BALLIN'

My Evangelism Story

My best friend, Melissa, our freshman year.

Basketball has been a huge part of my life since I was in 4th grade. It became more significant in middle school when Melissa (who didn't even like me at first) invited me to play for her church league. Well, what she forgot to mention was that in order to play in the league, I had to go to church. So I sat through Sunday after Sunday for two years, doodling and sketching on my sermon notes and skipping Sunday school to go to Carl's Junior :) Melissa never shared the "gospel" to me in words, but her family lived it out in the way that they treated me - like I was their own daughter. Her dad spent his Saturdays and Sundays driving us to basketball practice and games for 3 years. Her mom did the same, and even invited me to their family gatherings. They were the family that lived out Christ's love and I honestly believe that was the best exposure to the gospel someone can ever have.

I guess sitting through Sunday sermons for 3 years finally worked. I remember Pastor Cory from Evergreen SGV gave a message on the heart of the Father. That morning, he made an alter call (as he did every Sunday), and something was different. I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to raise my hand because deep down inside, I really wanted to be loved by God. So I accepted Christ that day, without really understanding what that meant for my life. I thought being a Christian meant that I had to accept Jesus into my heart and then go to church every Sunday. I had this misconception for a few years until I went to college and recommitted my life (forreal this time!) to Jesus based on a similar message at Intervarsity.

I met with Jojo on Monday night and I asked her what her favorite part about SG was. She said that she really liked our groups "Culture Shock", where I give the group the background/ context of the passage. She said that when she's trying to tell her friends about Jesus, the first thing she wants to be able to share with them is WHY the Bible is true and all the facts about it. My weakness was that I didn't know the fundamental truths about God when I first accepted Christ. I love that SVCA is so focused on Bible truths - because God's Word is infallible and it breathes life into us. SVCA youth know that God is the ultimate Creator of the universe, the Author of Salvation and He is this HUGE God! But this is just ONE out of many aspects of who He is. He is also the Heavenly Daddy, the Father who cares for us so deeply that He knows EVERY SINGLE HAIR ON OUR HEADS. Psalms 139 tells us that He thought of us, not just when we were born, but from the very beginning of time. He had already imagined EVERYTHING about us!

So thanks Melissa, and the Gotos for showing me Christ's love through the way they loved me! :D

Evan-ge-Love

To be perfectly honest, I was kind of dreading writing this post when I saw David send out the email asking us to share our evangelism experiences.  I feel like a major hypocrite telling the youth to be bold and share their faith with their friends when I do it so rarely myself.

I must admit I haven't been very faithful in carrying out the Great Commission since high school.  Most of the time, when Jesus comes up in a conversation with my friends I just try to make Christianity not "seem so bad," or I try not to offend anyone.  But I've been realizing lately that this is such a loser mentality.  Am I really going to let my friends that I care so much about face eternal judgement and damnation just because I'm afraid of offending them or they'll think I'm weird?  I know this is a common fear that many people struggle with, but one I really hope we can overcome together as a fellowship.

I was definitely a lot better about sharing the gospel when I was younger.  My first time was with Felix in 5th grade on the field of John Muir Elementary during lunch.  The second time was with my good friend Johnson* (name changed), during freshmen year of high school.  I was studying with him in the library at Lynbrook after school when I brought up this cool post about the Professor & the Student (http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/professor.html) that I had recently read.  Knowing that Johnson was a thinker, I attempted to demonstrate how God really did exist and tried sharing with him from my own meager personal experiences.  Johnson was intrigued, and promised to come with me to church.  He did, for the next several weeks, and about a month later at a youth outreach he gave his life to Christ.

Here's where I failed.  Johnson came to our church for almost a full year while we still met at De Anza college.  Then  he stopped coming.  It started off as just one Sunday, and then a few more, until every time I asked him about it at school he always had some excuse not to come.  Rather than following up or praying for him, I let him be.  I had other things, bigger things, more important things on my mind, things that right now I don't even remember. Johnson told me at the end of sophomore year that he just didn't believe anymore, that he hadn't experienced God for himself and science had too many good answers.  He said he need "time to explore" and to find answers to his questions.  He asked me to respect his decision, and I did.  I never invited him to church again.

