Week 2 of the Summer Road Trip

Week 2 of our Summer road trip had us visiting with family and attending Capilla Cristo Redentor, a Spanish language Assembly of God church in Spring Lake NC.

This week was entirely connected to Vacation Bible School, which this year was based on the Armor of God.  Brenda had the privilege of serving in a teaching role.

I had a quiet week, recovering from being sick the previous week.

On Sunday we were given the minute for mission time and we got to share about our work in Latin America, being based in Panama City, but working throughout the entire region of the Americas.

Brenda shared more about www.mismanualidades.org, a new website that we are building to publish the material that she is developing to train Children’s workers.  That seemed to really resonate with this particular church (the website is in Spanish) and many signed up for the newsletter that will be forthcoming.

An area of teaching ministry that we were called to in Panama was to train Children’s workers.  We’ve had two significant events where Brenda was teaching a few hundred at a time.  Each time that she teaches, the need for the information that she is providing becomes more and more apparent.

Every time that we teach at a conference or a seminar in Panama or in Latin America, our sense of calling is affirmed.  We know that we are in the center of what God has us doing.

Would you continue to pray for us as our ministry develops in Latin America?

A weekend in Charleston

During our road trip, we were able to spend the weekend in Charleston SC.

We visited with friends from Seacoast Church, spent some time with their missions director about our work in Panama, and I had the opportunity to preach in two churches, and expand the vision of our work.

Rockville Presbyterian Church

The first church we visited, Rockville Presbyterian Church was at the southern Tip of Wadmalaw Island. 

The church was established in 1850 and is a beautiful white country church.  The congregation that meets there now is generous, and loves the Lord.  Elders cornered me for prayer before the service starts (as an itinerant evangelist, I can tell you how rare that is).

The little waterfront town of Rockville was truly at the end of the road, a quiet respite on our journey.  The old trees, the Spanish moss, and the quiet ocean breeze all made us feel like we had just walked into a Southern Living photo spread.

I shared a message based on the story of Phillip And The Ethiopian Eunuch, the foundational teaching for our model of evangelism. 

El Buen Pastor

Later that evening, we visited a Spanish language congregation that meets inside a Presbyterian Church.  I had a translator help me share a similar message on Phillip.

Most of this church was made of immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico.  In fact, as we asked some of the members if other countries were represented, no one could think of any others.

The difference:

The opening introduction to the message that I am using on this trip is about Fears of Evangelism. 

What I discovered in comparing these two churches is that many of these evangelism fears are more common in typical Mainline, North American churches.

The people at Rockville quickly identified with these fears, but the Hispanic church seemed surprised that evangelism could be so scary.  This gave me further insight into how to adapt the teaching material for different audiences.