John 3:30

He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

Love

Bailey Update and a Theology of Emotions

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This is Bailey’s son Kylen, (my grandson). He will be 2 years old on April 25, 2023, and is such a sweet guy!

I cannot express how grateful we are for the encouraging texts, phone calls, and emails we’ve received since our daughter went into the ICU on Easter morning. People have shared personal stories of their own experiences which have strengthened us, and we have also heard from people who say that the Lord has used our experience this week to bolster their faith. God is truly at work for the good of those who love Him through this ordeal.

We have had a share of trials as well. As is expected, a Christian couple exalting God publicly will come under the attack of God’s enemies. But God’s faithfulness has been clear through demonstrations of providence, perseverance in the faith, and sanctification. God the Holy Spirit is always active in His people and we have hope because of His unlimited power.

An Update on Bailey

She got her hair done by her friend today.

If you haven’t read my previous post, you can see some background here. As of April 13, 2023, we have disappointing news. Bailey’s brain has sustained a lot of damage. The MRI shows pervasive damage to her cortex, which confirms what we see behaviorally which is that she is unresponsive to pain and even some basic reflexes. She is in a coma and although she may awake, it is all but certain that she will never be “herself” again. The parts of the brain that are needed for high-level functions are (from a medical perspective) irreversibly damaged.

We are now faced with overwhelming decisions about her care. I would appreciate your continued prayer for wisdom. I am also asking that you would pray that God would put all of us who care about Bailey of a single mind! Many people love Bailey dearly and have poured into her life, and I wish we would somehow by the power of God be of one accord.

Emotions

Every person has emotions. Emotions are normal and I will even say “Good.” God made us to have emotions; even people who are not described as “emotional.” The question is not whether you are emotional or not, but whether you take every thought captive to obey Christ and properly manage your emotions.

This trial has been a case study of how to biblically express and process emotions. There is a lot of theology you learn by hearing in the Christian religion. And you should be regularly imbibing the Holy Scriptures and sitting under the preaching of God’s Word at a New Testament local church. But it is often through the application of those principles so deftly taught by men of God in the pulpit that we truly grow in the wisdom God commands us to learn (Romans 12:2).

One of the hardest emotions to manage is that of anger. Anger can be righteous or unrighteous. The challenge for the Christian is to properly control anger by directing it toward the proper object and keeping it in the right proportion to the offense.

Fools give full vent to their anger; godly men and women express it in a healthy way that glorifies God in a way that “just stuffing it” doesn’t accomplish. Pretending to not be angry when you are only leads to resentment and bitterness (or a blowup). Allowing yourself to lose self-control and become intoxicated by your anger is called a fit of rage and is condemned as well.

One of the people Erin and I are angry with is Bailey. There is a pile of unresolved conflict which I have been praying for reconciliation for for years now, and then there’s the current situation where we as her parents are now forced into thoroughly painful decisions.

So we have prayed and cried, prayed some more, and cried some more. Sometimes while sitting with her, we’ll just look at her and admonish her. It’s strange because she cannot hear us, and we know that, but she’s also still there physically. And then we cry because we already miss her. We have continually begged God to forgive her of all her sins. As Allen Nelson told me this week, He has the power to do all His holy will desires.

We are confused. We don’t have all the answers. We are resting on the Rock that is Christ, and His immutability is the greatest comfort to us. We are sure of His perfect love toward all those who repent and trust in Christ.

People say things like “Parents should never have to go through this.” This is true, but at the same time, isn’t the central point of the gospel that God sent His Only Son into the world to be the savior of the world?

If Jesus Christ suffered the curse of the law for His elect, why would we expect this sin-cursed world to be devoid of difficulty? God didn’t spare His own Son. We must suffer as well if we expect to be glorified by Him.

She has the cutest toes. We are hoping to paint them tomorrow.

What I want to encourage you about is that being faithful doesn’t mean stuffing emotions but capturing those emotions and evaluating them biblically. It means taking anger and either repenting of it or processing it in a godly way. It means crying when you’re sad, yet confessing that God is good and right the entire time.

