believe. Let’s show the results of the true Gospel, honestly, in your everyday lives.
As I was browsing Myspace earlier today, I read a post from an old acquaintance talking about how people can create there own truth, and it arose some old thoughts. About a year ago I was really into this whole emergent, postmodern idea, but I eventually stopped talking about it; because I felt like I had turned it into a bigger deal than it really was.
But this post I read earlier really reminded me that there are people that have forgotten that there is really something called truth, and it is not relative. The concept which I keep hearing is: what we are exposed to and taught throughout our lives constitutes what we know as truth. This is correct, kind of. We may conceive things one way, for instance; if I was raised in a home where my older siblings, whom I thought were really smart, did drugs, drank all the time, and dropped out of school, I may come to an understanding where my conceived truth is that drinking, doing drugs, and dropping out of school will make you smart. Obviously this is not true though. The truth is that none of those things will help you become smarter.
So what I am trying to say is this. Many people will choose not to believe in God because they say he doesn’t exist in their eyes. But if he really does exist it doesn’t matter what that person thinks. Do you get my drift? One of my favorite analogies is this, if you were standing in the middle of the road and a bus was going seventy miles an hour directly towards you, and it hit you; it would kill you or severely hurt you regardless of what you believed. This is because the bus was really there, and you were really in its way.
Jesus Christ is the same way. He is either real, or fake. There is no in between. If you are a Christian who chooses not to tell your friends about your believes, you need to start now. Don’t let this lie of relativity hold you back from what is true.
And just in case you are wondering, I am not posting these so I can make a few penny’s, because I won’t. I am posting these, because I think they could be very helpful in your evangelism efforts.
If you are like me, your only real day you get to take off and totally rest is Saturday. I work all week, and Sunday is pretty much a full day for me. So, today I am just sitting around really just wasting my time. It is making me think. Is there a way which I can be more productive on a Saturday than I am being? I don’t mean is there a way for me to wash more clothes or clean my room better. But is there a way for me to stop wasting my time by helping glorify Christ more.
There are a few things that come to my mind when I think of this. The first one is evangelism. I could totally go down to the river and talk to some people, the second one that comes to mind is helping out at the church. These are both major possibilities. The one thing I wonder though is, am I the only one who is thinking like this?
One of the main reasons I don’t do these things is a lack of enthusiasm by others. There are so many people who do want to take there Saturday and use it for themselves. I totally understand, being that I will most likely not do either of those things I mentioned above today. But I just wonder how is it that we say we are so passionate about serving and being full hearted Christians, when giving up a Saturday to the Lord’s work is absolutely out of the question?
Thanks to NewAttitude.com, I was able to get a hold of this book by sending in a simple story of a time I shared my faith. I am so thankful for it too. This book has gotten me to dissect the application of the Gospel in my own life. The Gospel & Personal Evangelism By Mark Dever, is a great tool and resource for anybody. Dever did a great job at making this book; it is intricate enough for those who already are well grounded in their Christian faith, and it is simple enough for newborn Christians to be able to apply it to their walk with Christ.
Dever definitely didn’t write your average evangelism book. He made this book unique by not creating a step-by-step guide on what to say during your evangelism encounter, but he took the issue to the readers heart, to their understanding of the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news that an evangelist is to share with everybody. The Gospel is what we live by, and without it there would be nothing else to evangelize about.
Once you read this book, you will have new perspective of evangelism. You will realize that it is not just about a ten minute conversation, and it also is not just about sharing your faith in your everyday life. It is really about living through the Gospel and keeping it at the center of everything that you do. Dever tells of how it is our responsibility to share the Gospel with others, and if a person doesn’t ever here the Gospel, what the consequences will be.
So, if you consider yourself a Christian, then this is a very much past due addition to your personal library. This book will place a new desire within you to live like you should live as a Christian.
I am a leader in a youth group, so I get the oppurtunity to talk to a lot of people about Christ, and not only am I a youth leader, but I have a certain passion for evangelism. So, I get a lot of time talking to people sharing the good news of the Gospel. But as I was just reading something, it triggered in my mind, that it is much easier to tell someone about the Gospel, at times, then it is to actually take the Gospel and apply it to yourself.
As a leader I need to have a very, very, very clear understanding of the Gospel, and a very, very, very solid application of the Gospel in my life. But it is very, very, very hard at times. Meaning, it is hard to constantly see the areas in my life which are not going in accordance with the Word. I should constantly be inspecting myself through the Scriptures, to make sure that I am really following and trusting in Jesus Christ. With so much going on sometimes, it is very easy to let little areas of my life slip into sin. I think this is a very common thing. If it were not, people wouldn’t have struggles as Christians, right?
But like I was saying, it is so important for me to remember that the Gospel is not just for the person I am speaking to, but it was also intended for me. Don’t let the worries of this world get in the way of your relationship with Christ, and make sure it is just that, a relationship. Knowledge is a great and powerful thing, but we must remember that knowledge is not what saves us. The only thing that can do that is the blood of Jesus Christ.
This is going to be the first of a three post series called Christianity and Social Networking. I hope to help you understand how to witness to people through social networks such as Myspace and Facebook. Almost everybody today uses one of these two social networks, the only people that don’t are usually older and don’t find them as useful as younger people do. But besides them, pretty much everyone is on Myspace or Facebook. And this does not exclude Christians, you may think it does though. The reason I say this is because many Christians on the web don’t portray themselves as Christians. Well, they may change their “religion status” to Christian, but that is about it. Way to many times do I find myself on one of these networks browsing around, and landing on a Christians page, and finding that they mention nothing at all about their relationship with Christ. In fact they usually present themselves to be exactly the same as the rest of the world. They do this by playing filthy worldly music, posting photos which may be inappropriate, using profanity in their language, and NEVER daring to place their Christian friends in their “top friends.” In today’s day and age socializing on the Internet is seemingly more popular and more common than communicating via cell phone. So why do Christians take this “tool” and use it for the good of the world instead?
Many of these hidden Christians on these networks will never utilize them as great tools for evangelism. But for those of you who don’t hide your true colors of Christianity on the web, the following posts in this series will be just for you. I will talk about some of the things to avoid on certain networks, and great ways to simply share you faith with others.
The Fire of New Desire was started by me, Joey Francis, about one year ago. It is my passion to be able to voice a clear perspective on Christianity. As a young man I am tired of fake "Christians". I believe that we are to be in this world but not of this world. I hope that as you read my posts you too will become inspired to live to your fullest potential glorifying Christ in all that you do.
God Bless,
Joey Francis
