Tag: evangelism

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I Have Failed

Yesterday was Good Friday.  When I was a kid, I used to always wonder why they called it “Good”.   After all, it’s a story about betrayal, pain, and death.  Now I understand that what Jesus went through was good for us.  It was VERY good for us.  His suffering and sacrifice paid the price for our sins and gave us the path to fellowship with God.

Every year around Good Friday, I reflect on His suffering and ask myself where I have failed Him.  He did so much for me.  Where have I let Him down?  This year, that reflection has turned my thoughts and my shame to one glaring failure.

Just a few years after giving my life to Jesus, God called me to serve homeless and poor people. [I hate using the terms “the homeless” or “the poor.”  They are people, not labels].  I teach youth how to be the hands, feet and loving arms of Jesus for “the least of these.”  Over the last 26+ years I have been humbled by the ways God has used me to transform the lives of others.

There have been successes, both with the youth I have trained and the people they serve.   Some of our youth grew up to become missionaries, pastors and social workers.  Others haveCrucifix on a Wall continued their ministries with poor people into adulthood.

Scores of those we have served have also seen their lives transformed.  I have witnessed miracles of deliverance from addictions, opportunities for housing, and jobs that seemed to come from out of the blue.  It has been an honor to play some part in these transformations.  All of that is good.  But it is not good enough.

I have failed Jesus in a lot of ways, but as I ponder my shortcomings, one failure stands out above the rest.  I blew my chance to share the Good News of Christ with people who desperately need Him; not just once but over and over again.

I take no comfort in the fact that this failure is widespread among American Christians.  I feel sick that someone may be eternally separated from God because I failed to say something.

I am convinced that Satan is perfectly happy for me to help homeless and poor people all day long.  He is perfectly happy for us Christians to fight culture wars and care for our environment.  He loves to see us do those things as long as we don’t tell people about Jesus.

I pray that my failure ends here.  I pray that it ends today.  Job #1 for every follower of Christ is to preach the Good News and make disciples.  I will no longer hide under the cowardly veil of tolerance but will search out divine appointments to share the greatest story the world has known.  I know the Gospel is offensive to many, so I will offend.

Jesus sacrificed Himself for a reason.  He did not fail us.  I ask you to join me in resolving not to fail Him.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

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Extraordinarily Ordinary

I love living on the edge, pushing the envelope of my faith in my service to Jesus through Teens Opposing Poverty.  I can identify with those who make a call for “radical Christianity.”  But my chosen vocation and avocation are not for every Christian.

Each year, we see over 1,500 youth and adult volunteers serve the poor through our ministry. The vast majority of them won’t choose full-time ministry as their vocation.  The adults have normal jobs and the youth are getting through school.  When they graduate, most of the youth will get jobs and raise families, just like their unbelieving neighbors.  Hopefully, they will stay in the church.

In other words, they will live ordinary lives.

Kristen is an adult volunteer with one of the groups that is involved in our motel ministry. She met a couple at one of the motels and they became close friends.  Kristen has advocated for them, helped the wife get a set of dentures, visits them on a regular basis and invites them to special occasions in her life.  She leads and ordinary life, but by just becoming a caring friend she has done something extraordinary.

If you follow Jesus, you will be anything but ordinary.  The Holy Spirit can guide you to those wonderful, small acts that can impact the lives of others. Living a life filled with righteousness, love, grace, mercy and justice will make you stick out like a sore thumb even if you don’t abandon the ‘burbs for a radical life with the rural or urban poor. You can be a disciple maker and witness for Christ right where you are. Just be true to Him.

People everywhere need a dose of God’s grace, a friend, a listening ear, wise counsel from the Bible, a word of encouragement, a smile on a really bad day and…well, you get the picture.  It doesn’t take much to be extraordinarily ordinary.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings Executive Director

http://www.TeensOpposingPoverty.org

 

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30 Years – Part 4 – Where the Rubber Meets the Road

This is the last in a series of self-indulgent blogs celebrating the 30th Anniversary of my new life in Christ. Check out Teens Opposing Poverty’s Blog for the rest of the story. 

