E-Tools Newsletter | January 2012

The very first time I hit the streets with a Gospel outreach team was in Hollywood, California…open air preaching! Talk about scary! But what I personally experienced witnessing with fifty men and women of God wholeheartedly sold-out for the Lord and His Gospel was much more than I bargained for!

When my wife picked me up at our local airport, I broke down in tears and all I could mumble was something like: “That was the closest I’ve ever been to being part of the true church…and it was the most beautiful ministry experience of my entire Christian life.”

Here is how one of the newest TCC preaching protégés, Nathan Korten, describes how his commitment to be a more faithful witness has impacted his walk with Christ:

I started going out on the streets of London with The Cross Current team just this past October, and wow! What an experience it has been!

We’ve gone out just about every Friday night, braving the cold and the snow and the angry verbal assaults of consciences pricked by the Spirit, and I must say that God has been doing something amazing in my life through it all.

Not that I’ve suddenly been transformed into some super-evangelist who has a winning word for everyone I meet; I still feel like I have more “bad” conversations than “good” conversations. And yet, through this He is making me feel my need for Him all the more deeply. He is making me depend on Him, literally for every word. He is forcing me to really step out in faith and take hold of His promises.

Left: Nathan Korten “breaks the sound barrier” by preaching open air for the very first time!

And so things are changing: I’ve passed out more tracts in the past three months than ever before in my life. I’ve told more people about Jesus in the past three months than ever before in my life. I’ve even been given the courage to stand up in public and do some street preaching! God is good!

Like I said, I still have a long way to go as far as evangelism goes, but Philippians 1:6 is still true, “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” I can’t wait to see what further changes He will bring about in me as that day gets closer!

Click here or the pic to the right to see Nathan Korten preaching in the ice cold open air!

Evangelism “takes the cake”

To help Christ-followers better understand how eessential evangelism is for healthy growth in Christ, I encourage them to think of the church like a beautiful cake and God has given us His recipe for how His cake should look, smell, taste, and grow.

So we begin mixing in His ingredients: the eggs of prayer to bind everything together, the sweet sugar of worship, the frosting of fellowship, the – well – you get the point!:) But how would the cake turn out with no flour? Though I am told that you can bake one, cakes with no flour turn out flat and lifeless.

The flour in a cake is a lot like evangelism in the church. It’s not just a stand-alone ingredient in the cake, it’s the base ingredient that adds the substance and texture to all the other ingredients. Evangelism holds everything together and gives the church life and lift in Christ!

That’s a very accurate picture as to how my Christian life looked before I was actively preaching the Gospel: flat and lifeless! Why? Because I was mixing in all the other ingredients without actually being obedient to add the base ingredient: evangelism! But as soon as I started regularly sharing my faith, all the other ingredients beautifully blended together to form the abundant and adventurous life that Christ promised!

So let’s “go” FOR Christ to grow IN Christ…together…for His glory!

~ Cory

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