Flat Tires and the End Times (Tuesday)

We arrived at Food for Life at 8:00 and jumped into some conversations. For some reason, we tend to feel exhausted on Tuesday nights, but God gave us strength. Dan and I talked to Jesse, a man who is studying the Bible but believes that you must not sin in order to get to heaven. We explained that we cannot be pure by ourselves -- we need Jesus to purify us. Pray for clarity.

Bethany, Katrine, and I all had separate conversations about the end times. It seemed to be the theme of the night. Alexander and James are two tradesmen who are having trouble finding work.

We met Devin, a Christian who was saved later in life and said he really connected with the Passion of the Christ. Terry said that he wanted to be a missionary some day. We also talked briefly with Kenny as we were leaving.

As we were walking back to the van, we saw a young lady on the side of the road with a blown tire. She was having trouble changing the spare, so Andrew, Dan, and I gave her a hand and got her on her way. It was cool that God put that opportunity for service right in our path.

Thanks for praying.

Meeting Tuesday

Don't forget to email downtownimpactteam@gmail.com by Monday midnight and let us know:

1) When you will be going downtown -- Tuesday night, Thursday afternoon, or   Thursday night

2) Whether you will be attending the meeting at 6:30 in ADM 204

At the meeting, we will be doing some role-playing and trying to learn to apply what we talked about last week. It should be a fun meeting.

Thanks,
Paul

Thursday night

Winter is not over, just so you know. The temperature was in the 30s, and the wind was blowing as well, but thankfully most people had retired to the mission. My group on Main Street ran into a guy named Mike Hendrix who had just gotten out of jail, but he also told us that two weeks ago he was saved through a prison ministry called Rock of Ages. He really understood the gospel, and he was so excited about reading the Scriptures and sharing his faith, and he said that he did not desire to live how he used to live. It was very encouraging to see God moving.

Pray that Mike would continue to grow in the Lord and get plugged into a church near where he lives in Taylors.

Zach's group talked to Lee and Angelo at Labor Finders, and a guy named Bobby showed up. He had been a crack addict on the street but was saved and has since quit the habit through Narcotics Anonymous. Now he is able to talk to guys who are where he has been and encourage them.

Praise God for how He is working in Greenville!

Tuesday night

Last night, Dan, Katrine, Bethany, and I arrived at Food for Life at 8:00, but most of the crowd had already thinned out. The service must have been shorter than usual, but we still saw Kenny and had a good conversation with him. He told us that he is from Gaffney, but he has lived in Florida, the Bronx, DC, Delaware, among other places. And he had a crazy story about when he was in an Atlanta bus station where there was a shooting. It was one of the better conversations we've had with him. Again he thanked us for being there for him, and he said that we are one of the reasons he keeps going.

Continue to pray that God would draw Kenny to Himself.

Also, take advantage of the list of prayer focuses that Caleb gave us. And keep thinking through ways that we can clearly present the Gospel in a way they will understand. You guys are the best!

4 of 10 Prayers | 3 Days

Pick three days of your week and spend some twenty or thirty minutes praying these ten prayers for our city.

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).

We thank God for reconciling us to himself through Christ. We confess that we think too lightly and too seldom on this glorious reality. We plead with God to help us grasp the explosive truth of Christ becoming sin for us so that we might become righteousness. We long to comprehend this message of reconciliation.

We thank God for calling us as his ambassadors to Greenville. We admit that it is a complicated city that we don’t entirely understand. We ask God to affect us with the serious responsibility of bearing the message of reconciliation. We ask him to teach us how to communicate the gospel to the people of Greenville in a way they understand.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare… (Jeremiah 29:4-14).

We thank God for sending us as exiles to Greenville. We know that our home resides with Christ, but we also recognize that God loves Greenville and desires to rescue its citizens from suffering. We pray that God would be good toward Greenville’s citizens, though they don’t deserve it. We pray that God would alleviate the mental, emotional, financial, physical, social, and racial suffering in the city. We ask that believers would give God credit for his goodness to the city as he rightfully deserves.

We ask that God would be good toward Greenville’s citizens by saving many people – more people than we could imagine – though they don’t deserve it. We admit that we resist participating in this work because of fear, pride, and selfishness. We ask God to change what we want to become what he wants. We pray that God would use us through the churches of Greenville by the power of his Spirit to bring the gospel of Jesus to many citizens. And we pray that God would save thousands.

6 of 10 Prayers | 3 Days

Pick three days of your week and spend some twenty or thirty minutes praying these ten prayers for our city.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matt. 28:19-20).

We rejoice that God’s plans far surpass our own, and we thank him that he is carefully and patiently unleashing his gospel in Greenville. We confess that we are impatient and self-focused. We ask God to thrill us with the prospect of being a small part of his work, thanking that his work in Greenville extends beyond our impact team and beyond BSU.

We ask God by his Spirit to teach and guide Pendleton Street Baptist Church, Downtown Baptist Church, Grace Church Downtown, North Hills Community Church, and Upper Room Fellowship.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).

We ask God by his Spirit to empower church planters and to call them to Greenville.

We ask God to create a passion for church planting in local churches. We ask God to guide local churches to support church plants through funding, resources, training, and people. We confess our craving for comfort and regularity, and we ask God to send us wherever our money, gifts, and talents can best be used.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved (Acts 2:44-47).

We confess our indifference toward the needs of Greenville’s poorest citizens. We admit that we hoard and we defend and we adore the very things that God gave us to give to others. We ask that God would greatly disturb the smug comfort of believers in Greenville. We ask God to invade our consciences with the bitter suffering of the urban poor.

We ask that God would create in us the self-sacrificing, self-denying love of Christ for those in Greenville who suffer and for those who are destined to suffer eternally. We ask for the creativity and opportunity to sacrifice more and more of what matters most to us for the cause of relieving suffering in Greenville.

Thanks Ryan!

I want to publicly thank Ryan for volunteering to lead Thursday night's outing last week. Ryan has always been a great supporter of what we do, so please remember to personally thank him for serving us in this way. Thanks, Ryan!

Information about contextualization coming later this week!

Tuesday's outing (25 degrees is cold)

It was very cold again, but Dan and I were wearing pajama pants under our jeans, so we stayed warm. Katrine and Bethany survived as well. We got delayed on the way into downtown, meaning that we were slightly late for Food for Life, but we still had some good conversations.

-TJ: now working at the McDonald's near Triune
-Patrick: janitor at the hospital
-Kenny: has a cold; his bag was recently stolen; attending Changing Minds church on Wade Hampton Blvd.
-Michael: from Greenville; went to jail in Georgia but is now back in South Carolina; wants to know about the afterlife and judgment
-David: a carpenter who cannot find work because of the bad economy

Continue to remember our specific prayer focuses as well:

-Downtown churches
-City leaders
-Business leaders
-Local and national economy

Thanks for your faithfulness,
Paul