4/27/25

This week, Nick and I went to a metalcore concert with *Titus who we've been meeting with weekly to discuss the Bible and Christianity. The concert was totally radical (in Cali terms) and our meeting with *Titus beforehand was also great! *Titus seems to be getting closer and closer to accepting the Jesus of the Bible and he has identified that his main hindrance is reconciling his understanding that he was born with a losing hand. He struggles to accept the idea he's heard that we are born in the debt of another man (Adam). "How can a just God judge me for the sins of another man?" That is a great question with a serious weight to it emotionally and intellectually. This was the question that we began to address with *Titus in our meeting prior to the concert, and it sounds like he is beginning to recognize the significant distinction between inheriting the sin of Adam and inheriting the disposition to sin (sin nature). I agree that it would be hard to reconcile a just God with attributing to one man the sins of another; however, I don't find that to be the understanding provided in the Bible. It’s fascinating to observe how often people judge God (or their perception of Him) based on moral grounds, when the very concept of moral standards depends entirely on God’s existence. I’m consistently struck by the irony in conversations where individuals reject God on moral grounds, without realizing that rejecting God also undermines the very moral framework they use to criticize Him. If God did not exist, there would be no absolute moral standard by which to make such judgments. Assuming, however, that absolute morals do exist and are given by God, it’s quite absurd to think that a created being can hold a higher understanding than the Creator Himself, allowing them to judge the moral foundation He established. I think that our conversation with *Titus went well, and I look forward to our next meeting this week! Please pray that God would continue opening the heart of *Titus and revealing the unbiblical ideas that he has unfortunately been taught in the past and which now create emotional and intellectual barriers where there don't need to be any!

This week was Fullerton's city-wide community day, and our church was providing BBQ and Bingo for the residents at City Lights! Viany and I had visited the day prior to this event to deliver weekly food donations and help with various tasks around the building, and we were so blessed to be able to serve! It's always wonderful and exciting to serve at City Lights and our Bingo BBQ was no exception! We got to serve food to the residents, pray with the residents, eat with the residents, and more! I don't have much more to say about this except to encourage you to, if you don't already, find a community of people around you that you can serve and receive nothing in return, and you will most certainly be blessed in your service!

A few other updates:

• This week held the second meeting of a new DMC that I am leading over video call with a group of young adults in multiple states. We have begun our exploration, as those seeking to become like Jesus, the teachings of Jesus found in the Sermon on the Mount. This week, as part of our group's commitment to discipleship, we have the homework of sharing a 3-min version of our life with Jesus with three people. Please pray for this community as we continue exploring what Jesus taught in Matthew 5-7 and seeking to form the way we live our lives to be in accordance with that of Jesus!

• Today was the first session of a Bible-Dialogue training that we are doing with a group from Hutchinson Friends Church (my home church). This training is intended to equip disciples of Jesus with practical and effective tools that engage people of all levels of biblical literacy with the text of the Gospels through questions and dialogue. This tool provides an unintimidating approach to engaging someone with the text of the Bible and allowing them to discover who Jesus is, what He taught, and how His disciples (who strive to be just like their Rabbi - Lk 6:40) live obediently. This tool aims to meet the desire of many in the unbelieving population to have a nonjudgemental and considerate space to thoughtfully consider the claims of the Bible and come to their own conclusions without coercive or dogmatic methods. Please pray for this group as they seek to learn this tool and will ultimately implement it as a means to evangelistic engagement with people that they know!

• I've been trying to continue my conversations with the Jehovah's Witnesses in my neighborhood, but since my last conversation with them where I provided them thoughtful responses to their objections to my beliefs as well as additional biblical evidence for my position, I haven't seen them at their usual spot at the usual times. I really desire to continue our conversation and see them delivered from the Watchtower as well as the extremely unbiblical doctrines they are taught, but I need more opportunities to continue the conversation. Please pray that I would be given more opportunities to converse with these JWs and help them realize the opposition that the Watchtower poses against the true Jehovah.