Johnson and I grew apart after we both went to college.  He attended UCLA, where he joined a frat, pierced his ears, joined a dance team, and started wearing designer jeans.  Today, he works in LA and plans on applying to Harvard or UPenn business school, and has the GPA and GRE score to back it up.  Unfortunately, I don't think he's stepped foot since the last time he was at ours in high school.

Upon reflecting, I realized that my greatest failure through this whole experience was that I lacked compassion and love.  There were so many times that I could have prayed with Johnson, encouraged him, read the Bible with him, or directed him towards those with more experience.  Instead, I left him to swim on his own thinking that he'd figure it out when he was ready, and in the end, his faith couldn't withstand the waves of doubt that overcame his fledgling Christian life.  I understand that this isn't all my fault, and that perhaps no matter how hard I tried Johnson was going to become an atheist anyway.  But the point is, I didn't try, mostly because I didn't care enough to try.

This week we've challenged the youth to each think of one friend that is unsaved and to start praying for them everyday.  I've already missed 3 days, and it's gotten me thinking: "how much do you love your friends?"  Do I really love them enough to want to see them in eternity?  Or do I just kind of care, sometimes, when I can remember?  I think the takeaway from all this that evangelism must be born out of love, otherwise it's just going to be a task we do, a check mark on our list, a scoresheet we bring to heaven and say, "Look God, I did it this many times!"  And that's really what Jesus tells us to do.  Love your neighbor.  Love your friends, and those people He put in your life.  Love 'em enough to share the gospel.

Sorry I know this is super long, if you made it this far, I really do love you.

These past few days I've been trying to stay away from watching tv during the day. I thought about reading The Hunger Games since all of my friends are into that right now. My friends gave me PDF files to all 3 books and David lend me the first book a few weeks ago. But for some reason I felt I should read something more useful. I picked up a copy of One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven this past Sunday and started reading it.

I've only read the first half of the book, so I should probably read the whole thing before judging it. So far the book is just stories after stories of the author's experiences with evangelism. I don't think he gave me any pointers or tips or anything advice on how to approach people yet.

After reading over a dozen stories on evangelism, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that evangelism is something you just gotta do. If you love your friends, you can't be afraid of rejection because ultimately if you love your friends, you gotta save them from hell. The worst thing that can happen is you lose a friend for 20~30 years. But the reward is so much greater: they get to spend eternity with God.

The author never starts off a conversation telling people they need Jesus or else they will burn in hell. He always starts off with questions such as "How certain are you that you will wake up tomorrow?" or "If you were to die tonight are you 100% sure you'll make it to heaven?" or "What do you think happens when we pass away?" The author never mentions this but it is more important to build a relationship with someone than to shove something in their face. He draws out the curiosity of people and engages in conversation with anyone he sees because he knows everybody needs Jesus.

I know we can all learn to step out of our comfort zones and reach out to pretty much everyone we run into. I wish I can say this is how my past experiences with evangelism have been but its far from it. I've never really had the passion for evangelism until after this one retreat. It was a week long retreat and we studied the bible for 8 hours a day. All we did was eat, sleep, and manuscript the bible. During that week I learned so much about Jesus and the bible. I was so glad I went and couldn't wait to share what I had discovered. 

For the next two weeks I scheduled to meet up with a different person everyday. I wanted my friends to know about all the interesting things in the bible that I just figured out. I started off the conversations just catching up with my friends. It was easy to bring up the retreat since it was during spring break and I was pretty much the only one that stayed in socal for the retreat. 

In the end the majority of my friends all said "that's cool and all but its not for me." One guy wanted to know about everything I learned during the retreat but once school started he didn't have time for Jesus. 

