It seems that we have been drawn to the Front Range Bible Institute to continue our education.  We will be following the mandate of the Lord to…” Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”(2 Tim 2:15).  They offer a masters degree in Biblical Studies, which I will enroll in.  And Connie will get her Bachelors degree.

Bought a portable PA system yesterday.  It will help in public speaking situations where amplification is needed.  Martiza’s donation helped with the purchase…Thanks and God bless

     Should we open air preach?  I know.  There are tons of folks out there who do not think we should be doing it.  Objections include that it might offend someone, and a lot of nonsense has been preached open air before, so maybe it should just not be done.  But isn’t a lot of nonsense being preached in the churches nowadays?  Just because someone is in a church certainly doesn’t mean that they are going to hear the truth.  In fact, I believe a lot of pastors water the Gospel down so much in the church in order to not offend anyone in case they may leave the church. 

    A true gospel message will call for repentance (turning from sin) and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.  Almost everyone considers themselves to be a good person, so sin is no big deal.  But Paul said it well, that “I did not know what sin was, but by the law (Rom7:7).   So, the law must be used to confront those who do not understand the fact that they are sinners.  Then God’s standard must be used, which is PERFECTION.  Jesus said to “be perfect, as my Father in heaven is perfect”.  Nothing impure will ever enter heaven(Rev 21:27).  This message is CONFRONTATIONAL.  Sinners must be convinced of the seriousness of sin, and the eternal consequences.  They must be shown that repentence means to die to themselves and live for God.  To be crucified with Christ.  To cry out to God to be saved.  To be born again.

Can this message be given in love?  Absolutely!  If you love someone, you will tell them the truth anyway.  The Word of God is described in the bible as the sword of the Spirit.  Well, if you have a knife, you can use it with the skill of a surgeon to save a life, or you can use it to stab someone to death.  If someone has a terminal disease, and you have a cure, you would be an evil person not to give it to them.  So what is needed is surgery with the sword of the spirit.  Not saying anything and just “loving them”, is not a loving thing to do if they are not saved.  Neither is saying dumb things either in the pulpit or in open air situations. 

The fact is that a good open air preacher can reach more lost people with the Gospel in one afternoon than most churches do in a year.  Salvation is found in the “foolishness of preaching” through the Gospel “which is the power of God to salvation”.  Speak up!  Just being a nice person may give you some credibility, but it will not save anyone.  Mormons are “nice” people.  Buddists are “nice”.  But they do not have the “words of eternal life”, as Peter said to Jesus.

So , yes.  I think open air preaching is a great thing.  More on this later.

Steve and Connie,
 
I wanted to share something neat that happened to us recently.
 
Our family went on a trip to San Diego last week.  We put some million dollar bill tracts in the seat pocket in front of us on the airplane on Saturday 9/13.  Last night, in a home fellowship we host, we were talking about what we would do as Christians if we had no fear.  Someone brought up that they were sitting on a plane on a business trip to Kansas City (Tuesday 9/16) and saw someone reading a million dollar bill tract and they were able to talk to them briefly about it.  We asked what airline they were traveling on and what seat they were sitting in.  It turns out it was one of the tracts we had put there three days before!
 
What are the chances of someone from our home fellowship sitting on the same airplane as us, in the same row and seeing the tracts.  It showed us how the body of Christ can work together to reach the lost and how simple acts of obedience can work to grow the kingdom.
 
May we be faithful in the Great Commission

We had to go back to our hometown a couple of weeks ago due to the fact that my mother, mother in law and brother in law was in the hospital.  My mother was on life support and brother in law was also very ill.  When we got into town, we checked on mom right away, and she was hanging in there.  Then we went to see Bill.  We were told that he was completely out of it and his liver was almost completely destroyed.  When we walked into Bill’s room, he was SITTING UP!  He was still very miserable, but could hear us and respond.  We chatted for a while, and then went to see my mother in law, just down the hall.  While visiting with mother in law, I felt a great urge to go back to Bill’s room and share the gospel with him one more time.  So I did.  He was asking good questions, and understood it.  I told Bill to repent and trust in Jesus to save him.  Even though he thought he had done too many bad things, I told him about the thief of the cross and God’s power to save.  Before leaving, I told Bill to pray to God to save him.  Then I left telling him that I would stop in the next day.