It’s painful to lose a child. Bailey is not dead, but our Bailey as we know her is gone.

Jesus Christ was raised from the dead though, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. God forgives sinners on the basis of Christ having made atonement for him. Repent and believe the gospel, today, dear friend. Receive and rest upon Jesus Christ as he is offered to us in the gospel. He is the only redeemer of God’s elect, who being the eternal son of God became man, and so was and continueth to be God and man with two distinct natures, in one person forever.

More Acts of Providence

The sheer number of people who have expressed their love and help to us is astounding. The internet is a horrible place, but Christians can use it for good. Tonight, a nurse walked into the waiting room looking for us. He wanted to tell us that he was at church last night at the weekly prayer meeting and someone brought up Bailey for prayer. He ended up assigned to her section.

So a man we don’t know was praying for Bailey yesterday with a whole church of people who don’t even know us. We are humbled and grateful.

I also ask for prayer for the evangelism which has occurred this week. We have been a testimony to everyone we meet. I have handed out dozens of tracts. I’ve prayed with people in the hospital. We have witnessed to nurses and doctors. They’ve seen us emote, and they’ve watched our interactions as husband and wife and they’ve seen our faith in action. We’d never have wished to be here, but while we are here we are missionaries to this place. May God give an increase!

Prayer Needs

Pray for us that we would continue to walk in holiness. This is a marathon. A lot of people can “be strong” for a day or two. Adrenaline will carry you through a few days with very little sleep or food.

But to continue to walk by faith we need God to work in and through us. Pray for us. Beseech the Lord that we would respond in a godly way when we encounter opposition or conflict. Pray that we’d be forgiving to those who we need to forgive. Ask God to make us repentant when we sin, seeking forgiveness from those whom we have wronged.

I feel like I have rambled here. My thoughts are scattered, even though some of them felt so articulate before trying to type them out. My brain isn’t as quick and clear as usual. Fatigue will make a coward out of any man, but it is also a good place to be to learn to rely on the Lord more. We are creatures of the flesh, and we rely on the flesh more than we realize. Thank God, He brings us to the end of our flesh, driving us to Him so that we may truly bathe in His grace and power.

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OSU@tOSU Ministry Report – Sept 1, 2018

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Typical crowd crossing the street on their way to the stadium.

The launch of the college football season for 2018 has begun, and so our SFOI 1000 work has begun as well. Click that link to see the rest of the dates that we will be ministering at the Ohio State University. Here is an update from the first week of the season.

Be On Time

One important aspect of leading a team to evangelize is planning. Working with 5-10 people and trying to get people to agree on a time to meet can be difficult. One of the biggest time wasters is sitting in traffic waiting for parking. With a noon gametime, the goal it to get there by 9. Any earlier and it’s tough to get people out of bed!

I ran later than I wanted this first week, and so the evangelism time was cut short by about a half an hour. I had hoped to be preaching by 9am, but didn’t start until almost 9:30. We trust the sovereign God who knew that I would be the only preacher present. He may have saved my vocal chords as I was still able to preach for about 2 hours with a couple breaks in the middle of the open air sermons.

I can’t stress how vital it is that everyone is on the same page. Before ministering to the crowd, we pray and sing hymns together. If a person or group is late, then either everyone else has to wait to minister, or we have to sing and pray without the entire team. Once we spread out to pass out tracts, it’s really hard to reel people in for those important activities, so my goal it always to set an early arrival time for my teams.

God gave me great joy by sending an old friend who I haven’t seen in nearly a decade. I loved our short visit.

Encouragement & Answered Prayer

God was gracious to us this Saturday by sending multiple Christians to us to encourage us. One husband and wife stopped to comment on the preaching, thank us for being there and pray for us. What a mighty God we serve! The man who prayed for us, Alex, asked if we ever did street evangelism and I said, “yes, we’d love to.” Maybe we will hear from him again as I gave him contact information.

Another man, Kadre, approached us as well, telling us he is also an evangelist. One of the things we prayed for prior to the event was that God would raise up more laborers to join us. We will see if that is what God is doing with Alex and Kadre!

