Fall Quarter 2010 Evangelism #1

This past quarter I got to share the gospel with my friend Rodney. I knew him before because he's a friend of a friend from Yukai (my taiko group), but this past quarter I had Math 103A (my awesome math teaching class) with him, and so I've been able to get to know him more through that. He said he used to go to church before college but it's been hard for him to "keep it up" since then, but he says it's something he's been wanting to do and he does still call himself a Christian. So we went to go do classroom observations at University High School one day, and on the ride back from the high school I got to ask him about his salvation testimony. He said he decided to become a Christian a few years ago when he saw and admired how passionate his older sister was for Jesus and knew then that he wanted to follow Him too. Of course, without any mention of sin, guilt, conviction, repentance, etc., I was prompted to do a little more investigating. But somehow, we got on a tangent, and I started to see that his doctrine was pretty mixed up and tainted. He didn't recognize the spiritual significance of the local church and believed in being his own "personal church". He also believes in... well... aliens. And aliens' faith and aliens' salvation. Yep. When I first heard that, I was definitely like, Seriously... ? to myself. But anyway, eventually we settled down at a table in Ackerman Student Union (a building at UCLA) and he took out his books and started studying, and there was silence for a few minutes while I was trying to think of what to say next... (Aliens? Really?) ...but I couldn't think of a good segue, so then I just burst out, "Do you ever feel guilty about your sins?" I think he said something like, "Uh, yeah, I guess so..." and then it was like I had something caught in my throat and was awkwardly at a loss for words again as he went back to studying, so then I just burst out again, "Can I give the gospel to you right now?" and so he looked at me kind of confused, and then was like, "Uhhh... yeah, sure." So then we spent the next 30 minutes going through the whole bridge illustration. It didn't seem like he learned anything new, but he did acknowledge at the end that he still sees himself in the rebellious relationship against God even though he's "trying" to be in the relationship of submission to God, and he said everything was a good reminder, and it looked like he was thinking a lot more. So I wanted to keep poking at his thoughts, but I kind of had to go to class, so I just invited him to Titus, and he said he'd think about making it out...

So clearly, I had no idea what I was doing, and I still really don't, but it's all God. He brought this opportunity to me, allowed me to speak forth the power of the gospel, and it's Him to Whom I pray for Rodney with expectancy and excitement. So we'll just have to wait and see what the Lord does because it's really all up to His sovereign will. The comparison came to my mind yesterday at Titus Men's Small Group between Jeremiah and Jonah. Jonah was possibly the worst, most stubborn prophet ever, trying time after time to avoid doing what God wanted Him to do, and (although perhaps arguably) never actually repenting of his stubborn, hard heart. Yet, God (somehow) used Jonah to save all of Ninevah. On the flip-side, there was Jeremiah, who was one of the most humble and dedicated of the prophets, faithfully prophesying for decades. And yet, his ministry yielded no converts. God just does what He wants, and we love it! Our "success" as Christians cannot be measured as the world measures, in results and numbers, but in our ability to simply submit to the Lord and follow in obedience... wherever He leads... daily. Amen.

India, Part 2: The First Village

Sorry for not posting all too frequently. I was counseling at FCBC's Jr. High Camp last week, and I hope to do a post on that soon because I witnessed some truly awesome things that God did there, but I'll try to keep things in order and post about one event at a time. And at the moment, there are at least three more India posts I have sketched up in my head, so on we go...

I got at least one "complaint" of sorts that my last post was disappointing because he really wanted to hear about what actually happened in India and, already being valiantly up to date with my life, he didn't actually learn anything new from reading that post. So I was going to dedicate this second post to all my fellow teammates on this trip, but that might be passive enough to draw another complaint, so I'll switch the order of the posts around and jump straight into what happened in the villages right now...

Going into this trip, I was prepared with the understanding that it would be a very straightforward and direct sharing of the gospel. I was very objective and checklist-minded, ready to mechanically draw a crowd with my guitar, preach the gospel using the Evangecube, and ask if anyone wanted to accept Christ. Easy as 1, 2, 3! Bam, bam, bam! I thought we were trying to get to as many villages as we could and bring the gospel to as many people as possible. (There are a LOT of villages and thus a LOT of people in India!) I thought I didn't have time to stop and get to know people and sympathize with their stories. I thought I'd leave that up to God and the power of the gospel. But God decided to leave it up to me, His chosen hands and feet.

Our team split up and went out two by two, plus a native Christian translator or two. I ended up being paired with a sweet older lady from Maryland named Kathi. She was actually one of the team co-leaders who works for e3, the global missions organization that we were partnering with. So when we were on route to the very first village that we visited to evangelize to and she said that the first thing we should do was just to walk around and pray, I didn't argue aloud, but I internally wondered if it was really necessary. Yet as we wandered around and attracted more than a few bewildered gazes from the village people, we came across several Hindu structures (e.g. altars, temples) and sensed the strong Hindu influence that was present.

Not the exact same one that Kathi and I saw, but one of the many Hindu structures that our team saw throughout the villages. Photo credit: Gina Edmond.

After a while, I did finally get to go down my checklist. As we found a sort of village center, I began playing a few worship songs with my guitar, and as I began to draw a curious crowd of locals my songs between interspersed with hopes and prayers that God would save these people before me. I was starting to get pumped, thinking to myself, "This it it! This is the reason that I came here! This is it! I'm going to share the gospel with these people and see salvations!" So I shared... and no one accepted Christ. Hinduism was too deeply rooted in their hardened hearts, and they could not accept the idea of there being only one, true God rather than their many, many gods. Interestingly enough, at least one man (and probably more) actually knew some parts of the Bible, and sang (by memory) a passage from the book of Psalms to us. They knew about God, my God, yet they could not accept Him as the only God. It was frustrating to me that these people seemed so close to salvation, and yet so far. This first village yielded three main reminders to me: (1) knowledge alone does save; (2) no matter how much or how little time you spend with a given person or people, sharing the gospel must always be relational; (3) not everyone is sent to reap; some sow, some water, some plow; yet all are necessary to result in harvest; we must trust in God's sovereign timing along this process to make Him famous.

OK, I'm really tired now, so I'll talk about the other villages later. Good night.