Thursday AM

We began the day with breakfast and Quiet Time.

Our group time began with James Dollar and The Narrow Gate leading in praise time.

Here they are in their natural habitats:

Laura and Alex / Danny / Adam

Ryan / Brooke / Shayla and Alison

Part of that time included a great time where we offered prayer songs to God.

____________________________________________________________
Bro. Andy Hammack taught us for our morning Bible study

Loving the Lord your God with …all your MIND.
We need to study God’s Bible. Studying the Bible is not dull nor boring.

Assumptions to this teaching:
1. You are saved. You have to start your relationship with God to even start loving him with all your mind.
2. We are talking about gaining godly wisdom not just knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but wisdom gets us closer to God.

We don’t have to be dumb. We need to be spiritually wise. Two ways that lead us to spiritual wisdom:
1. Transform our mind. We have bring our thoughts into captivity. (2Cor 10:4-5 ) The weapons we use are spiritual, not carnal. We have to bring down strongholds – the things that constantly ensnare us. The world is our enemy. Our own flesh, our old sin nature, is also our enemy. Our Quiet Time is the most powerful way to transform our mind.
a. Memorize God’s word.
b. Personalize the scripture – God loved me enough to write the Bible to me – so I can put my name
c. Internalize God’s word, listen to God and put it in our life.
d. Harmonize our life with God’s word, make my entire life match what God wants. Don’t compartmentalize God to church and then ignore him in the rest of my life.
2. Train our mind. We have to know the scriptures. (2Tim2:15) STUDY to show yourself approved. Training our minds in work, and we should work at it as if we were mining for gold. To train our minds we have to:
a. Work through it
b. Meditate on it, chew on it. Get alone and spend time on it.
c. Discover principles in the text. The Bible isn’t a book of rules; he gave us a book of principles. We have to discover these principles, apply them to our lives, and then live by those principles.
____________________________________________________________

After a short break, James Dollar tried to teach all of us rhythmically challenged Baptists to clap – it didn’t work very well.

But there was some joy in this place.

Julie and the gang tried to show us how to shout it out – that worked a little better. And I'm pretty sure that everyone kept at least one foot on the ground at all times.

Anyways we praised God, smiled and had some serious joy in the place.
We even sang “I’ve got the love of Jesus down in my heart!”
____________________________________________________________

Dr. Emir Caner taught on the Muslim Worldview

We need to understand different worldviews so that we can effectively witness to and minister to them.

A Muslim worship service begins with the call to prayer “God is great, come to prayer, come to prayer, come to success.” In the mosque there is no singing, you are there to pray. The prayers are very meticulous, even the position of your body during prayer is set. Then you hear a sermon and the

As Christians at church we need to enter with a clean heart, must open the Bible and read it, fellowship with other Christians, celebration, something happens for God.
For church to be church, something must happen; your heart must be changed. The first impression a lost person has in church will be what you are doing. Are you singing, do you have a bible, are you listening, etc.

At the Areopagus Paul got a chance to speak to people who had a very different worldview from him. Acts 17:15-34 We can find very good witnessing strategies from his example.

Witnessing Strategies

1. We have to be insulated not isolated.
Paul spoke in the midst of the Areopagus, where the people of the city met to discuss important matters. To effectively witness we have to get to people who are close to hell. Enjoy evangelism.
2. We must ask questions.
Paul wandered around the city to get a view of their customs. We must get a grasp of where people are, get a taste of where the people are coming from. Paul started where they were.
Paul explained that their religion was incorrect. We must call out what’s wrong with a false religion. You have to point out truth and falsehood.
3. Witness with humility (we are all sinners)
Everyone is lost without Jesus Christ.
Don’t let your ministry be limited to an age group
4. Let them know that if they seek the Lord they will find him, because he is already close to us.
Christianity takes them from God close to them to God in them.
all men everywhere must repent, we must call people to repentance.
A saved life means a changed heart and a changed mind.

No other religion says you’re dead and can come to life.
All other religions believe you do good works and hopefully go to heaven.
You were born to be saved and not damned.
You were born to worship the Lord.
You were born to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You were born lost.

Don’t look at witnessing as the words of man, share the word of God.
You have everything you need with Christ.
Allah hates sinners and loves righteous. God loves sinners and makes them righteous.
Without Christ we have nothing. Why hold on to what we have (which is eternally nothing) instead of doing what God wants us to do?
Do you need to be saved?
Are you saved, but need to be baptized?
Do you need to get rid of that rebellious heart?
____________________________________________________________

Then it was off to lunch for pizza and salad.