This is not what any of you want to read but since then I've pretty much stopped evangelizing to my friends. These friends are the ones I've known for years and have invited them to church or bible study over a dozen times. The weeks following the retreat was when I was SUPER passionate about Jesus and the bible and if  none of my friends wanted to have anything to do with it, why should I keep trying? Evangelism is not for me. Someone else can put up with it.

Earlier this post I wrote about how if I truly care about my friends, I can't give up on them. Even though my friends think they don't need Jesus, I really care about them so I have to be willing to face that rejection. I'll probably be rejected or laughed at but I can't give up on them. I guess evangelism is something I still gotta do.

My Experience Sharing the Gospel

 First and second year of college I lived a suite with these three non-christians who will not be named. They knew I was a christian, even though I didn't always act like one. As a we grew to be closer friends I had a bigger and bigger burden to share the gospel to them. So, one time I decided to invite them to a gospel night that our small group was having. I had such high hopes, thinking that if we were able to answer all of their questions, they would be saved. I thought to myself that if only they could understand what the gospel was really about then of course they would want Jesus.

So that night they came to the bible study and we debated and discussed every christian topic you could think. All of the hard questions came up and I had to dig deep, using all of my bible knowledge and logic to try to answer any question that they had. At the end of the night my friends left more resistant to Jesus than when they came in. Their conclusion of the night was that our faith was narrow-minded and uncompromising. I continued to try to invite them to different church gatherings and received more rejections than I can remember. Although they liked me as a friend and respected my faith, I couldn't find a way in.

In my second year, we continued to live together and our friendships continued to grow. Thankfully they continued to ask questions about my faith especially when it came to controversial political or scientific issues such as abortion or creationism. Then one night we were all hanging out randomly in one of the guy's rooms. We were casually talking and the topic of my faith came up. Our discussion got deeper and deeper as the night went on. I was determined to do it right this time. So I shared everything I knew about the gospel starting from the old testament to the new, about sin, God's promise, and salvation. I shared my own personal testimony without leaving out a single detail. Time flew by and before we knew it, it was already 4:00 am.

As much as I tried to explain and share, I came to a realization that night. Faith in Jesus cannot be convinced in someone through logic. I tried to tell them why salvation makes sense but it all came down to whether or not God is real. The only way to know whether or not God is real is to encounter him. But the only way to have a personal encounter is if its PERSONAL. I think for me that's the difficulty with evangelism, because after hours and hours of talking and explaining, it still comes down to a personal choice.

I still invite those friends to any church events that come up, but they're tired of saying no and just no longer respond. I still hope that someday the holy spirit will bring them to the place where they want more out of this life.

-Joseph

Just Do It

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations..." Matthew 28:19

To be honest, evangelism isn't a big part of my life. It's barely even a little part of my life. When it comes to teaching and building up young believers, that's not a huge problem for me. But when it comes to people who don't know Jesus and I feel like I need to preach the Gospel to them, I'm utterly lost. I've grown up knowing the importance of spreading the Gospel but I've always thought that it didn't have anything to do with me. Surely there are other people God called in order to spread His kingdom!

Most of my friends know that I'm a Christian, mostly from what I do on Friday nights and Sundays. And how I close my eyes to give grace before a meal. But I've never actually shared anything with them, and whenever I'm asked how church was it's always, "Good". From what I can see in myself, self consciousness is a huge reason why I've never been active in sharing my faith. When I was younger I would always have an issue of confidence and being self conscious of every single action that I did, always feeling like I wasn't good enough for anything. I tried my hardest to "fit in" with my friends, only to see that I never really did. I never denounced my faith but I didn't speak up when others were ridiculing it either. I dreaded to think how others would view me if they knew that I loved Jesus, most afraid of being labeled one of those "Christian losers".

