Today I was supposed to go with Gap Year Racers out evangelizing.
We had made an appointment last week to meet with Mormons TODAY at 3pm.
But the Gappers started exhibiting COVID symptoms and to be careful were asked to not go evangelizing with me.
So I asked a few people to go with me and got a yes from Stephanie Jansen. She is also a mentor with me at Adventures in Missions and we are cut from the same cloth yet uniquely His own creation.
This was our first time out witnessing together. We paired well. I love when that happens.
“D” from last week texted me to say the Mormons got exposed to COVID and are now quarantining but would be up for a video call.
YOU HAVE GOT TO LOVE THIER PERSISTENCE!
Cuz’ TT is tracking same gusto….different gospel.
So Steph and I meet “D” in the square and we video in the Mormon girls who have been trying to witness to him.
We try to use my Facetime on my phone and it won’t work. Then “D” tries to use FB messenger and his phone won’t work. Then the Mormons try to find me on FB, even though I am off for a year, but have kept my account open. They wanted to FB messenger video me. They ask “Are you Teresa McMillan, every tribe and nation?”
YUP:)
Finally, we end up using Steph’s phone and use Zoom.
As I sit on the ground wearing a mask, they ask my story. I shared with them my testimony and then Steph shares her. I highlighted how powerful reading the Bible was for me.
I ask their story and they both tell me how they were raised in the Mormon church and are now missionaries.
I began to challenge them on the fact that Joseph Smith only had himself as a witness to his revelation and how Jesus appeared to 500 over the course of 40 days. How Jesus warned of false prophets coming after Him. That I knew the Reformation was huge for understanding it’s by grace alone but Martin Luther was reforming where we got off. Whereas Joseph Smith was changing the whole thing.
Sister “C” (I got corrected for calling her by her first name when asking the name of the other girl) said she had doubted before about the validity of her faith. Sister “G” assured me the book of Mormon is true and what their faith hinges on. That I should read it.
I’ve never been into fiction…
I talked about meeting again with them once I am back (after I go to final debrief with WR America next week) and they get off quarantine. They appeared to be the Gap Year age of our Racers. And they were so sweet….so sweet and so deceived.
I hope I put a rock in their shoe and instilled doubt.
I love RZIM’s motto “Help the Thinker believe and the Believer think.” I pray as they think about what we said they will begin to doubt their faith and find the Truth.
Afterwards, we debriefed with “D” who said again how he is reading the book of Enoch, Jasher and even pulled out the Book of Mormon they gave him. I encouraged him to be very careful and have his eyes wide opened as he explores everything. He is a believer but I warned him how he can be deceived.
He asked if Mormons are saved. He wrestled with the verse “Call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved.” He was trying to say, “Isn’t it that simple?”
I said I didn’t think they were saved just like Muslims and Jehovah Witnesses aren’t. When you deny the Deity of Jesus, like all those mentioned religions do, you negate the sacrifice on the cross. That Muslims believe many true things about Jesus like He was sinless, born of a virgin… but missed He was/is God.
That one day Jesus will say you did many things but depart from Me, I never knew you. People can say they believe in Jesus and not KNOW Him.
We kept talking and “D” kept asking questions. He admitted his own doubts and I assured him I doubted the most in Bible school, but to keep seeking Jesus. I talked about all the noise from the world like CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX….as examples and how I just need to “shhhhhh” all the voices and just tune in to what Jesus is saying.
“R” comes by….a man in maybe his early 60s….and pops a squat with us. He is drinking and appears drunk.
I am SURE Jesus would be here with us. I mean He is…Emmanuel. And not like Joseph Smith saying Jesus came to America, etc. But I mean, Jesus would be here with the homeless. I just know it.
“D” asked about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and Steph began answering.
“R” said to me: You are a special lady. I mean…I know we put our pants on the same way every day….but you are special.
“R” said to me: You really know Him. I mean, you really know Jesus. I gotta go to the bathroom.
LOL. I seriously wish I could record all of this. The way “R” said it was like he was perplexed, in his drunken state, with my relationship with Jesus and I had barely said anything.
Times in evangelism are where I come alive.
It’s where I am doing what I was created for.
Today, I bought a jar of pickles. I should have taken note….I got them for a $1 at Dollar General. I should have noticed that I had to wipe dust off the lid before opening it. I ate one and knew right away the pickle had lost it’s crunch…it’s kick…it’s crisp taste. It tasted dull and kinda blah.
That’s what we can become as believers.
Coffee pots weren’t meant to sit and collect dust. They were created to make coffee. I love when the steam rises and the smell fills the kitchen. I love when I get to taste what it made. I know it’s not the pot, but whoever the creative person was who figured out how to get coffee to brew and make pots gets my thumbs up.
We were not meant to sit around and collect dust. COVID becomes too easy of an excuse to settle and not get creative. The mandate is still the same: share the gospel and make disciples.
We gotta get creative.
Today, I was sitting on the concrete with Steph’s almost dead batteried phone plugged into a lamp-post in downtown Gainesville talking to Mormon missionaries from Utah and Las Vegas while encouraging a believer to not get deceived. That was my life today. I didn’t give up with the fact that the Racers couldn’t go with me or even the people I was going to meet couldn’t come.
I was made as an Evangelist and there was going to be a way to get the gospel out. And that aroma was going to rise and fill the place we sat in that even a stranger would taste and see “Wow, you really know Him!”
I left the Square and felt fully alive. And thought, THIS is how it feels to like the life you were created for. I am not meant to collect dust and rust out before I wear out. I am meant to SHARE THE GOSPEL. And when I do what I was created for, the atmosphere changes.
Moral of the story: Don’t be that jar of pickles. Get sold out.