Well, we got a call at 5am that Bill had died.  Wow.  I believe that God gave him one more chance to hear the gospel and respond when we got there.  Pray that those seeds that were sown fell on fertile ground. 

By the way.  Mom and mother in law are out of the hospital and doing fairly well.

Seed sowers….   The following is an email we got from Tom Bateman…one of our group of local seed sowers.  Looks like recent witnessing at the mall may have led to a harvest.
Steve and Chris - I was talking to a friend last night at our fellowship group meeting.  I mentioned that we had been witnessing at the Chapel Hills mall.  He indicated that the teenage son of a friend had accepted the Lord after being witnessed to at the mall!  He also indicated that the whole family had been very much encouraged by this event - evidently he was into some verly negative things.  He said it

could have been us who did the witnessing?
You never know!?
 
Also, we had quite a time in Denver today witnessing to the folks attending the Dem Convention.  Tons of people and most were very receptive to the gospel.  Of course we had some rejections, but mostly we shared the gospel with many folks.  Handed out hundreds (probably thousands) of tracts.  One of the most resistant of our witnessing encounters was with a false convert on the train. 
 

Some pictures
First picture if of some guys loved the red and blue gospel tracts.  We shared the gospel with them.  They were so excited by the message, they asked for some of the tracts to give to folks.      Second picture is of a broadcast company in Canada who interviewed me on what I was doing. Third picture is Connie preaching on the bus.

Charles Spurgeon’s great, great, great grandson.
The guy on the right, who looks like Charles Spurgeon, is actually our buddy Bart. The guy to the left of the guy who looks like Spurgeon is Rob Holm, who is the great, great, great grandson of Charles Spurgeon. Rob travels to fairs around the country to witness to people. Incidentally, Rob got saved after listening to Ray preach Hell’s Best Kept Secret…which was inspired partially by, you guessed it, Charles Spurgeon.

We have had quite a blessed time of witnessing again this last week.  There were probably 1000 people at the Manitou Springs Ice Cream Social and Pie Bake Off.  We handed out a bunch of tracts and I preached to a small crowd.  One guy walked away saying he was in “big trouble”. Connie took him aside and explained the gospel again to him and explained our response to the sacrifice of our Savior on the cross.   We got plenty of heat from the hippies-athiests again.  They know who I am now and do not appreciate the gospel being preached.  Pray that the powers of darkness do not hinder the gospel reaching the lost of Manitou Springs.
Then we went to the Rodeo Parade the next night and it seemed that half the town was there.  We walked up and down the street handing out tracts to everyone lined up on the street for the parade.  The “pink and blues” went like hot cakes..  
We must have handed out over a thousand tracts in those 2 days.
And then we had an Evangelism Crash Course on Saturday.  Robert Gray was back from hip replacement surgery to co-teach the class.  GO ROBERT!  We went out to Acacia Park after the class to practice what we talked about in class.  Everyone got to hand our tracts and some witnessed 1-2-1.  The park was full of people, as a local ministry was feeding the homeless there.  And there was a big war protest group there too.  God allowed me to preach to the crowd and share the gospel with them.  There were some requesting bibles and to follow up on what was said.  After we wrapped up a great afternoon of witnessing, our group thanked God for the chance to give Him glory in sharing the good news to the lost.  Connie and I and Jason stuck around for a while to talk to a few folks, but things turned ugly and we got out of there.   Some sort of fight broke out in the middle of the park, and some folks got hurt.   A wild afternoon at the park!
A general note.  Some of you, as I am, are very discouraged about all the political stuff going on right now.  It seems everyone wants “change”, but unless the hearts of the lost are changed, our country will be destroyed sooner or later from within.  Time seems very short for this country and the world.  As we look in expectation and hope for the return of our Savior, our concern should be for the spiritually lost folks and to share the gospel.    A great article from John MacArthur details this….     http://www.sfpulpit.com/2008/06/09/the-gospel-and-politics-part-1/            Many think this is a political problem that will not be solved without a political strategy. During the past twenty-five years, well-meaning Christians have founded a number of evangelical activist organizations and sunk millions of dollars into them in an effort to use the apparatus of politics—lobbying, legislation, demonstration, and boycott—to counteract the moral decline of American culture. They pour their energy and other resources into efforts to drum up a “Christian” political movement that will fight back against the prevailing anti-Christian culture.
But is that a proper perspective? I believe not. America’s moral decline is a spiritual problem, not a political one, and its solution is the gospel, not partisan politics.
Amen brother.

