Looking forward

Eric & Alicia True were with us last weekend. I think the Lord blessed their time here with lots of opportunities to begin building relationships with this church family. They were very warmly received and all the feedback I have received has been very positive. They enjoyed the opportunity to start getting familiar with the area. Please pray for them as they raise support over the next few months and get ready to sell their home and make the move to Menifee.
We had more than 40 people out for GOnight last Sunday night.
This Sunday Mark Lehman will be speaking on Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and witnessing to Chinese people. We are taking invitations to several of the Chinese restaurants in the area.

A moment to breathe – and connect

I have a unique opportunity now – four Sundays in a row where I don’t preach or teach! I think I might be able to keep myself busy. : – ) The last three weeks (one on Hinduism, two on Islam) have required an amazing amount of preparation. It has been a wonderful series for our church, but I will be very glad (in October) to return to a regular schedule of weekly exposition.
Sunday the local mosque had an open house. Three of us were able to go see the mosque, listen to a presentation by the imam, and talk with some of the Muslims there. They appear to be quite liberal, westernized Muslims. The imam claimed that all religions lead to god (I’m quite sure his Muslim brethren around the world wouldn’t agree!). He said that conversion from Islam is a personal decision between an individual and Allah (what about the laws prohibiting apostasy in so many Muslim countries?). He claimed that suicide bombers are very troubled individuals with deep personal problems (he didn’t mention any possible religious motives). I spoke with the mosque administrator for a while and tried to encourage him to read the gospels and learn what the Bible says about Jesus. After all, the Quran speaks very highly of the Bible.
This coming Sunday Eric & Alicia True will be with us. Eric will be speaking in both morning services. We’ll also be welcoming a man who has returned from military service in Kuwait. His wife started attending our church right after he left for Kuwait.
While I take a break from teaching and preaching, I am looking forward to the opportunity to spend more time connecting with the people in our church family. I’ve got lots of projects, planning, and study to work on as well. I think I’m about ready to get to work, now that I can finally see my desk. I was wondering where it had gone…

Islam, part 1

Our World Religions series continued with the first of two weeks on Islam. At 9:30 we overviewed Islamic culture and doctrine; at 10:30 we looked at Romans 3:19-26 and contrasted with this with Koranic doctrine of forgiveness; and at 5:30 we looked at Muhammad’s life and some of the rest of the history of Islam. I think we had 70 at the morning service. Next week our focus will turn to evangelism and missions to the Muslims. Please pray that as we “demystify” these world religions God would fill our hearts with courage to share truth with others.

World Religions

We officially kicked off our World Religions series yesterday as we learned about Hinduism. This series is part of our year-long “Personal Ministry” theme. The primary goal is to equip our people for evangelism. Ignorance breeds fear, and Americans are notoriously ignorant about other cultures and religions. We have enough evangelistic fears already without adding on those fears! My prayer is that our church family would have confidence and courage to reach out to people from other cultures and other religions and share the gospel in love. We have more than 120,000 Asian Indians in Southern California – only New York has more. Kristalyn and I have the opportunity to share truth with a Hindu neighbor.
A secondary goal is to strengthen the faith of our church family, deepening their confidence in the Bible. The Lord has definitely been doing this in my heart as I prepare. Speaking of preparing – these Sundays are very difficult to prepare. It’s time consuming, rigorous work (mainly because I’m one of those ignorant Americans).
On to Islam…