U of I Easter Conf. Report, USA
http://bible-theophilus.blogspot.com/
We meet the Crucified and Risen Jesus through the Scriptures –the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms (Lk 24:44). 22 students attended from the U of I and listened to the word of God. Out of 22, 5 said that they felt nothing. 12 were confused about the Gospel and could not articulate the gospel to them or to their friends. 5 could articulate the gospel very succinctly.(This is based on my informal conversation and watching them. I might be wrong here. Only God knows our hearts.) As we know that we are doing the student ministry. We only have 10 non students in our fellowship. The students/non student ratio is about 2.2. We pray that this number to go up to 3.
We thank God for at least 5 making the confession of faith through this conference among our students. Thanks to mister G’s suggestion, after the conference, Abe Song and Mike reached out and did the second worship service. Becky, Darmawan, Gideon did the Easter conference part 2. So 25 students heard the gospel message. We thank for this.
We can come to the understanding that the Scripture is about Jesus who suffered and rose from the dead. (Lk 24:46) Time will tell. We believe that we planted the seed of the gospel.
We can be Jesus’ death and resurrection witnesses and preach the repentance and forgiveness to all nations starting from U of I, Moraine Valley, U of W at Milwaukee, UIS. This is the most challenging for us to do. Several of us are very good at this but we need much prayer for this. The reasons that our students are not reaching out with the gospel might be that we are
· Not comfortable with the gospel. We do not talk about the gospel. We rarely do so our students do not do so . We need more role models.
· Not convinced about the gospel. This can be my fault. My messages have no power of God’s spirit. Sounds good but no power in it. I need your continual prayers.
· Confused. So many messages out there that are contrary to the gospel message. So our students are confused and think that the gospel message is one of the messages.
· Pray that by God’s grace we can be convinced absolutely that everyone needs to hear the good news of God and this message is the one we need to articulate daily.
Pray for the messengers
· Mike Rora, the opening –Luke 24:44
· Abe Song –the Law –Ex 20
· Alex Foster –the Psalms –Psalm 22
· Young Lee –the Prophets –Ez 37
The messengers were better than I expected. God answered our prayers. The messages got progressively better as the conference progressed. Paul Toh helped Alex very well.
Pray for Joe Jung so that he can grow as a leader of the ministry. He is on the way. Not very good but he is making baby steps. Jerry to have a Biblical framework on the singleness and marriage and the kingdom of God. He did a good presentation at the conference. He is a red fish right now officially. The red fish is one of Jerry’s image of singles who are actively seeking for someone to marry. No wonder his blue car was totaled. He might have gotten a red car like Alex Foster.
Those who are sharing testimonies. Repent their sins and share from the Bible and not from their own perspective and grow as Jesus’ witnesses. Only one testimony was shared because some wrote testimonies but they did only motions because someone asked them to write. Their testimonies did not clearly articulate the gospel. Let us continue to pray and use our remaining three Sundays until the Easter Sunday. Ask God to move our students hardened hearts and they can testify the saving grace of our LORD Jesus.
We pray that Jesus can open our eyes to see so that we can understand the Scriptures (Lk 24:45) Thank God for opening 5 students eyes to see. We thank God for his grace upon us.
Post Conference celebration plan and Prayer request: April Madness equals to Easter Celebration. The celebrating continues in the month of April. We have three more weeks left. May God use this month to preach the good news of God –Jesus death and resurrection and ask God to open our minds to see Jesus crucified and rose from the dead according to the Scriptures. (Lk 24:44-46)
April 10
The Prayer
The Text is John 17.
Take this week to pray so that we can learn to pray like Jesus.
April 17
The Gospel
The Text is 1 Cor 15
May God help us and mercy on us so that we know the gospel
April 25
The Dead becoming alive
The Text is Luke 15
There are many young sons and older sons who are dead in spiritually.
May the gospel of Jesus revive them so that they can repent and forgiveness of sins preached to the ends of the earth. Let us to live as Jesus’ witnesses and preach the good news of God here at U of I in the month of April by the grace of Jesus, not because it is a thing to do but because we know God’s saving grace. Pray for us.