6/21/25

This week was pretty epic! On Tuesday, Nick and I went back to Huntington Beach for more evangelism and even got to use our whiteboard method! We got into a conversation with a man on the pier, who we found to be a Christian, and he has been a long-time visitor of this beach and affirmed that we should try the whiteboard evangelism in that area. We hadn't been sure how it would be received, but with this conversation we set out to try it! It was wild how well it worked in this environment, and it felt like we switched from rod fishing to net fishing as people were naturally drawn to the board! We had a number of great conversations due to the whiteboard method, but we felt that there could be some improvement made for our engagements with Christians. In hopes of providing greater challenge and reflection for those who already claim to be a Christian, we are planning to have bonus questions that they get to draw from and engage with. We think that this will be a productive way to engage this demographic with a challenge or point of reflection on their discipleship and devotion to Jesus! 

We also have begun meeting with two new DMCs for this summer and we are stoked for these communities! We have already seen such hunger and engagement among them and have been blessed to see their desire and willingness to step out into uncomfortable challenges of obedience to Jesus! I just learned that one young lady from our group has already shared the Gospel and led a man to Christ just today! She has a wild boldness and eagerness to follow Jesus wherever He goes, and we are blessed to see how God is powerfully using her willingness and obedience! This past week, both of our DMCs were given the homework to practice sharing their three-minute testimonies with five people, and there were some wonderful stories that were shared just by that simple homework! In one of the DMCs, we talked about how intimidating it can be to share our testimonies with different people, and this led to a very good discussion about receiving boldness from the Holy Spirit! We looked at the response of the early church to persecution in Acts 4, and we saw how they prayed to receive boldness - so we too prayed that God would fill us with His Spirit and boldness to proclaim the truth to others around us. It's interesting that, throughout the book of Acts, all recorded prayers related to evangelism are requests for boldness, not opportunity. Though God certainly guides the apostles’ movements, the church’s explicit prayers focus on having courage to speak when those doors open. I've certainly found it to be true in my experience that the opportunities are there, and the issue is my lack of courage and boldness to open my mouth. However, we need not despair as Jesus said in Luke 11:13 that the Father gives the Holy Spirit to all those who ask!

After one of our DMCs, Nick and I were able to check out a potential evangelism location at an area shopping mall. It looks like a very promising location that is ideal for productive evangelism - so ideal that other religions had the same idea. As we walked through the lively shopping center, I was discussing with Nick a genuine question that I have about how Jehovah's Witnesses interpret John 1:3 and a few other verses that are similar. Their inaccurate 'translation' of the Bible has dramatically changed many verses regarding the deity of Christ, but they surprisingly didn't change John 1:3 or a handful of other verses about Jesus being the creator of all things. As we walked and considered this seemingly clear verse compared to their contrary doctrine, we found ourselves some JWs who had a table set up to witness to those in the mall. "Well, I guess I can just ask them..." So, we went over to their table and asked how they understand John 1:3 in the NWT? They said that they understand it in the context of the passage, so I asked what part of the passage context helped them know this wasn't about Jesus' divinity. They confidently pointed me to verse 18, which was pretty painful as this verse pretty clearly says that Jesus is God as well. I continued to ask questions about their hermeneutics, but they all too quickly got offended that we were asking them questions about these sensitive verses. I wish that I could show to you how genuinely gentle our approach was and yet how adversely they reacted to our presence. They tried to end our conversation by telling me that this wasn't the appropriate time or place to ask these kinds of questions and should set up a home Bible study instead. I do plan to do this regardless, but Nick and I were kind of blown away that they literally call themselves the very witnesses of God and yet they won't witness to us when we ask. We asked a few more questions about how they view those outside of the Watchtower Organization and they surprisingly answered with a universalist response. They said that people of any religion can be saved and that God looks at the heart of a person and accepts their wrongly applied worship to Himself instead of the false God. I'm not sure what was up with these people, but they aren't true JWs because the Watchtower clearly teaches that they are the one true group, approved by Jesus after His invisible return in 1914. Regardless of what these people actually are, they continued to get upset by our conversation and they comically told us that we had to leave and not come back to talk with the other JWs later. We reminded them that it was a free-speech area and they couldn't force us to leave (as we were very peaceful and respectful), but they proceeded to threaten to call security to have us removed. It looked like they were pulling out their phone to call, but then they walked away, so we decided to continue on our way - still with no clarity on John 1:3.

Please join us in praying for those engaged with DMCs this summer as they seek to become more conformed to Jesus through the reading of His word and obedience to it!

Please pray for the Archways workshop that Nick and I will be leading tomorrow for the first time. Please pray that we will be empowered by the Holy Spirit and that those who are involved would become more like Christ as a result of it!

Please pray for the various people that we get to meet with throughout the week to read and discuss the Bible with, as well as those we meet while doing evangelism at the beach!