Hey, I’m Shalom. I’ve never written the blog before, so bear with me.
This past Wednesday, we had some preparation time for our LA trip! Sam briefly gave us the run down of what a lot of our time will look like, particularly when we’re on the streets having conversations with people. She shared a evangelism method she learned called the Three Circles method. This uses common language and universally recognized things we see in our world to tell the redemption story. It uses pictures like brokenness and beauty to demonstrate the sin and destruction in the world, compared with God’s perfect design. The antidote, of course, is Jesus. This is where the conversation becomes about the gospel, not just things we see in the world. We then broke up into our evangelism groups and discussed our hopes and prayers for this trip, and also practiced the Three Circles method. It will be really cool to see how God uses the relationships created over something as simple as coffee will be tools to plant the seed of the Good News in people’s hearts. Our goal isn’t to make converts, but to plant or water the seed that has been sown in the people of LA’s hearts.
Our speaker this week, Scott Stubbert, concluded his time with us. It was an eye opening experience to hear about the reality of the porn epidemic in our current time, and the effect it has on our society as a whole. It is not an isolated issue. Someone you know, if not you, are affected by the destruction porn has on the way people view sex, humanity, and themselves. Scott gave us tools to break free of the sin cycle, and to help others who are struggling with porn, or any sin they are stuck in. He encouraged us to live in honesty and truth, and to find someone to be completely transparent with about the sin we struggle with, because Satan loves to use the darkness. For some reason, secret sin is harder to break free of, and somehow, exposed sin has less power over us.
Praise be to God, the author and finisher of our faith!
– Shalom, Allie, Chad, and Hank
