Monday, March 22nd, 2004 - PCBY

Panama City Beach... Yogurt... Yahweh... Yeah.... Well, maybe not the Y so much. I have spent the last week and a half or so on a missions trip over spring break. It was Campus Crusade for Christ's "Big Break" trip to reach mainly college students in Florida who aren't following Christ with their lives. At our resort in PCB, we were in the mix of a huge, ongoing party, but God had other plans for many people whose lives were changed this week.

The main goal of this week was to build up and send small teams (usually 2-4 people) of Christians to share the Gospel message with spring break-ers. Comments that I have heard a lot are "you came to the wrong place" or "you're speaking to a dead audience." My response to this would be to read the accounts in the first three Gospels when Jesus calls Matthew to be his disciple and declares that "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" (Matt 9:12, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31).

God did some awesome things through our teams every day that we were down there, through many different methods. We had surveys, booklets, bibles, and giveaways to use as tools or conversation starters, but ultimately, every interaction was led by the Holy Spirit through prayer. There's a time and place for all of those tools, but sometimes God just spoke His truth from His Spirit through words in conversation. I learned that you can't stamp a methodology on evangelism; every encounter is different and surrender to the Holy Spirit's guidance is the only effective method. He does, however, sometimes use many of those tools as well, so I would greatly encourage the continued availability of them.

A great encouragement to me this week was remembering that turning one's life toward following Christ is a process. Believing in your heart that Jesus is Lord and confessing that with your mouth (Rom 10:9) is the end of that process and the beginning of a new life, but many Spirit-led encounters precede that decision. One statistic reported was that most people need to hear the Gospel eight times before making the decision, and people need over twenty positive encounters with Christians to reverse a negative attitude toward believers. So, even though many of us didn't experience anyone making the decision to follow Christ, we all were led to be part of a positive, Gospel-sharing encounter that was one more step in the process for people we talked with.

Personally, I had some amazing experiences even beyond all that God did through me and showed me through the street evangelism focus. I'm not much of a beach person (even though the ocean is beautiful), so much of my free time was spent alone with God. He helped me process all that He was teaching me, comforted me, and revealed more of His character. One of the most profound changes was growing my heart to more passionately ache for those who are lost and are without God leading their lives.

This week, more than any of my previous experiences, prepared me to share my faith with others. I have always heard the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20) and wanted to tell people of the great life found in Christ alone, but I never really knew how to go about it, evidenced by some of my poor past attempts. I used to pray a little beforehand and then charge in on my own strength; sort of like asking the Holy Spirit to lead me and then leaving Him behind when the time came for Him to work. I was like a kid who asks his mom to make him a sack lunch for school and then leaves it sitting on the counter as he heads out to the bus.

So God has given me a heart and passion for lost people, coupled with a great week of training and experience in evangelism. The result? Vision. I praise God immensely for this! It is a huge answer to prayer. Some may recall my Too Laid Back? post where I quoted my staff worker - "Doug, you would be dangerous if you had direction in your life; if you were driven." I have lacked real vision my whole life, and it is overwhelmingly awesome to set goals and strive for a vision.

What is the vision that God has given me? Five guys. There are five, specific guys on my floor who either aren't Christians or aren't letting God control their lives. I haven't established good communication with any of them, but I know that God can overcome anything. I have complete faith that God will change their lives in the last couple months left in the semester. I am praying for them and that God will use me as I surrender to the Holy Spirit's guiding - it is all completely in His hands. I would encourage anyone who reads this to also pray for them.

That is the main bulk of some things that God did and is doing through the Big Break experience, but He continues to reveal more every day. I also bought a CD full of talks on various topics while down there and have already received some great insight from one of them. It was titled "Knowing God's Will" and is helping me in the decision-making process for this summer and next year. It looks like I will be coming back to UWL next fall, and I'm still praying about this summer.

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