One of the only times I've actually actively spread the Gospel I did for my own selfish reasons. When I was in middle school I really liked this girl who was one of my best friends, but I knew it was wrong to date non-Christians. So whenever she felt down or something bad was happening in her life I would always bug her to go to church and give Jesus a chance. Only many years later did I realize the negative impact that I had in actually spreading the Gospel to her; I was merely doing it for my own gain.

So this past Sunday there were three newcomers who just came to America to study English. When everybody went to go clean I felt kind of bad that they would be by themselves so I stuck around to try to talk to them a little bit. We ended up talking about Christianity and religion and I found myself explaining how Christianity isn't about a religion but more of a relationship. That's what makes Christianity different from all the other religions, we don't do things in order to gain our salvation. While I was sharing it felt like a really different experience, one that I hadn't felt in a long time and in my head I could only think, "Wow I'm actually doing this".

But then today I grabbed lunch with a friend that I haven't really hung out much because we have different schedules this quarter. I know that God has put him on my heart to invite him to our church but I've always come up with different kinds of excuses. He's from China and it's hard for him to get along with his roommates here. He also finds America really boring because he doesn't do anything except stay in his room all day, the only thing he can do. I know that I should invite him to Rainbow but I've always said to myself that I wouldn't be able to be with him so that wouldn't be good. And other excuses of the sort. And even today, I couldn't even bring myself to talk about God or religion. The only thing that he shared was, "I dropped a class because the English was difficult for me; it had to do with God which is so boring." Then I pretty much didn't even want to mention God in front of him so it wouldn't have a negative impact on him.

So all in all, I don't really know what I'm trying to say. These are just some of the experiences I've went through of sharing the gospel. This is definitely something I need to work on and recently through our discussions of getting the youth to invite their friends, I am starting to realize the lack on my part of evangelism and reaching out to non-Christians. But no matter how we feel I think Jesus' command sums it up quite nicely. He says, "Go!" There should be no hesitation, no excuses. This is one of those things that we need to Just Do It.

Nails done, Jesus done, Everything DID

disclaimer: these are NOT my nails.

So when I went to my regular nail spot yesterday to get em did, I was hooked up with this nail lady who is not my regular nail lady since I didn't make an appt. As soon as I sat down, I noticed a little Buddha on the desk, and suddenly I knew the Holy Spirit was prompting, especially since we've been emphasizing sharing the Gospel lately. My first thought was, "REALLY, God? You are not gonna make me share the Gospel with my nail lady today. This is expert level on evangelism - she's a stranger! And usually I need to prepare myself and  pray first and get in the zone to share the Gospel. I'm not ready today, but next time."


So fortunately, I gauged that she wasn't a talker. (Usually, they spend the whole time without engaging in conversation with you, or they'll start asking questions like "Do you have boyfrienddd?") But then she started talking about how it has been hard for her to sleep lately, and I start asking her questions about that....which led into her talking about her being so stressed out...which led into how she was having financial problems....which led into her talking about how she doesn't know what to do with her life....and how her life is really hard right now.....


She wasn't really being a Debbie Downer, but you could tell that she was genuinely hurting. We were having a really genuine conversation, and at one point, she got teary-eyed and needed to take a break for some kleenex. But at this point I realized that God was setting the stage up for me to share about Jesus. No doubt I was scared though. I honestly didn't know where to start, and the whole time I was praying for God to just give me the right words...


Finally, after some silence, I asked her if she ever prayed. She said she prayed to Buddha and one time even with a Catholic person at the church she walks around for exercise sometimes, but bad things always happen to her right after so she said that doesn't help. I was like, "Oh no, roadblock! Okay now what." Then I said, "You don't know what to do, you've tried everything..and if there's one last thing for you to try, then trust in Jesus." I shared with her a short testimony of how Jesus has changed my life, especially during the hard times how he's been my hope and peace. She really didn't have much to say after that, but she let out this big sigh and then she changed the conversation. Her coworker and another customer came in to sit down next to us too so I got scared to continue the conversation.


