After leaving Family Camp, we then continued on to Richmond VA, our hometown.
We had three ministry events where we got to share our mission work in Latin America, talk about www.EvangelismCoach.org, and receive offerings to advance our work in Latin America.
Christ Presbyterian
Christ Presbyterian Church is where I served first as an intern, then as associate pastor for about 7 years. It was good to make a visit and to update friends and new faces about our work in Latin America. For the family, it was a great opportunity to reconnect since we last visited over a year ago before we left town.
I preached a message on the joys of forgiveness, based on Psalm 51. It is enjoying your forgiveness that gives you motivation and fuel to share your faith with others.
Victory Life Fellowship
After the service at Christ Prez, we visited another supporting church that afternoon, Victory Life Fellowship.
Pastor Wilson gave Brenda the chance to say hello and to greet the church. We had a few moments to share about our work in Latin America, and afterwards, Pastor Wilson gave me the privilege of officiating the Communion service. What a joy to co-labor together!
Iglesia Communidad Evangelica
This is our family’s church. That first Sunday evening, we gathered with them in their new facility, and again, we shared a minute for mission with them, updating them on our work in Latin America. This is our sending church.
For about eight months prior to our leaving for Panama in 2007, we connected with this little Hispanic fellowship, and it was a place of healing for our family after some struggles in finding a church home after we left the church we helped to plant.
The relational connections that were established during those 8 months really helped feel whole again and their love for us as a family meant a great deal to us.
They adopted us, as it were, and recognized us as "their missionaries" in Latin America. While most people in this church had left everything to come to America, we left everything to go to Latin America.
Fear Free Evangelism Seminar
On Thursday, a local church gave us use of their building and 5 volunteers to host an www.EvangelismCoach.org workshop on Fear Free Evangelism. This was the first time we tried to offer a workshop in this kind of setup: a free location, available to the public.
We had no idea how effective our publicity would be. We used the viral networks of emails, blogs, and social sites to get the word out, and many of our supporters helped us greatly by forwarding emails to their friends.
For a first attempt, the turnout was good. We spent about 2 hours presenting a model of evangelism that removes nearly all the fear in talking about your faith.
Based on the feedback received, this workshop went very well and many of the attendees are really jazzed about the material. I’m in the process of gathering testimonies of attendees and hopefully, some will do the assignment (have conversations about faith with 2 people).
I’ll be offering it again as a webinar in August.
Westminster Presbyterian Church
The final Sunday of this week, we had the chance to preach 2 services at Westminster in Richmond. It had been a year since I had preached there while their pastor was on vacation. This year, he was there, and it was good to visit.
I shared a similar message based on Psalm 51, expressing the joys of forgiveness, and the fuel to share our faith.
After a brief lunch with the pastor, our family continued on to our next destination. . . .
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