My own heart is cheered by the men who came with me. Joe, Josh, Nicholas, and Fred all faithfully ministered through tracts, prayer and a willingness to speak one on one to people. I am grateful for my team of 5, but I hope to have 10-12 a few times so that we might reach more people with the gospel!

unsplash-logoEdan Cohen

Light versus Darkness

One of the reasons we go to sporting events is strategic. We go where there are a lot of people, in order that the message might be broadcast to as many as possible, even if only a few heed what we are dispensing. Well, strategy isn’t a Christian-only concept, and our dear corner of the Ohio State University was also being used to peddle complimentary passes to a central Ohio strip club!

I absolutely loathe sexual immorality and wickedness, and so, armed with the best weapon I could think of, I stepped on my stool and began to preach against the very immorality being peddled on that corner. I preached hard, praying internally as I preaching.

How do you preach against a particular evil while also proclaiming the life saving gospel? Like Jesus did. He is our example. Jesus preached against wickedness and often directed comments at particular people in the audience, yet constantly called people to repent and believe.

I am happy to say, with God’s help, the evildoers were driven away from my corner. I have called it the corner where righteousness dwells, and, as long as I have a voice, I will continue to make folks like that uncomfortable and give them the life-saving gospel. I sincerely do hope the young people who are exploiting women for money will be saved by grace, and I also hope that I kept them from tempting people to stray from their marriages and families, even if only temporarily.

May God be Glorified

We thank the sovereign God for bringing us home safely, providing wonderful fellowship and a meal after we were finished, and for the loads of encouragement we received.

We trust that His sheep hear his voice and they will follow Him. Please take a moment to pray for us and all those to whom we will be ministering in the future, and for those whom we have ministered to.

2017 B1G Championship Outreach Report.

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What an exciting day God had in store for us as we ministered the gospel to the good folks at the B1G 10 Championship Game in Indianapolis, IN for the fourth time ever out of the 7 total Big 10 Championship games which have been played.

Caleb, Josh, Joe, Kenton, me & Kurtis pictured Left to Right. The six of us filled nearly 6 hours of preaching and handed out tracts to hundreds of people who need Jesus.

We had a really bad experience with the police in 2015 which prompted us to get a lawyer to assist us prior to this year’s event. So we arrived with a letter from a lawyer outlining our legal rights. Around 2:30, Kenton was approached by the police and he motioned for me to come over and talk to the officer. I tried to record the conversation which started with me giving him a letter we had from The Liberty Institute regarding free speech laws.

Have a listen to my Conversation with the Police It’s less than 6 minutes long.

The real money quote from the whole thing though was when the police officer said this.

You know what, if they come up and complain, then I’ll just tell them it’s their…their freedom of speech. That’s why we live in the United States.

It took all my energy to not shout, “Yes! That is exactly what you should be doing!” I’m so glad he came to that conclusion. May this cause you to praise our glorious God and Saviour, Jesus Christ who graciously allowed us to continue to preach and tract the crowds the rest of the day undeterred.

Kurtis calling sinners to repent and believe in Christ the Savior.

We managed to fill almost 6 hours of preaching that day. We competed with a loud music concert and even a small two man trumpet and drum band. Hundreds of people received tracts and thousands of people heard the gospel preached. We left 3 hours before game time, we could reach thousands more if we stayed in Indianapolis!

We are grateful to good brother Chris Dean who showed up with 3 pizzas and 6 water bottles for the crew. This allowed us to stay on the mission without leaving for lunch.

Kenton tracting the crowds.

You can get an idea of the layout. For perspective, we stood directly to the left as you look at this photo to preach. The city blocks off Georgia Street and the entire street for one block is a big party with a big screen TV showing other football games, a music concert and food and drink booths.

As always, we sang a couple hymns and preceded most open air sermons with prayer. Our team worked hard and enjoyed very mild weather. It was actually a little warm until the sun went behind a building. We were prepared with handwarmers!

