March 17, 2008
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Coffee Break
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My First Experience with Witnessing to Strangers |
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| The Third Season is Worth the Wait! |
|  If you enjoyed Season One and Two of “The Way of the Master,” you are going to love the Third Season of The Way of the Master. It has exploded both in production value and in content.
For example, we contacted the World Headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to find out what they believed. They wouldn’t grant us an on-camera interview, so we went to their New York Headquarters and filmed with a spy camera. It's very interesting. We also went to Salt Lake City and filmed at the Mormon World Headquarters -- you won’t believe what they believe.  You will not only discover the difference between Christianity and false religions, but you will learn from the experts -- Ravi Zacharius, R. C. Sproul, Dr. D. James Kennedy, Joni Erikson Tada, and others.
The series looks at intelligent design from a delightfully unique perspective, gives insight into the genius of Albert Einstein, and into the workings of Hollywood. Tanks, explosions, shootouts, police-chases -- thirteen action-packed and wonderful episodes. There is nothing like this. Anywhere. Your church needs it.
Watch the NEW four-minute promo here.
If you pre-order the Third Season on DVD (13 episodes) now, you will also get:
- A free, one-hour, fascinating and funny "Behind the Scenes" DVD
In it you will see what went on during the shootout between Ray and Kirk on the western set, when we were blowing them up and almost running over them with a tank in the episode on spiritual warfare, and much more interesting footage. (At this time, taking advantage of this pre-order opportunity is the only way we are making this "Behind the Scenes" DVD available.) See a clip from the "Behind the Scenes" DVD
- Free UPS Ground shipping (within the U.S.)
- Ten scholarships to The School of Biblical Evangelism
When you pre-order before March 31st your name will be put in a drawing to win one of ten scholarships to The School of Biblical Evangelism online. (Those of you who pre-ordered at the Transformed Conference in Florida have already been entered into the drawing.)
Pre-order the Third Season
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| Free Intermediate Training Course (a $99 value) |
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| Give to the Ministry Every Time You Search |
 GoodSearch.com is powered by Yahoo! and works like most search engines -- the difference is GoodSearch donates 50% of its revenue to the charities designated by its users. Specifically, you can use GoodSearch to help raise funds for Living Waters. Simply go to the GoodSearch website and type "Living Waters" in the "Who do you search for?" box. Then be sure to choose "Living Waters (Bellflower, CA)." (Our ID is 863011.)
Then you can begin to use GoodSearch exactly as you would any other search engine. You can also help by spreading the word about GoodSearch and Living Waters. Email your friends and encourage them to use GoodSearch and choose Living Waters as their charity. If you have a MySpace or Facebook site, add the GoodSearch link and instructions about choosing Living Waters to your page. And when you shop online, consider using GoodShop. Click through the links at GoodShop to get to your favorite online retailers and when you make a purchase, a portion of the sale will be given to Living Waters. It's that easy! You're already searching the internet and shopping online, why not do it through GoodSearch and GoodShop and help Living Waters fulfill its mission to challenge, train, and equip believers to proclaim the gospel.
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| A Powerful Lesson from ER |
A number of people called our attention to this clip from the popular TV series ER. It really is amazing for secular television. The "Fair Use" law allows us to teach from it without violating copyright laws. It has such wonderful evangelistic potential that we will also be sending it to you in a second email that you can easily forward on to all your friends.
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| Why Christianity? |
The "Why Christianity?" booklet has taken off. We sold 100,000 within the first three months of its publication, and even made it into an episode of our Third Season. Click on the below link to read it freely on line. Reviewer: "This is the most comprehensive and best tract I've ever seen . . . where it really shines is in close relationships, such as neighbors or family-members, because it starts out very inoffensive and ramps into the offense of the cross." Read the entire tract here.
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Each month in this section we want to shine the spotlight on friends of the ministry that we feel
will be a help and encouragement to you as we spread the Gospel around the world together. |
AdventuresinChristianity.com is an online social network -- like myspace -- except it's designed specifically for biblical evangelists. Discover other evangelists in your local area to team up with, create your own profile page, post blogs, watch videos, chat, and refine how you share your faith by giving and receiving feedback with a ton of other evangelists across the world! And it's all free! Join the network now and get connected. |
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My First Experience with Witnessing to Strangers
Sent in by Paul J. from Wilmington, DE
My wife and I have been learning how to share the Gospel like Jesus did from the Way of the Master DVD series over the last several months, and teaching it to our small group. Through that process, God has dramatically increased my compassion for the lost so that it has begun to overcome my fear of witnessing. While I had shared the gospel using the "do you consider yourself to be a good person" approach with a few friends before, I had never witnessed to a complete stranger in all my 30 years as a believer. That all changed last weekend.
About 3 months ago, I asked my oldest daughter (14) if she would go witnessing with me in a public place. She immediately agreed, so we prayed consistently over the next several weeks for God to prepare us and for the Holy Spirit to specifically prepare those whom He wanted us to reach. Then, armed with a couple of coffee shop gift cards, we went to the local mall ready to step out into the unchartered territory of public evangelism.
After arriving at the mall, we bowed and prayed together to submit our efforts to God and ask for his help. We could feel the sense of spiritual warfare and temptation to give in to doubt. It was frustrating at first because we could not seem to find a likely person to approach, perhaps mainly due to our fear of rejection. My daughter at one point said, "Dad, I feel like we're giving up," which was very convicting, so we continued to look for someone with renewed determination. Then God impressed upon me what my opening introduction should be, something to the effect of "Hi, we're passing out free coffee shop gift cards today, would you be willing to answer a few questions for about 5 minutes"
We found two twenty-something girls sitting at a table drinking coffee, and approached them tentatively with our intro question. One of the girls immediately replied, "sure!" I explained that they would be spiritual questions, and asked if they were still willing to talk, to which she again replied "sure!" After pausing a minute due to the shock of how easy God was making this for me, I began with the question about whether she considered herself a good person before God. The girl said that it was ironic I would ask that, because she had been thinking a lot about that very thing for the past several days! It quickly became evident to my daughter and I that the Holy Spirit had indeed been preparing this girl for the Gospel already. She eagerly answered the rest of my questions, agreed that she had broken 3 of the ten commandments, would be guilty before God, and that she was very concerned about it. Sensing her humility before God's and his law, I then delivered the Gospel, explaining it using the "good judge in the courtroom" analogy. She agreed to consider these things carefully and go home to read the Gospel of John in her Bible that night.
My daughter and I were amazed and thankful that God would choose to bless us with such an "easy" and fruitful witnessing opportunity on our very first attempt with a stranger. We reflected on the fact that we felt very well prepared for the discussion as a result of the Way of the Master training. What a powerful example and spiritual milestone for my 14 year old daughter! The next night while I was praying with my 10 year old daughter at her bedside, she asked if she too could go with me next time to share the Gospel with people! Through tears of joy I replied "Yes, that would be wonderful."
Thank you, Kirk, Ray, and the entire Way of the Master organization for allowing God to use you to impact my family for the Kingdom and cultivate our passion for the lost.
| Do you want to contribute your witnessing experiences, tract stories, and creative evangelism ideas to the "Coffee Break" column? Send them to: share@livingwaters.com and maybe we'll use yours!
(Please include your first name, last initial, and location, in case we use your story!) |
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