I am excited to announce our team for the January mission trip to Southeast Asia. Randy Tate, Rick and Debbie Johnson, and I will be leaving January 9th to work with our IMB partners there. Over the next two months I would ask that you begin to pray for this team as we prepare for this trip. God is doing great things in Southeast Asia and I cannot wait for this team to be a part of it. The cost of the trip is $2,000. Please consider giving to support our team. I look forward to exposes our church to more of how God is using Oak Crest to reach the unreached in Southeast Asia.
We are entering into the holiday season which means the Lottie Moon Christmas offering is right around the corner. I’ve known about the Lottie Moon offering for as long as I can remember. It has been an important part of Christmas my entire life. But who exactly is Lottie Moon? Lottie Moon has become something of a legend to us. But in her time Lottie was anything but an untouchable hero. In fact, she was like today's missionaries. She was a hard-working, deep-loving Southern Baptist who labored tirelessly so her people group could know Jesus. Throughout her career, Lottie Moon wrote numerous letters home, urging Southern Baptists to greater missions involvement and support. One of those letters triggered Southern Baptists' first Christmas offering for international missions - enough to send three new missionaries to China. Born Charlotte Digges Moon December 12, 1840, in Albemarle County, Va. Lottie rebelled against Christianity until she was in college. In December 1858, she came to faith in Christ and was baptized at First Baptist Church of Charlottesville, Va. Lottie attended Albemarle Female Institute, female counterpart to the University of Virginia. In 1861, she was one of the first women in the South to receive a master's degree. Lottie stayed close to home during the Civil War but eventually taught school in Kentucky, Georgia and Virginia. Edmonia Moon, Lottie's sister, was appointed to Tengchow, China, in 1872. The following year, Lottie was appointed and joined her sister there. Lottie served 39 years as a missionary, mostly in China's Shantung province. She taught in a girls' school and often made trips into China's interior to share the good news with women and girls. Lottie frequently wrote letters to the United States, detailing Chinese culture, missionary life and the great physical and spiritual needs of the Chinese people. Additionally, she challenged Southern Baptists to go to China or give so that others could go. By 1888, Southern Baptist women had organized and helped collect $3,315 to send workers needed in China. Lottie died aboard a ship in the Japanese harbor of Köbe on Dec. 24, 1912. She was 72 years old. In 1918, Woman's Missionary Union (WMU) named the annual Christmas offering for international missions after the woman who had urged them to start it. "Why should we not ... instead of the paltry offerings we make, do something that will prove that we are really in earnest in claiming to be followers of him who, though he was rich, for our sake became poor?" - Lottie Moon We need six people to commit to two hour time slots at our Oak Crest booth for the Midlothian Fall Festival on October the 18th at the Midlothian Multi-Purpose Stadium. The goal of this booth is not just to pass out Oak Crest literature but to boldly engage people with the gospel. If you are ready and willing to do that, we could use you. You can find a signup sheet in the foyer. Please know that representatives from our Outreach Team will be at the booth all day to support you. They will be able to help you with anything that comes up so you will not be left alone. If you have any questions please contact Terry Bristow or Steve Arnold.
We had a great turn out at our evangelism training this past Sunday. If you were at the training, we could really use you at our Midlothian Fall Festival booth. We just need six people to commit to two hour slots on October 18th. If you were not able to make it to the training and would like to help with our booth, you are more than welcomed to sign up too. The goal of this booth is not just to pass out Oak Crest literature but to boldly engage people with the gospel. If you are ready and willing to do that we could use you. You can find the signup sheet in the foyer. Please know that representatives from our Outreach Team will be at the booth all day. They will be able to help you with anything that comes up on that day so you will not be left alone.
