Today TCC Rep Chris Wood and I had the privilege of having breakfast with Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke of Christ for all Nations (CfaN) …well, us along with about 1000 others!

On May 1st of this year, Reinhard will be celebrating his 50 year anniversary preaching the Gospel! However, for the past 30 years he has been called specifically to seek and save lost souls on the continent of Africa – with hundreds of thousands at his massive crusade meetings and as many as 1.6 million people attending one single meeting!

We praise God that He has used CfaN to bring over 52 million souls to repentance and saving faith in Jesus Christ since 2000 and let’s continue praying that the Lord will fulfill the vision He has given to Reinhard for seeing 100 million conversions by the year 2010!

*BTW: Chris is not in the above picture because he was sharing the Gospel with a waiter named Jose who served us at the event. Please pray that the Lord grants Jose repentance!

Click here for the audio version of the same message

Here are this week’s helpful hints for making the most of our fourth and final episode in this series on public faith versus private faith called, Operation: Unknown Christian.

We’ll be wrapping up the series by tying up a few very important loose ends. First, we’ll be equipping believers to hold their heads up high as witnesses of and for Jesus Christ. Second, we’re going to expose the painful reality that not everyone who claims to be Christian actually is. On that point, church research guru George Barna says: “realize that being part of a group that calls itself a ‘church’ does not make you saved, holy, righteous, or godly any more than being in Yankee Stadium makes you a professional baseball player.” Tough…but true!

So this week we’ll be looking at the woman who met Jesus at the well. She had a terrible testimony in her community! However, she also had an encounter with Christ that she couldn’t keep to herself. So all she did to share it was tell those she loved that she found the Messiah. She wasn’t trying to be “holier than thou”, she was simply sharing what she had heard and seen for herself. What a freeing testimony of faithfulness!

This episode will encourage Christians to boldly come out of hiding to engage your culture before your culture engages you! Part of that process will be helping you learn how you can use TCC Radio for starting spiritual conversations with all those in your everyday world. Why? So you can let us do your “heavy lifting” as you get to the good stuff of simply sharing all that you have seen and heard about Jesus for yourself.

We’d also encourage you to invite other Christians, and of course non-Christians, to tune into the show as well! Just let them know that TCC Radio broadcasts in Ontario on Friday at 7pm on Grace 105.9 FM in London and on The Stream TV out of Orangeville. It also podcasts on tccradio.com.

Please also email us your Gospel glory stories and personal encounters in everyday evangelism to: radio@thecrosscurrent.com.

We thank God for each one of you and look forward to encouraging you to boldly step out in faith to share your faith this week!

In Romans 10:13-17, the apostle Paul writes:

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

If anyone trusts in the reality that faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God, it’s the Gideons! That’s why we jumped at the invitation to preach the Gospel and offer free evangelism training at their regional camp meeting this past Monday evening. As partners in the preaching and distribution of God’s Word and the Gospel, the Gideons and TCC form what you might call “A Romans 10 Tag Team”!

Here are a few encouraging words of feedback we received from the Gideons after our time together:

Of course, I’m quite accustomed to the great zeal you possess to get out on the highways and byways to reach lost souls for Christ, and your enthusiasm is just the inspiration we Gideons need to help us continue to get out there to put scriptures in the hands of a very hungry world.

Don Paulton, Secretary/VP of Gideons London

We thank God for the Gideons and trust that this posting will inspire you to commit their ministry to prayer!

PS: Stay tuned for a more detailed Gideons event update in our upcoming March – April E-Newsletter.

Click here for the audio version of the same message

Well, as we make our way into part 3 of this new series of TCC Radio called Operation: Unknown Christian, this week’s helpful hint is just to step out in faith and go for it!

If you’ve ever taken our evangelism training, you’ll remember a great relational ice-breaker we use with family and friends called “the crazy Christian question”. It goes like this…

The next time you’re hanging out with a loved one, simply say to them: “You must think it’s totally crazy that I’m a born again Christian.” After they respond, then ask: “What’s the number one reason that you think I would do something that crazy?” Keeping in mind that our number one reason for repenting and putting our trust in Christ is a reconciled relationship with God for all eternity, let them guess for a little while…and feel free to have a little bit of fun with it! After they either ask you why or after they have depleted all their answers, you can then pop the “million dollar question”: “When you walk off this planet from this life into the next, what do you think is on the other side?”