Seed sowers….
Some updates on what we have been doing.
I went to Manitou Springs last week for the Clay Festival.  Wow.  It was the most intense time of witnessing ever.  Tons of athiests, false converts and mormons.  The self righteousness of the folks out there was incredible.  Most of the folks I talked to were sure of going to heaven based on the good things they have done.  The most self righteous of all were the “mate factor coffee” people who were assured of heaven because they have “sold everything they have and follow Jesus day and night”.  While I encouraged them about the good deeds they were doing, we had an ongoing debate on whether that was going to get them into heaven, and God’s demands of righteous perfection.  This all took place on the bridge inbetween Soda Springs Park and the coffee shop.  This open air presention went on for an hour and I had tons of hecklers.  It was INTENSE.  The gospel was presented over and over again…I was very careful to keep the discussion on the cross and Him crucified.   But the resistance to the gospel was incredible and there was much gnashing of teeth. 
There where some Mormons there who showed me the bible verse that says “the righteous will live on the earth forever”.  Apparently, this was an important  bible verse for them, as they believe heaven will be the earth, and they will live here forever.  I pointed them to the word in the verse that said “righteous”, and explained what that meant.  Wherever heaven was going to be for them, they weren’t going unless they had the righteousness of Christ. There was no response to that.
I did get to speak to a lot of other folks, however, that were very concerned and wanted to know how to be saved.  Wow.
There was also a pastor there from Oklahoma.  He told me to just get people to “pray a prayer”.  I explained that it was more biblical to point towards repentance and faith.  That most of the hostility I get from sharing the gospel are from folks who have “prayed a prayer”, and are angry false converts.  But he insisted that praying a prayer was enough, and we parted our ways with a handshake.
 
On a recent trip to Santa Fe, we preached in the central plaza on the main square.  There had a good crowd.  Mostly in the crowd were young and all dressed in black with many different hair colors, and were the most interested.  We spent time afterward sharing 1-2-1 with many other folks who were listening to the preaching.
 
On our way back to Colorado Springs, we spent some time in Alamosa (yippee).  Alamosa had a big 4th of July parade, and Connie handed out 400-500 “million dollar bill” tracts(I had to work).  After the parade, she looked around and did not see a single tract that was thrown on the ground.
 
Upcoming stuff…………please join us.
Tonight, we will be in Manitou Springs for the Ice Cream Social and Pie Bake off.   The crowd should not be too rough, but you never know in Manitou. 
I will be preaching at the DMV here in Colorado Springs in the mornings…  let me know if you are interested in being there.  We will let you know the times and days.
There is a parade tomorrow night(Tuesday) downtown.  We are planning on being there to witness to the folks.
We have another Evangelism Crash Course Saturday starting at 9am.  We will be taking the group out to witness after the class (3pm)..you are all invited to join us.  Not sure of the venue yet…contact us for these details.
 
Misc….
We are looking to videotape upcoming witness outings.  The church is going to help out, but if anyone else has equipment(including microphones), come and get this stuff recorded.  Also a portable pa system is our current immediate need.  We will use it for amplification to preach in the Open Air.  We are looking at something like the Europort EPA40….but suggestions or places we could get one of these CHEAP..would be appreciated.
Looking for props….   A mannequin( to drape in a sheet).  A casket( we would open it up and put  a mirror in it to show the viewer that everyone dies…then what?)
Looking for a scratch and dent price for the props.
 
Just a note…we went to the Calvary Worship Center yesterday and witnessed all the baptisms…what a blessing.  Seemed like there was 20-30 of them.  Wow.
 
To GOD BE THE GLORY!!!
May we glorify our Lord and Savior by speaking the truth of the gospel to everyone we can this summer.  Faith comes by hearing and hearing from the Word of God.  For we are not ashamed of the gospel, for IT IS THE POWER OF GOD FOR SALVATION FOR THOSE THAT BELIEVE!!!   For how can they believe in Him who they have not heard?  And how will they hear without someone telling them?  If you love your neighbor, you will tell them the truth…no one is guaranteed another day of life.