Thanks to everyone who has helped. So many people have contributed in various ways whether it is encouragement, service, financial help or prayer. Thanks you for your faithfulness! And praise God that He is ever faithful!

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How I Made My Waterproof Hymnals

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One of my favorite things to do in the open air is sing gospel songs to the Lord Jesus Christ. This post is meant to be instructive to you if you wanted to create your own waterproof hymnal.

In 2013, during the Super Bowl Outreach in New Orleans, I discovered with my team of evangelists that singing songs together in the open air was good for our souls. It seemed to calm us down when we were anxious, brought unity to our team, and attracted listeners: listeners who would hear the gospel in song or through our preaching afterward.

For several years, every time we wanted to sing outside, we had to tell people to sing songs from memory, or we all had to try to open our phones to the same version of a hymn. It was impossible. We would end up singing different lyrics or one guy would find a website which had an extra verse. Plus, we were all holding phones and, if you have ever been on a long outreach, you know phone batter preservation is paramount! Hymnbooks from church were too cumbersome and heavy to carry, and it wasn’t worth the risk of ruining a nice church hymnbook if we experienced poor weather!

So I set out to create a portable, lightweight, waterproof songbook which I could bring with me on outreaches (or anywhere) and for family worship. I wanted 10-12 books, to encourage everyone to sing together. Here is the result.

Here you see the last two pages of the songbook which is my index. I list the songs alphabetically with their page number. I also have the songs alphabetical in the songbook, but I separated “Christmas” songs from “non Christmas” songs. Click the image to make it larger.

Here is what you need. All the links will open in new tabs so you can click them and then read the post and then all the tabs will be there for you to peruse.

So you can see that the total cost for the books is near $60-$100 depending on how many you make and how much help you get.

The first thing to decide is if you are going to use all public domain hymns or if you want to include songs which have copyrights. This is why you need a CCLI license (or you need to contact the copyright owner for each song and get permission to print).

Here is song 25 of my book. You can see at the bottom the attribution of the authors and the explanation that this is public domain.

Once you have your list of songs, you need to get all the lyrics into your software. If I did this again I would find a book publishing program or feature which is better than Word. But I used Microsoft Word. The hard part was laying out the book. For example, in MS Word, the hymns are in the following order 4 and 1 on the first page, and 2 and 3 on the second page. That is what allows 2 to be on the back of 1, and then 4 on the back of page 3 once the book is cut.

I had to play with fonts and font sizes to get everything to fit. One thing I didn’t consider was that on some pages the binding would be on the right, and on other pages the binding would be on the right. This actually causes some words to be cut off on some of my pages. If I could do it over, I’d be more careful.

After you have completed your electronic copy of your book, print it out on a cheap printer and paper (not the waterproof paper) and review it. Then you can practice loading the printer properly and verify things look right without wasting the expensive paper.

In my case,  I couldn’t get the margins small enough, so I actually printed the copyright information separately and then literally cut and paste taped those onto each page. Once ready, I used the laser printer like a photocopier.

Finally, I took the finished work to a friend who works at a print company. She was able to cut them really cleanly and punch the holes for the spirals. She even bound them for me. For the finishing touches, I put a blank (white) page at the beginning and end of each book, along with the transparent cover. The blank page can be decorated as the cover page because of the transparent cover. You can see a couple examples of the art my sweet daughter, Alexandra, put on the books. The art was added AFTER production.

When you open the cover on the book to the left above, this is what you see:

It makes for a nice aesthetic effect. Also, this gives you a blank page at the beginning and end of your book which you can write in if you ever need to.

The transparent outer cover gives you some protection from rain. Waterproof pages are great, but no reason to test ’em! Now I have a dozen lightweight compact songbooks suitable for Christian worship anytime and anywhere! Praise the Lord!

If I was starting over, here’s what I’d do differently.