February brought with it the formal filing of divorce papers.  Ever since my “warm honey” experience in November, I had been free of my angst over the situation.  I thought nothing else would bother me about it.

I was wrong.

As I signed the divorce papers, I was overwhelmed with a sense that I was a failure.  Instead of signing my name, I thought I should have written “LOSER.” My feelings took me by surprise and threw me into another funk. It wasn’t the mind-numbing emotional pain I had felt before, but it wore me down nonetheless.

Hoping to change my attitude, I dug into my research with gusto. By Groundhog Day, I had concluded that Christianity, the faith of my childhood, made the most sense both intellectually and in the way it fit with my experiences over the previous three months.

Once I embraced following Jesus on an intellectual level, it was up to the Holy Spirit for my faith to travel that short, but obstacle strewn, path to my heart.

I can’t tell you the date or even what week it was, just that it was February. I remember that it was a clear, dry day and I was cleaning stalls in the barn of my parents’ horse farm. I had scooped up a fork full of horse manure and stood there staring at it with the words “failure” and “loser” filling my mind. I looked at the manure and thought, “This is your life. This is what you are on your own.”

I continued to stare at the manure when, all of a sudden, memories of sitting with my grandfather watching Billy Graham Crusades flooded my thoughts.  I could see the crowds shuffling down the aisle toward the platform.  I remembered the prayer of salvation.

It was time.

“Jesus, without You my life has turned to this. What scares me is that I know I can go lower, and I don’t want that to happen. I know I’m a mess. I know I’m a screw-up. I know I’m a sinner, but You want me despite all of that.  I guess that’s what I see in you that’s so great. I’m yours. You paid a huge price for me. Forgive me for turning away from you and all the other sins I have committed. I can’t begin to count them.  Do what You will with me. You lead. I’ll follow.”

I dumped the manure into the wheelbarrow.  To be honest, I didn’t feel that much different. I just knew I had done the right thing; the best thing. The wild adventures of faith that would follow over the next thirty years and the ones still ahead continue to convince me that I chose the best path.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

http://www.TeensOpposingPoverty.org

 

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30 Years – Part 3 – The Search (continued)

Around Christmas 1982, I picked up a book my grandfather had given me that had sat unread on my bookshelf since I was 12. It was “All the Apostles of the Bible” by Herbert Lockyear.  I pored over the accounts of the lives and martyrdom of Jesus’ disciples and the generation of Apostles that followed them. They suffered tremendously for the gospel.  Most of them died horrible deaths in order to share Jesus with the world.

Would they die for a lie?

Would they deny themselves the core comforts their civilization provided for something they knew to be false?  I know I wouldn’t.  If they had achieved great earthly gain, I would have continued to question the validity of the resurrection, but their sacrifices reached across the millennia to satisfy my doubts.

On Christmas Eve, I took the Bible I had received when I joined the church in 1965. I opened the red cover and smiled as I looked at the inscription that had misspelled my name.  Then I headed to the second chapter of Luke and looked at the wax stains on the page from where I had set the Bible in front of some candles as a Christmas decoration in my room many years before. It was time this book stopped being a decoration and started giving me some answers. I started reading.

Over the next week I read the four Gospels and the book of Acts. The words of Jesus made sense. If everybody lived according to His teaching, the world would be a much better place. I marveled at His parables and contemplated His words.  I also discovered that my understanding of Jesus as somewhat of a wimp was totally out of step with the man revealed in the pages of that long-dormant Book.

Throughout January I continued to read and compare. I reflected on the things that Mary said in our conversations that seemed to be just the thing I needed to hear, and I began to hurl questions at my grandfather.  I didn’t stop studying other faiths, but I began to feel an irresistible pull toward Jesus.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

 If you haven’t gotten the rest of the story, here are the links.

 http://teensopposingpoverty.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/30-years-part-1-flashback/

http://teensopposingpoverty.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/30-years-part-2-november-to-remember/

http://teensopposingpoverty.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/30-years-november-to-remember-continued/

http://teensopposingpoverty.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/30-years-part-3-the-search/

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30 Years – Part 3 – The Search

After the events of November 1982, I spent some time searching. I wanted to know this God who had revealed Himself to me as a personal God.