*Note: feel free to click here to visit the witnessing clips page of our website to experience the Gospel shared in real-life situations!

From there you can share the Gospel yourself or simply invite the person to tune into the show! Just let them know that TCC Radio broadcasts in Ontario on Friday at 7pm on Grace 105.9 FM in London and on The Stream TV out of Orangeville. It also podcasts on tccradio.com.

Again, the goal of this series is really two-fold: to better understand why Christians are hiding out among the lost and to equip them to move out onto the battlefield to contribute to the great cause of Christ in Canada.

Oh yeah, please also remember to email us your Gospel glory stories and personal encounters in everyday evangelism to: radio@thecrosscurrent.com.

We thank God for each one of you and look forward to boldly making His Name great in our world this week!

(L to R: Chris Wood, Jeff Mardling, Mark Cahill, Cory McKenna, John Gonciarz, Tom Woodburn)

Wow! I know that I speak on behalf of our entire TCC Team when I say that taking in Mark Cahill’s teaching at Morningstar Christian Fellowship in TO this weekend was nothing less than a speechless experience! Mark is an amazing man of God with a sincere love for the Lord, His Church, and the lost.

Not only did Mark graciously take the time to personally hang with us for a few minutes after a long couple days of preaching, but he also took the time to send me this encouraging email the next day:

It was great to meet you and your team Cory! You guys are doing awesome work for God. Thanks for understanding how valuable it is to do things that will matter for eternity.

Let me know if there is any way that I can bless y’all.

Please tell the folks in your network that I said hello and to stay bold!

Mark

After we spent the morning taking in two of Mark’s seminars, we then took full advantage of our time in Canada’s most multicultural city by hitting the streets and experiencing the power of God’s Word first-hand through several one-to-one witnessing encounters!

*For all those who have graduated from a TCC Witnessing Workshop, make sure to log in to our Members Site to hear Mark’s seminars from this past weekend and please also  bookmark our online calendar and save the date for seeking and saving souls with us in our first Xstream Team Mission of the year to Toronto on Saturday, May 16th!

Click here to listen to our team debrief on the way home after hearing Mark’s seminars and hitting the streets in TO!

Click  here to view more photos from our Easter weekend witnessing adventure!

In closing, let’s take Mark’s words seriously to stay bold in our witness!

Seeking And Saving,

Cory

Today we rejoice in the resurrection of our Lord, which confirms his identity as Messiah and establishes for all time the reality that his accomplishment was accepted by God the Father!

Matthew 28

Mark 16

Luke 24

John 20

Christ’s resurrection from the dead served as God’s own “proof positive” that the substitutionary sacrifice of His only Son fully satisfied His wrath and was all-sufficient for saving us from our sins! We praise the Lord on this resurrection Sunday that we have now been justified and can experience eternal life through Christ Jesus.

Though eternal life is God’s free gift through Christ Jesus, ALL of grace NONE of works…let’s live for His glory. Let’s live to be His witnesses. Let’s live to be His ambassadors. Let’s live to be His ministers of reconciliation. Let’s make the most of every opportunity and let’s boldly declare the truth of His Gospel every day, everywhere, to everyone, as He enables. After all…isn’t the fame of His Name worth it?

Today we remember the death of our Lord and look to the Cross; the heart of our faith and intersection point of God’s justice and love.

Matthew 27:45-54

Mark 15:33-39

Luke 23:44-49

John 19:28-30

The precious blood of our Lord Jesus fully satisfied God’s wrath so that His holiness was not compromised in forgiving our sins. As we remember the death of the King of Glory and our responsibility in it, take courage…Sunday is coming!

(*Video used courtesy of Harvest Bible Chapel -- London)

This past March The Cross Current had the privilege of training over 30 on-fire Christ-followers at Teen Challenge Farm! The Witnessing Workshop started onsite with several hours of interactive learning before we all boarded a bus and took the training to the streets of London, Ontario!

