Dear Prayer Warriors,

Leadership Conference for those ministering in the French-speaking world 4/30-5/3

This conference that we attended here in Montreal took its theme from Deut. 28:12.  We were significantly impacted by the preaching, testimonies, workshops and music that clearly showed the global vision of New Life Church, who commissioned over 20 church planters on the last day of the conference as we shared the Lord’s Supper together.

We received instructive training in each of the workshops.  Wilondja’s favorite was:  “The Church is for others, not ourselves”. The presenter mentioned that God’s mandate to the world is:  “Be blessed in order to bless others” but today some churches have seemed to misinterpret the mandate to say, “We’re here to be blessed”.  This is an internal focus, which also explains why we see most of the activities for Christians, and very few for those whom Jesus said he came to seek and save.  The Church must be ready to restructure her activities to reach more non-believers.

Shirley’s favorite was Ray Bakke’s workshop on “Urban Evangelism”.  He mentioned that a large percentage of Christians ran away from the “inner city” during the riots in the 60’s and we are still feeling the effects today.  He went on to say that God has rearranged our world and we now need to consider being a 24/7 church like hospitals and supermarkets!  He believes for urban ministries the bigger the city, the more relational we must be.  His definition of evangelism is scratching people where they itch.  Just find the itch!  We must live an incarnational life in our Urban Centers, like Jesus did as He allowed everyone to see God through everything He did.  You can see the continuity in both of our workshops, which has given us much to contemplate!

 Evangelism Explosion Clinic on May 14-17 in Montreal

EE is an intensive training of both laity & ministers as they use the four phases: Friendship, Evangelism, Discipleship and Healthy Growth. Some of you may have heard about the two questions that are asked to begin a conversation
about God.

1. Have you come to a place in your spiritual life where you know for certain that if you were to die today, you would go to heaven? 

2. Suppose you were to die today and stand before God and He asked you, “Why should I let you into My heaven?”  what would you say? 

We thoroughly enjoyed gaining another tool for reaching out to our neighborhood and have already begun to see results with those we know.

 Prayers & Praises:

1. PTL we finally sold our 1999 Olds Mini Van!  Thank you for your prayers!
2. Continue asking God to open doors so we can have more contacts that would lead to forming a Small Group (Bible study in our home) by October.
3. Pray for Shirley’s trip to Cameroon, July 11-27 to visit our daughter, Linda & David, our son-in-love to celebrate the birth of their first son who was born Saturday.

Serving with you,