The only religion I was familiar with was Christianity, but I didn’t immediately turn to this “default religion.” The search I was about to undertake wasn’t just about finding a set of beliefs I was comfortable with; it was about finding the truth.

So I spent the next few months studying religions, New Age, Wicca and other even more esoteric belief systems. I rejected out-of-hand the ones based on “human potential” and those that weren’t based on a god you could relate to on a personal level. My own experience belied those choices.

During my search, God continued to drop divine guideposts on my path to point me to Him. One of those guideposts was Mary Ashby.  As we talked on the phone about arrangements for my move to Texas, she shared brief nuggets of treasure about her faith. I found myself looking forward to our conversations.

Another guidepost was my grandfather, Rupert Kincer. He was a strong-willed man with a powerful faith in Jesus.  He knew the Bible inside and out, and fearlessly shared Christ with whoever would listen.  Not only did his personal relationship with God impact me, but he had given me some books years before that I had never read.  One of them, in particular, would have an impact on my decision.

At first I didn’t think Christianity was unique among religions, but as I examined it more closely I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong. Every other belief system I studied was based on laws, rules or levels of consciousness. Attainment of rewards ultimately depended on the believer’s discipline or adherence to a standard. In most of them, the believer could call on divine help to achieve the goal, and all of them had the potential to grant their followers a level of purpose and contentment. 

As I continued my search, something kept pulling me back to the faith of my childhood. When I began my close study of the core tenets of Christianity, it all made sense.  First, it recognizes that we are all imperfect, and as long as we are in this tent of flesh we will always be imperfect. In looking at myself, people I knew and the world around me, that was an obvious truth.  The Christian faith also recognizes that we cannot attain holiness and righteousness in our own power. Reaping the rewards of the faith does not depend on our abilities. It depends on how much of ourselves we surrender to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Our salvation comes through the works of another who was worthy.

Christianity’s accurate assessment of the human condition pulled me strongly in its direction. But I still had a problem accepting the resurrection. For some reason, I found that proposition hard to swallow.  Little did I know that God would answer my concerns.

More searching to come.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

http://www.TeensOpposingPoverty.org

 

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Fly By Evangelism

I watched the small group of young adults huddle in the corner of McPherson Square, just two blocks from the White House.  They each had a small paper bag filled with something.  After some excited discussion, they prayed and started walking toward groups of homeless people scattered throughout the park.  They reached into their bags, handed everyone something and said a couple of words.  Within 5 minutes they had completed their task and left the park.

 

One by one, most of the homeless men in the park either dropped their new treasure on the ground or tossed it into a trash can.  The “treasure” was a gospel tract.  It was the “This Was Your Life” tract.  I looked around the park to see if anybody was reading the tract they were given.  Not a single person was reading it.

 

At that moment, I was embarrassed for Jesus.  Have we learned nothing from His example?  Look at each encounters He had with people; the woman at the well, the 10 lepers, the rich, young ruler, the blind beggar, the lame man by the pool.  He invested His time in each of these people and met them at their point of need.  By meeting them at their point of need most of them believed in Him.  OK, so the rich young ruler walked away.  It just goes to show you that some peoples’ hearts are hardened to the point where they can’t change.  Accept it and move on.

 

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we don’t have the ability to peer into the peoples’ souls.  So it may take us a little longer than our Lord to figure out a person’s real needs.  But when we meet those needs, we earn the right to share the Gospel in power.

 

During Advent, we read with nostalgia the words from John’s Gospel: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  The Word of God must still become flesh to poor and hurting people before they can turn their troubles, fears, hearts and lives to the One who, better than any of us, can turn their lives around.  God’s Word becomes flesh through us.  Do you want to win the hearts of poor people for Christ?  You show them Christ first.  Then you can fill in the blanks with words.

 

God’s grace to you,

 

Steve Jennings