When she was done with my nails, we were talking about where I work, and I invited her to come to church. At first she said she was too busy, and then later she said that hopefully she can go to our church one day. Even though she finished my nails, she sat there and continued to just let out how she's been feeling lately. Since I had to go to class, I took out my wallet to show her it was time for me to go though. We went up to the front and she said she usually doesn't share her stuff with people, and she didn't want to say in front of her coworkers but she is always going through some really bad family problems. As I finished paying, I gave her a hug and held her hand and from the bottom of my heart I told her that again, she needed to trust in Jesus alone and to really believe in Him, and everything would be okay.


Even though I don't know if she will, I asked God to consistently keep her in my prayers so when I come back in 3 weeks, she can testify that her life has changed in some way. Then our Lord Jesus can take the credit and prove that He is the only one that is faithful and true, and worthy to be accepted in our lives. Hopefully we can continue our convo from there. I totally didn't expect that Jesus would be in our conversation before I walked into the nail salon. But God reminded me after that there are so many people in need of Him because of we are so limited as humans, there comes a point where we will lose control of our lives and we need a Savior not only for our situations but for our very souls.


Even though I didn't get to go into the full Gospel story with her, the experience of sharing about Jesus was not as scary as I thought. We have a lot of fears when it comes to sharing the Gospel - for her it was fear that I would be offending her Buddhist beliefs. There will be times that the Gospel is offensive, but it is never to be regretted - it's the TRUTH! When it comes to sharing with the people I love most, I fear rejection and disapproval....


For the longest time it's been hard for me to follow up with my friend Andrea since she accepted Christ during our last outreach event. There have been many opportunities and long drives between SJ and SSF with her, but thankfully God prompted me to finally follow up with her about her relationship with Jesus and guide us into that conversation last night. I'm excited for this because she can be my soul sista and partner in changing our homegirls for Jesus too! Pray for her to really understand the value of a personal relationship with Jesus.


And last night my sister slept over and we talked about Jesus in her life. Since she accepted Christ, I could see that God is changing her to rely more on Him. He's even changing her desires to live for Him and not herself anymore. But right now she is in a hard place in her life and she doesn't have a church family, so please pray for her too.


Sorry this was super long, but God can use us to bring His Kingdom on earth. I realized that sharing the Gospel is a lot easier when we constantly remember that this is what we are called to do as his followers. Always be prepared for any situation, any moment.


"Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching." - 2Timothy 4:2


"Instead, you must worship Christ as the Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it." - 1 Peter 3:15

clock is ticking down.

not funny!

I figured I already shared with everyone on Friday the burden I've felt lately for my friend. Evangelism, I've learned, is somewhat like sales. Your success rate will typically only be single digit percentage, but we've got to do it anyways... because those successes really end up paying off in the long run. A lot of times while I'm making cold calls, the only purpose it serves is as a courtesy notice, or a planting of the seed. I don't close the sale on the spot, but at least it gets our members to start thinking about it and how such-and-such a product could actually benefit them.

Fact of the matter is, EVERYBODY needs Jesus. People will always tell you otherwise, but we know it for a fact. Everybody.

Pastor Yu told me a story yesterday that I want to share with you all. When he was in his young teens, during his finals week, a female companion came and asked Pastor Yu if he could go visit one of her family friends to share the gospel with him. Young Pastor Yu agrees and takes the train to the hospital, goes into his room to talk to him and shares the Gospel with him. That same day, the young man gave his life to the Lord. Then that young man said, "There's a man in the next room over who also has a brain tumor, and I feel like he would really benefit from the Gospel. Please go share with him." Pastor Yu walks into the next room and sees a 40-something year old mountain man from the indeginous tribes in Taiwan. The man gets up and walks out of the room, down the elevator, out of the hospital, to a park next door. All the while, young Pastor Yu followed him at a distance, not knowing how to approach him. He's so big. He looks so tough. I can't speak Taiwanese. He looks fearless. I'm scared. Excuses ran through his mind as he hopelessly try to overcome these fears.