(reprint from last week)
If you are at all interested in our South East Asia trip in January I would love to talk to you soon. The deadline to sign up and make a deposit is October 1st. So if you’ve been putting it off you still have a few weeks to talk with me. Here are some details of what we will be doing on the trip. · Pray Walking- We will spend some time walking through the city praying over the markets and villages. This is a very dark place spiritually and prayer is vital to the success of the gospel going forth among the people there. · Evangelism- There will be opportunities to pass out Jesus films and gospel tracts in the native language of the peoples there. For many, these tools will present the gospel for the very first time as they have little to no access to the gospel. · Villages- Villages are spread all across this region and God is working in many of them. Village schools are being used as a means for the spread of the gospel and church planting. We will spend some quality time in these villages with children and parents, building trust and sharing the gospel. · Missionary Support- The missionary life is ever changing so we are pretty much guaranteed to spend time doing things we never expected to be doing in support of our missionaries on the group. Last year we spent a couple days filling out and filing paper work to get children in the villages birth certificates. Be ready for anything. Feel free to email me or call me if you have any interest. In Christ, Nathan If you are at all interested in our South East Asia trip in January I would love to talk to you soon. The deadline to sign up and make a deposit is October 1st. So if you’ve been putting it off you still have a few weeks to talk with me. Here are some details of what we will be doing on the trip.
· Pray Walking- We will spend some time walking through the city praying over the markets and villages. This is a very dark place spiritually and prayer is vital to the success of the gospel going forth among the people there. · Evangelism- There will be opportunities to pass out Jesus films and gospel tracts in the native language of the peoples there. For many, these tools will present the gospel for the very first time as they have little to no access to the gospel. · Villages- Villages are spread all across this region and God is working in many of them. Village schools are being used as a means for the spread of the gospel and church planting. We will spend some quality time in these villages with children and parents, building trust and sharing the gospel. · Missionary Support- The missionary life is ever changing so we are pretty much guaranteed to spend time doing things we never expected to be doing in support of our missionaries on the group. Last year we spent a couple days filling out and filing paper work to get children in the villages birth certificates. Be ready for anything. Feel free to email me or call me if you have any interest. In Christ, Nathan If most Christians are honest, they have never shared the gospel with anyone. This is unfortunate and one of the main reasons for this is most Christians have never been shown how to share the gospel. What if you knew a way to thread the gospel into any conversation? What if you had the tools to articulate the gospel in a way that speaks directly to the hearts of people? How bold and confident would you be to share if you were simply equipped to do it?
On September 28th, immediately following our morning worship service, you will have a great opportunity to be equipped to share your faith in any context with any person. We will have training in The Way of the Master which is an evangelism tool that will teach you to share with anyone from any background. You will learn to speak directly to the conscience of a person using the whole of the gospel starting with the law and ending with what Christ has done on the cross to save us from our sin. It’s time that we make evangelism a priority in our lives. September 28th will be a very important day in the life of Oak Crest so make it a priority. Clear your schedule, do whatever you have to do to be here. We will provide lunch and childcare for anyone who has children. Make sure to sign up in the foyer today for this important day of training. In Christ, Nathan Oak Crest Family,
I am very excited to announce our next outreach opportunity presented by the Outreach Team. Each year hundreds of people gather at the MISD Multi-Purpose Stadium for the Midlothian Fall Festival. This year Oak Crest will be hosting a booth to provide information about our church but primarily to engage people at the festival with the Gospel. We will have teams of two manning the booth in two hour time slots with the objective of engaging people with the Gospel. In conjunction with and preparation for the Fall Festival, we will have evangelism training on Sunday, September 28th, from 12-2:30 pm. This training is available to everyone in the church but especially to those who are interested in manning our booth at the festival in October. Lunch and childcare will be provided for those in attendance. I’m sure many of you are eager to work the booth at the Fall Festival but feel unequipped to share the gospel with people there. Our evangelism training of September 28th will be a condensed version of the "Way of the Master" basic training course. If you are not familiar with "Way of the Master", it is an evangelism method that is non-confrontational and gospel centered. In other words, if you attend the training you will be equipped to share the gospel in any context with any person. If you’d like to know more about Way of the Master check out wayofthemaster.com. A signup sheet is now available in the foyer to sign up for our evangelism training course. Please make this a priority as we have a great opportunity to be light in the darkness at the Fall Festival. If you have any questions regarding the festival or the training, please contact me or Terry Bristow. In Christ, Nathan |
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December 2015
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