  1. I would put the index/table of contents in the front. It just seems more natural to people.
  2. I’d have the lyrics checked and double checked and triple checked. I ended up stumbling upon some diverse versions of some songs and it makes familiar tunes hard to sing from the book when the lyrics are different from what people know!
  3. Use software that would do more of the work (page layout) for me, control the margins, etc. I did a lot of unnecessary work. But it was a labor of love as well.
  4. Purchase the smallest possible spirals. My spirals are too big. They work well enough, but they aren’t quite right for my book thickness.

So with that information you are ready to self-publish and manufacture your own set of hymnbooks. Be sure to TAKE YOUR TIME because once you create a book you will not want to start over! If you do it, let me know

Illinois @ THE Ohio State University Outreach Report 2017

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November 18, 1999: my friend Kurtis Gould was born. 18 years later, this young man’s desire on his birthday is to be on the street for a few hours preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost. If you know me, you know that at 18 I was not a Christian. What I looked forward to on my 18th birthday is not even to be spoken of in polite company. Praise God for Kurtis’s faithfulness!

As this was the last home game of the season, we were all very excited to go and minster to Buckeyes fans one last time at home. What a joy it was to have 5 teens from my church, Chase, Kurt, Kenton, Alexandra and Nicholas,  with me along with Josh Smith, Joshua & Rachael Richards and the steadfast and faithful Caleb Davenport.

We began the day by singing How Deep the Father’s Love for Us and Joy to the World from my custom made, waterproof, hymnbooks. This really gets everyone in the spirit of worship and allows us to labor with great joy in Jesus Christ.

I cannot stress enough what a blessing it is to have a team of mature evangelists because it allows us to split up and cover more ground. With 10 people Saturday, including 4 preachers we were able to cover 3 corners of an intersection with tracts, and two corners with gospel preaching. It is possible that almost 50,000 people heard the gospel or encountered a tract that day.

We don’t know who the elect are, but we know that God will use means to reach them. May we be that means for some of those Christ died to save!

A few notes about the day. I have noticed a hardening of men’s hearts over the last 5 years where it seems more people act indifferently to the preaching. I am not intentionally trying to incite people, but I have found that talking about abortion seems to turn more heads than anything else. When I preach that anyone who is even pro-choice is a murderer in the eyes of God, because they give approval to those who do evil (Rom 1:32), it generates more attention than anything else.

My goal is not to fight with people, but to preach righteousness in such a way that they are convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit of God. If they are so hardened to their own sinfulness that I need to be descriptive and graphic concerning the evil of abortion they either support or combat, then I will do so. I am neither afraid to call out specific sins of our culture like sexual immorality or homosexuality, nor am I apt to focus on those pet sins. My goal is to preach to the whole man from the whole counsel of God.

There was a man who took a tract from Kenton. Alexandra and Kenton noticed that he came back and stood next to Kenton as he read it. The man eventually argued with Kenton yelling at him. Kenton gave the man the gospel, but mostly the man didn’t listen; he just spoke. Praise God for Kenton being willing to engage!

God abundantly provided for us so that I was able to take the teenagers to the game. For 4 of them it was their first Buckeyes game ever! The man I bought tickets from even gave us 6 ponchos for free (all of which we used)! It was a special treat for these faithful young people who missed the first half of every game for their favorite team because they were out evangelizing. I thought it was an appropriate ending to a season of hard work for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here are a few pictures from the game.

Kenton, Alexandra, Kurt and me at the game.

Alexandra and a few of the boys moved to the front row after the rain emptied out The Shoe.

As this was the last Buckeyes home game, this marked our last time evangelizing Buckeyes fans…in Columbus. Because the Buckeyes won Saturday and Wisconsin beat TTUN, we now have the privilege of evangelizing Buckeyes fans once again in Indianapolis before the Big 10 Championship game, December 2! I already have 3 youth committed to going with me and over half a dozen other helpers. Pray for us to have a great day in Indianapolis, especially that we will have favor with the police as we had a problem once in the past.

Thanks to all of you who’ve read my posts, prayed and given financially to help us. Your gift to us of encouragement and help is not unnoticed by the God who sees everything. May He richly reward you for your faithfulness to His Son.

