3/12/25

This past weekend, Nick and I traveled to the great state of Kansas (definitely not biased...) to help lead a seminar on personal evangelism at Barclay College. We arrived Thursday evening and immediately jumped into the seminar where we discussed and practiced the following:

• Prayer Walking - We emphasized the extreme value of engaging with God through prayer as we grow in compassion for those around us and seek to join God where He is already at work in it. This practice is almost as simple as it sounds, and we were able to go out in groups multiple times throughout the seminar to participate in this practice. The first night of the seminar, we went out in pairs to pray over the community within and around the college, and the second night we focused on seeking where God was already at work and inviting us to join Him. This is a wonderful practice that is extremely versatile and applicable to almost any context! I would encourage you to try implementing this into your ministry plan as you seek to engage with different groups of people. This is a multi-layered tool that grows compassion within you, provides more opportunities to engage with those you are praying for (as you walk publicly), and intentionally seeks to discern the will of God and how you can partner with Him in His ministry. 

• Sharing Your 3-Minute Testimony - In this practice, we compiled a three-minute version of our awakening to Christ and His call. We took time in the seminar to write out a rough idea of how this might go in an everyday conversation. There are three sections in compiling your three-minute testimony: Before you awoke to Christ and His call, how/when you awoke to Christ and His call, and how your life has changed since awakening to Christ and His call. This tool helps to prepare and equip you to easily share your testimony with those you engage with and minister to. In this seminar, we compiled this brief version of our testimony and later went out and shared it with strangers in an evangelistic exercise. This is a wonderful tool to help you become more confident and ready to answer other people when they ask how you became a follower of Jesus - and this should naturally happen as you engage in simple evangelism practices.

• Understanding the Gospel Message - It might sound strange at first, but I am persuaded that one of the greatest tragedies in our world today is the misunderstanding of Jesus' main message. As we have seen in California as well, the general understanding of the gospel in America is extremely focused on being saved from Hell and sent to Heaven; however, I would argue that this is only a small piece of what Jesus' message taught. In this section of the seminar, we walked through the restorative nature of the gospel as Jesus came to free us from the bondage of sin and darkness that has oppressed all of creation since the pages of Genesis three. We talked about the promised offspring that would come and crush the head of the serpent and restore mankind to peace with God and creation. We saw how this gospel naturally leads us to participate in the restoration of our relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation through the transformational power of the Holy Spirit and participation in God's kingdom. When we properly picture the message of the gospel Jesus heralded, it almost seems impossible not to join God in His work! The Beatitudes make a lot more sense when we realize that the gospel is good news to those who are dissatisfied with the broken state of mankind and yearn for the reconciliation of all things!

• Evangelism Exercise - One the last day of the seminar, we went out in groups of five to the surrounding area to practice some of the tools we had become equipped with in the past sessions. There were a variety of evangelistic expressions, but among the diversity of approaches there was a general excitement and joy as we gathered to share with each other how our time had been out evangelizing! I joined a group of guys that walked through Haviland sharing their testimonies with people door-to-door and practicing active listening (a huge tool in evangelism!). My group started off a little apprehensive, but by the end they were experiencing the joys of practical evangelism! Nick's group went to Pratt and posed a question outside of Walmart with a whiteboard (if it works, it works!). They reported wonderful stories and even a near conversion that one of the students plans to follow up with! Overall, this group of ~40 students was able to practice applying these evangelistic tools (as well as others) and share with each other their experiences in the domestic mission field!

This is an extremely brief overview of our time at Barclay for this seminar, but it gives a small insight into what we were up to this weekend! If you are interested in learning more about these tools for your own personal evangelism, please, do not hesitate to reach out to us with questions! We are always happy to share with you what we have found to be helpful tools and practices in evangelizing in the American context!

On our first day back from Kansas, Nick and I took most of the day to rest from the weekend and traveling; however, we met with *Jacob who we met last week while eating lunch with a ministry friend. You can read a little bit more about how we met *Jacob in my last blog to get more background if you would like.

We met again with *Jacob to continue our conversation about his discipleship journey and to hear about a dream he had received since our last meeting. After getting our food and sitting down, *Jacob told us plainly that he was confident that he is one of the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7 and that he is currently trying to discover what tribe he is in. Shocked by this unexpected assertion, we asked *Jacob how he came to this conclusion, and he proceeded to tell us that he has been seeing the number 144 everywhere and had even had dreams that seemed to confirm it to him. After some more questions, we discovered that *Jacob was learning these things from a YouTube channel called Daughter of the Most High - Angela, and he was convinced that the teaching was true. Unaware of what this channel was at the time, Nick guided *Jacob through the biblical tests for a prophet as well as alternate interpretations to this passage of scripture. We strongly encouraged *Jacob to be cautious in what prophetic voices he allows to guide his life (as he was even making plans to move in the next few months). We are scheduled to meet with *Jacob again this next week where we hope to provide him with specific examples of false teachings and contradictions that this youtuber claims are directly from the mouth of God. Please pray that God would protect *Jacob from this teaching and give him clarity as he tries to navigate this unsound teaching that could have serious implications on his life and discipleship to Jesus. Please pray for wisdom and insight as Nick and I engage with *Jacob as we have indication that *Jacob is also being influenced by past military experience and the grief of his father's recent death. May God grant *Jacob discernment to see the wolves dressed in sheep's clothing that are claiming unbiblical, unsupported, special authority over God's (supposed) end-time army.

Thank you for your partnership in prayer for this ministry!

With love and peace,

Ivan Penrose