The Terrell Jubilee Outreach

It's been so long since I have done a blog post that I actually forgot my password! Life has kept me busy, but I believe this is definitely blog-worthy. I recently had the honor and privilege of training my Sunday School class and utilizing our Wednesday night church services for evangelism training. In working closely with another Way of the Master ministry we were able to put together a very good outreach for the Terrell Jubilee/Carnival. As I read back on some of my first posts it's hard to believe that I am now plugged into what I consider a solid biblical church where I actually get to teach and plan outreaches. While many churches have lots of amenities, state of the art technology/music, and coffee (that you actually have to pay for), or super playgrounds, it is certainly a rarity today to find one that practices and uses their resources for biblical evangelism. That is, to train others and go out and preach the Gospel to a lost and dying world, not just going door to door or setting up something to just invite people to your church, but taking the initiative to go and open our mouths to share the Gospel and get it into the hands of others!

Last night was truly awesome. If you haven't read my blog posts before you'll notice that I use the word "awesome" a lot. I mainly write about God and evangelism, which are both awesome...so that's why. : ) Friday night I headed to the Terrell Carnival. We usually have our worship band praise party on that night, but it was canceled so the team could come make it out for some prayer, fellowship, and evangelism at the carnival. I was absolutely thrilled at the turn out. We had church members hand out tracts and engage in conversations for the very first time with strangers. I was and am still very encouraged! There were many good conversations. I talked to a trucker who hadn't been in a church in a long time because he had bad experiences with the church. He was very interested in coming to ours an wanted to go to my Sunday school class when he could. He graciously took a Hell's Best Kept Secret/True and False Conversions CD and said he would listen to it with him and his buddy on the road. There were others who claimed they did not go to church due to bad church experiences, some as they actually blew smoke in my face as we talked. Often at times, as I told them, we may blame the church for our lack of spirituality or faithfulness in God, but in reality our relationship with Christ is personal as well. A church cannot ultimately prevent someone from being saved as it is the work of the Holy Spirit, but they are obligated and can surely be obedient to the model that is provided in scripture. So often others will cast the blame on the church or say that the church is too judgmental when the problem at times is that the person isn't truly regenerate ((born-again)).

There was no serious opposition overall. We are very blessed in America when it comes to evangelism. The biggest thing we usually have to fear is feeling a little embarrassed when someone gets riled up or chews you out, or you are falsely reprimanded from the authorities. I've never experienced the second, although those freedoms may be thinning if things keep going the way they are going in our country unfortunately! Regarding the current state in our country, I want to give a shout-out to a documentary called Monumental. It will blow your mind and open your eyes as it reveals much forgotten truth, is very well made, and God-honoring. It is in select theaters so go to www.monumentalmovie.com to check it out! As I was saying... I was so excited to see brothers and sisters in Christ (including youth!) who handed out Gospel tracts and talked to strangers! What a blessing! Prayer is so important when it comes to outreaches and there was definitely prayer going on. I am incredibly thankful for our prayer warriors that are out there!

Saturday was a great turn out. I have never been to the Terrell Jubilee before, but it is basically like a big fair. We had a booth setup next to my friend's booth where we handed out creative Gospel tracts, booklets, Bibles, coins, and DVDs. One of the highlights was having my pastor come out and evangelize with us. Talk about seeing something rare! I mean that in the context in when you do see churches do outreaches you rarely see the pastor out there unless they are inviting people to church. That is so important because if you want to get your church on fire for evangelism then it's important to have your pastor involved because where the shepherd goes the sheep will follow. I was and am very blessed to have a pastor who has a passion and puts his faith into action outside of the church walls! I also had great fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ, old and new.