Finally, the man went back to the hospital, back up the elevator, and into his room. "Lord, I don't think I can do this. I'm so scared." Right then and there, the love of Christ washed over him, and he saw the sickened man through the eyes of Jesus. His heart filled with compassion for the man and he boldly went into his room and began to share the Gospel with him. Within 10 minutes, the man had given his life to Jesus. They prayed together, then Pastor Yu asked if the man had a Bible and he said no. The next day, Pastor Yu took the train back to the hospital (about 90 minute ride, and keep in mind this is his finals week) to bring the man a bible. Chinese people typically will pray to any and every god in times of distress so he had to remind the gentleman, "remember, there is only one true God. You cannot worship any other gods besides this one." The man told him that his heart was filled with such peace these last 24 hours that he had no doubt he finally found God. He went into surgery later that day, and 3 days later of being in a coma, the man passed away.


***


When I heard this story I really didn't know how to feel. On average, about 7000 people in the US alone die per day, and I think it's safe to say that a majority of them don't have a personal relationship with God. The gospel is what we call, a "non-renewable resource." Each day we don't share is another day lost. It's easy to feel passive about passing on the Gospel, but how amazing would it be if everytime we felt scared or didn't cared about sharing Christ's love with someone close to us, we would also be able to see them through the eyes of Jesus? Evangelism is definitely a weak point in my walk of faith. I look forward to reading what the rest of you have to say on this.

3 things about God's commands

A devotion I shared with my seniors:

Matthew 2 is basically about the magi visiting Jesus and Joseph, Mary, and Jesus escaping from Herod's baby killing.

A quick story to share: 1 of my two best friends of 20 years Kristine is turning 26 today, and tomorrow she's celebrating her birthday tomorrow by having a hotel party and bar-crawling (going from bar to bar) in SF. The past 3 years she's had her birthday in Tahoe, Vegas, or anywhere out of town and I've had to miss it. I've never missed any of her birthdays since we were 5. Even when I was in college, I'd fly up for her birthday celebrations. So I asked her this year to make her bday in town so we can celebrate together! So what do I do now that she is having a hotel-party-bar-crawl birthday celebration? 

1. God has commands for us to carry out.

God put a star in the sky to lead the magi, He warned the magi not to return to Herod, He told Joseph in 3 dreams to get away from where he was at. What would've happened if they didn't listen? And even if they had to listen, did they want to? The fact of the matter is they DID - and I want to say I listened to God too. But first I have to be ready to receive a command from God instead of making decisions on my own, which I do most of the time!

2. God is an all-knowing and protective King!

King Herod was outsmarted by the magi and because of this he went crazy on the baby murders! Our King is not like that. He knows everything and wants to protect us, which is why he commanded the magi to go another route and Joseph to escape. It's easier to obey a King who knows more than us and wants us safe. But the similar thing about King Herod and our King is that as kings, they send people out to report back to them (v 8). If God sends me out to an un-Christian crowd/situation, what will I report back to Him?

3. Following God's commands brings us EXCEEDINGLY GREAT JOY!

A lot of people can live their whole lives not knowing what this is like. It's unexplainable and no one can re-create it. But we are guaranteed to experience this when we follow God's commands. This is what the magi felt when they followed the star to where Jesus was (v 10). How can I be at Kristine's birthday party while still following Jesus all the way?

Find out on Sunday and pray for me! God is faithful and true. Thanks for being my accountability! :)

Love,

Melissa

Work as Worship

Hey guys this is a video with Vitor Belfort, one of my favorite UFC fighters. He's a christian and he's not afraid to tell people about his faith. At the end of fights he always thanks God and his attitude towards fighting and competition is always positive. On top of that he's hella good, his nickname is "The Phenom". Won UFC 12 when he was 19.

But yea it just reminded me of what we've been talking about and how we can put God first in whatever we do, even fighting.

A lot of christian celebrities/athletes have made vids like this on youtube, search "I am second" if interested.