When we arrived back at homebase, we all let out a shout of praise to the Lord of Jericho proportions and then gave many “glory stories” as to how God impacted our lives and the lives of those we shared the Gospel with.

Here are just a few of the powerful comments that were shared by the Gospel graduates:

“I’ve spent my whole life passing death to people, but for the first time in my life…tonight I was passing life!”

“Of all amazing time I’ve spent on the Teen Challenge Farm, this was the most personally impacting yet!”

“Thank you for taking the time to help get started with something God has been calling me to do for my entire Christian life.”

Special thanks to Wayne Flonders and Craig Carlisle of Teen Challenge for taking the lead on evangelism in-house and making our training time run so smooth!

Click here to learn more about how The Cross Current can provide you with onsite and offsite evangelism training at your church!

Click here for the audio version of the same message

Welcome to more audio helpful hints for Part 2 of our brand new series of TCC Radio called,  Operation: Unknown Christian!

With this being the week of Easter, we encourage you to allow the Spirit of Christ to point your conversations toward the Cross of Christ and to prepare the people in your life to tune in to the show. As you step out in faith to talk about the most important event in the history of the world, we encourage you to ask your loved ones what they think Easter was all about? You can then ask them what they think that Easter has to do with God’s love? How about God’s justice?

If you really want to lift their eyes to eternity, a great question to dial people into the meaning of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ is to ask if they think God is just and whether He should hold people accountable for the evil things they have done? As most people will obviously say yes, from there you can either begin sharing the Gospel yourself (which we would highly recommend!) or you can simply invite them to listen to these same questions being asked by TCC Radio to people on the streets this Friday and every Friday!

Just let them know that TCC Radio broadcasts in Ontario on Friday at 7pm on Grace 105.9 FM in London and on The Stream TV out of Orangeville. It also podcasts on www.tccradio.com.

Please, please, please also remember to email us your Gospel glory stories to: radio@thecrosscurrent.com.

Thank you again for your ongoing commitment to preaching the Gospel in partnership with us! On behalf of the entire team here at TCC, may God’s grace touch your heart to encounter the empty tomb and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior afresh this week!

The LORD said to Solomon: “…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chr. 7:14, ESV). Obviously the LORD intends prayer to be our first priority, not our last resort! Would you join us on the first Thursday of every month for our special day of fasting and prayer from 6:30pm to 8:00pm for pastors, churches, the lost, and our ministry? If you are within driving distance of London (Ontario, Canada), please email us at admin@thecrosscurrent.com or phone (226) 663-1822 for local meeting directions. However, if you are outside our area, we invite you to pray at the same time wherever you are located.

Please pray for the following the month of April and encourage any other believers you know to do the same.

Opening Scripture Passage

We began our time together reading/meditating on John 15:1-11 and talking about God’s goal for us being more fruitful in our life and witness.

Our Goals for 2009

1. Donor Development (Cross Carriers)
2. Partner Churches confirmed and Church Champions network established
3. Balance radio and television program production
4. Promotional materials and media branding
5. Ministry development
6. Grow street team
7. Stabilize all things web

Specific Calendar Items

• Grow our weekly prayer partners and monthly prayer meetings
• For our training last month with Teen Challenge and the Winnipeg Conference to bear fruit
• For the Explosion ‘09 (Newsboys) event at London Convention Centre and our Speakers’ Corner component onsite to bear fruit
• For the Lord’s favour on this new partnership with TCC and the Teen Challenge street teams
• For the Lord to continue revealing His strategy for TCC with Harvest Bible Chapel
• For the fruitfulness of our first Xstream Team Mission (XTM) of 2009 in Toronto and for TCC to develop relationships with partner churches in each XTM city
• For TCC to make the most of the upcoming Spring – Summer ministry season
• For TCC to truly strengthen the witness of Christ’s Church in London through more training and developing of partner church relationships
• For every pastor, church, and individual believer to unify in the Gospel in London Ontario, Canada, and around the world

Thank you again for your prayer partnership with us! Please click here for more information on how praying with and for our ministry.

Cory