While there were lots of great conversations there were two that really stuck out that I would like to share. There was a boy and girl (probably in their late teens/early 20's) that came to our table. The girl asked us what we were...if we were witchcraft, Scientology, or what not. We said we were Christians and she began taking one of everything off the table (we had a LOT of stuff!). I asked her boyfriend if he wanted to take the Lie Detector Test (a box with the question, "Are you a good person?" you point with a pointer to one of two circles that say YES or NO). It always goes to NO because of a magnet. It is a great draw and ice breaker for presenting the Gospel.) Anyways, he said, "**** no! I already know I'm a ****** person!." I then asked why is that? He said that because he has sinned and done very bad things, but through Jesus Christ he has been saved because he accepted what Jesus did for him. While this was odd on so many different levels, the girl chimed in. I noticed she had what appeared to be self-inflicted marks on her left arm and a demeanor I hadn't really experienced before. She told me she used to be involved in witchcraft and used to do very bad things too, which some she named. I proceeded to go through God's law (the 10 Commandments) with her. We went through those and something happened that has never happened before. When I asked her if she had every murdered anyone she paused for about 15 seconds, teared up, and replied that he hurt her, did horrible things to her, and he wouldn't leave her alone. This caught me off guard, but I went on and my dear brother in Christ later helped with our conversation as well. He made great points about distinguishing between emotions, truth, and faith. She said she could see angels and demons and hears voices.

I'm not a gullible person whatsoever, but this is one of the few times I felt like there was some serious spiritual warfare going on through talking to her and her boyfriend, which is why praying as you speak, and relying on the Spirit is so important. We explained the Gospel thoroughly to her. She had a few misconceptions about the person-hood of Christ as she was familiar with the claims from the Davinci Code and Zeitgeist film. This was interesting because I just finished redoing research on this exact topic for a friend! After we explained that it was fiction and the twisted facts she asked how she could be really be saved. She also said she had just gone to the Will Graham Celebration and dedicated her life to Christ, but she was battling good and evil and didn't know what to do and wanted to know more. Throughout the conversation somewhere I explained that we weren't "church recruiting", but if she needed a place to go to church and fellowship she was welcome with us and we would love to have her. She pleaded for our church information and to give us her number. We gave her information and reassured her of the hope that is only in Christ. She constantly mentioned battling with her past, but we explained how Christ's sacrifice covers our past, current, and future sins. The two started arguing while the boyfriend continued to use colorful language. We parted ways as my heart went out to her while being slightly stunned at some of the things I had just heard. I believe it was a good encounter. The Holy Spirit was definitely in it...and in my opinion possibly another.

I also got to talk to a very nice young man who was Muslim, which doesn't happen very often as they usually are not open to talk about such things in my experience. I asked what he thinks happens after we die and he said heaven or hell. We went through the law of Moses and concluded that he would be in trouble on Judgment Day. When I asked him if he had a church background he said that he goes to a mosque. I explained the differences between Islam and Christianity and how they claim Jesus was a prophet, but if He was a prophet then they must accept the things that He said pointing to His deity and claims. We discussed grace versus works and how Christ is our mediator. It was a really good conversation and he wanted to check out more. He took a couple of tracts and a Why Christianity DVD.

As I said, there were other great conversations. We had encounters with people of various religious backgrounds and those who proclaimed Christ, but did not follow His Word or understand the Gospel. One of the key things that I kept stating is that believing in the fact that there is and was a Jesus, and that He also died on the cross, that kind of belief will not save you. That is like jumping off a plane and not putting on the parachute while saying "I believe in the parachute!" the whole way down to your death. It is the same with Christ. We must act by putting on the parachute and trusting in it the whole way down just as we are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in Him alone. A true convert will keep the parachute on even when the ride gets bumpy, but a false convert will throw it off at the first sign of turbulence. I think I just mixed those two analogies, but hopefully you get the point! It was a great illustration I heard by Ray Comfort. Another point is that the demons also believe that Jesus is the Christ, but we know where they are going. The belief the Bible calls for is a belief of repentance and trust that equals genuine faith. A faith that bears fruit in keeping with repentance, a faith that produces good works (as an evidence, not a basis of our salvation), and a faith that is so strong that it moves us to tell others about it.

I feel very blessed and am so thankful for those who were involved and the prayer warriors in this event! Please, please, PLEASE pray for all those who heard the Gospel and for those who labored today, that they would continue in their evangelism endeavors in serving the King! If you are interested in sharing your faith please feel free to shoot me a message on Facebook or @ jlacker3@yahoo.com.

Thank you so much for reading and may God bless you and yours!

Joey Acker

www.needGod.com