Open Air Preaching from Home

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I am sure you’ve heard of “working from home.” But have you heard of open air preaching from home? I want to share what I think was a singularly unique experience to me. Maybe you’ll think so, too!

My 3 year old son Wesley had just gone outside into the backyard. My teenagers were on the couch with my 9 month old and my wife was gone. All was quiet on our little street and then I heard the doorbell, or a knock. I looked over and saw a man in a suit with a young boy. I figured they were Jehovah’s Witness, and headed over to the door.

The young boy showed me a pamphlet and was trying to talk to me. You could tell it was taking some courage for him to do whatever he was doing. Had he been a boy scout or a basketball player raising money for a trip, I’d have bought popcorn or candles or whatever he was peddling to encourage him.

After I took the pamphlet I looked quickly at it to find the JW markings. The man was saying something about Scriptures and the boy was talking about love…and I told them to hold on, while I went and grabbed a tract.

I always try to give JWs a tract because I have been told they are not allowed to take them. It’s a test, in a sense. If they take it, fine. If they refuse, it opens the door to asking them why I should take their stuff and they don’t take mine, etc.

So I went out on the porch and started asking the boy what he thought. He kept saying they were walking around to ask people what “they thought.” I asked him if he believed Jesus died on a cross for sinners, and he mumbled yes and then the older man corrected me and said Jesus died on a stick. I repeated that He died on a cross and then asked if they believed Jesus is God. The boy just stared and the man said “No.”

I don’t intend to prove this here, but if you do not believe Jesus Christ is God, (and not just “a” god, but the God) you do not believe the saving gospel.

So I started talking to the boy and telling him that whatever the man he is with has been telling him is false and will lead him to Hell. I started explaining that Jesus had to be God to die in the place of sinners; that if Jesus was only a man that He would not have been able to satisfy God’s wrath for sinners!

The reason I did this is twofold.

  1. I have found that JWs usually travel in pairs, (like Sith), and, like Sith, there is usually a learner and a ‘master.’ I believe all men who hear the saving gospel of grace and of Christ’s glorious resurrection can be saved, but I’ve found experienced JWs particularly hard to interact with. But a 9 or 10 year old child who was obviously nervous about whatever faith he had? I was sure I could get him thinking and maybe be used of God for his salvation.
  2. As I mentioned, the context was that I had a 3 year old alone outside, a couple of teenagers watching a baby and no wife at home. I didn’t believe I had time for a friendly conversation where I slowly tried to lead them to the gospel. Nor, honestly, do I want to listen to their beliefs. I know many wonderful Christians who will sit and listen to pagans share their thoughts and many times blaspheme Christ. I do not believe it is my duty to allow them the privilege.

The man immediately recognized what was happening and saw he would get nowhere with me and said, come on, let’s go. And he led the lad away. So I quoted Matthew 18:6 to him. They, of course, kept walking, so I kept talking, louder and louder. Within seconds I was open air preaching from my porch to this man and this child as they met with one of their cohorts across the street. I continued to preach the necessity of the new birth, believe in the deity of the Christ and the truth of the resurrection for the justification for sinners. You could see the bewilderment as I do not think they expected this, nor probably ever encountered it.

I started to hope I had neighbors who would hear the preaching too! I saw a family walking toward the house who looked like they may be the young lad’s family and I started preaching in their direction. Finally, they all headed as far away as they could until I could no longer see them.

I am sure some (Christian) people would not feel comfortable with this story. But when was this young man going to hear the gospel if not from the preacher whose door he was brought to providentially? Do I know how many more days any of those folks had before they met their maker? Do you not believe that it is through the foolishness of what we preach that men are saved from the wrath of almighty God?

I am not saying that is the only way to interact with JWs (or anyone). But I am grateful to God for the opportunity to preach His Word today, even if it was only for 3 minutes. 6 people heard the gospel, my own children heard me preach the gospel and saw the importance of it.

Maybe the sweetest part was coming inside and praying with my children for the salvation of sinners and then singing hymns together as worship of Jesus Christ! May God be praised and may He have mercy on the men and woman and children who visited my neighborhood today.