The Joyful Burden

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home villages and instead of trying to come back into the States have begun to minister the Gospel of Christ where there was no church other than Catholicism. Saturday we were able to minister on all of the yards but C yard. For ten years I have been able to say that there has never been an act of violence in the chapels. Well one of the non-Christian groups had a pretty bloody fight in the chapel restroom and that chapel is off limits until the investigation is completed. Today topped all days. I arrived at the prison to find out that one of our officers had killed his girl friend and then himself on Saturday in San Diego. He was a professing Christian but was not walking with the Lord. He was also involved in a traffic accident a few weeks ago that resulted in a five day coma. I spoke with him briefly on Wednesday as he was leaving and he assured me that everything was alright. A good part of my day today was spent speaking with his co-workers and making sure they were handling it alright. And, right in the middle of this whole mess, we had four inmates escape sometime this morning from our minimum security yard. I have never been involved in an escape before and since all programs were shut down I volunteers to give what help I could. It was very interesting to see how we ramped up from our normal weekend staff to a full call-in of the escape team and extra staff to cover necessary positions. Fortunately the men were found about 10 miles from the prison all together and I don't think they offered any resistance to being taken into custody. Each of them will most likely get 18 months added to their sentence as no on was hurt. The ridiculous thing is that one of them was to get out in August. You never know what is going through the minds of these men. Please remember in prayer your chaplains who are serving the Lord around the world in ministry to the military and their families and in prison, police, fire department and civilian and VA hospitals. Introduction EvanTell Spotlight IFCA & Evantell Evangelism Initiative Community Care 2005: Growing Your Church Through Conversion At the 2004 Annual Convention Larry Moyer, the Evangelism Consultant to IFCA International, presented this proposal to the Board of Directors. The proposal was enthusiastically received and unanimously endorsed by the Board. The Vision To see every member of every IFCA affiliated church personally share the gospel with one lost person in 2005 and invite that person to trust Christ as their Savior from sin. The Challenge Will you accept this challenge and be one of those who say "Depend on me. I'm one accepting this opportunity and challenge." NOTE: Although God honors faithfulness of any kind, such as the distribution of tracts, the purpose of this campaign is to see IFCA churches become stronger in evangelism. So we are asking all believers who accept this challenge to take time to give a personal, complete presentation of the gospel and invite the person to trust Christ. The Obstacles • Believers are afraid.
• Believers don't know how to present the gospel. The Solution How can EvanTell partner with an IFCA International Church? 1. Prepare a. Begin a daily prayer focus asking God to use each member who accepts the challenge. b. Purchase the devotional 31 Days with the Master Fisherman and have the entire congregation read it during the same month in 2005. Suggest that each person make a contribution to the project by purchasing their devotional. Whether they pay part or all, people appreciate what they pay for. ($6 per person) 2. Train a. Have every Sunday School class watch the "How to Tell the Bad News/Good News" video the same Sunday in 2005 or pull all the church members together for a special showing. Give each person a copy of "May I Ask You a Question?" to have in hand as they watch the video ($14 per video) b. Sponsor the You Can Tell It! seminar twice in 2005 with the goal of having each person who has accepted this challenge to attend, each paying his or her own cost. ($25 per person for seminar/notebook included). 3. Equip Purchase 50 "May I Ask You a Question?" tracts for each church member to use in their personal outreach as well as to outfit your tract rack for those who will visit your church. ($6 or $6.50 per 50 depending on tract cover) 4. Encourage a. Once a month have a church member give a 3-5 minute testimony, carefully prepared and written beforehand, as to how he or she came to Christ ($5 for EvanTell's tape/CD "How to Give an Effective Testimony"/ $1.25 per testimony worksheet). Also have them comment how God has used them to present the gospel to someone else. b. Keep a statistical progress chart as to how many presentations of the gospel are made (not how many people were saved). The Costs Approximately $35 per person Approximately $650 per church NOTE: People love to give toward people. If finances are a problem, a "Community Care 2005" campaign established before the end of 2004 will probably bring in all needed funds quickly. Each church can decide if it wants to subsidize the "per person" cost. Also, IFCA members accepting this challenge will receive a 20% "Key Account" customer discount from EvanTell. The Results It is our prayerful desire that the following results happen in our participating churches: • Increased growth through conversion • Renewed enthusiasm among believers
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The Joyful Burden

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