Stoked.

I work at a hotel and do a lot of things that I'm not passionate about.

This Monday, however, I am doing something I'm very passionate about. I'm throwing an Outreach in Doherty High School in Colorado Springs. It's called, "The Doherty Event." Check out the website at www.thedohertyevent.com.

Many churches around the city are gathering and helping us pull this off so that people will be transformed by Jesus.

We have a hip hop group, band with trash cans, videos, give aways, monologues and a lot going on. I feel like a lot of people are going to show up and this is only the first one!
By the time we do our second THE DOHERTY EVENT next month, I have a feeling it's going to be jam packed.

For this first one, though, if it's not packed out, the energy in the room might be a little lower than we could have.

So, I'm asking that all of you reading this to come to the event. We need your attendance and your prayers. We want this room to be full of life and people like you.

The event information is on the website. Please come! People who are hopeless and in desperate need of the Christian message, like I was, will hear it, and I'm wanting you all to play a part.

-Pradeepan

As a non-believer...

My friend Ryan wrote this as a response to the letter written by Dutch Sheets. Ryan is my friend and he is a stud. He's introduced me a community of haikus and occasionally hooks me up with Starbucks. He's an agnostic that probably studies the Bible more than anyone reading this blog. Anyways, here is a question he asked, and my response.

I really would appreciate more input on this subject, so please discuss it by leaving a comment and then responding to the responses you get. Thanks.

Ryan wrote:

As a non-believer I'm curious as to how to respond to this.
Especially since I am one of those crazy paradoxical non-believers who study the scriptures as much as I can.
I suppose my question, or at least my biggest question, would be in regards to God's judgment and specifically God's judgment for an entire nation.

When looking at the Old Testament, I can see a precedent of God turning his back on, or allowing bad things to happen to the nation of Israel. The minor prophets especially seem to be about this particular subject matter. It is feasible, therefore, that God could also cause judgment to fall upon a modern nation like our own. However, it does seems like the New Testament represents a shift from God dealing with nation states to dealing with the individual.
Each person must account for their own actions.
Each person must come to Jesus themselves for salvation.

So here is my question:
So if an entire nation cannot be saved as a whole, How is it "godly" of God to judge an entire nation?
Especially when one considers that some eight out of ten Americans at least claim Christianity?

Also, how can one tell God's judgment apart from a natural or national disaster. Was 9/11 God's judgment? What about Hurricane Katrina?

Sorry that this response is so long, but as a seeker of truth, I am truly curious.

Pradeepan wrote:

Ryan,

Initially, I thought answering this question would be easy, but it’s not.
Like you said, it’s simple to understand that God judged in the Old Testament. It’s hard to find nation judging references in the New Testament.

The Greek word for Judge—krino—is used 182 times, but never for nations.
The Greek word for Nations—ethnos—is used 168 times, but not in the context of judgment.
The Greek word for Repentance—metanoia—is never used with the context of nations either.

Like you said, again, this makes it seem that God judges individuals, not nations.

Matthew 25:32
“All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”

If this true, then the opposite exists—it is impossible for God to bless America.
I may be wrong in this, but this also negates any collective purpose of and for a nation—American has no God given destiny.

This is assuming we are talking about church age, too. In Revelation, nations are getting judged all over the place. Even before Revelation, Luke 21:23-25 alludes to this,

“There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.”

Revelation 22:2
“And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”

There are many allusions to collective national consequences, but even these verses might not seem strong enough because they aren't directly dealing with a wrathful God, but a wrathful people (the Gentiles may have a purpose against the collective Jerusalem, not God).

If God was to judge a nation in the New Testamentt, we probably would have seen Paul talk about this in terms of the ongoing persecution and slavery present in the nation. We, however, do not see this.

I’m kind of rambling and figuring out what I believe as I write this. Honestly, it seems logical to me that God judges nations since it was a prevailing theme in the old testament. Still, I don’t accept that God does not judge collective groups of people, considering His treatment, warning and guiding of the Church for the collective goal of having a “pure and spotless Bride.”

How do you reconcile the individual’s purpose vs. collective purpose in light of Revelation and the Church?

Is Obama helping a pro-life movement more than conservatives?

Ryan Conell left me this link as a comment to my last post.

I read this in light of a statistic I recently heard.

In Colorado Springs alone, we have 800 orphans.
800 children that have no mommy to tuck them in at night, get them ready for the day, or wipe tears away. 800 children that have no daddy to teach them how to fight, throw a baseball or hug.

Now, consider this.

Colorado Springs has over 1200 churches.

That's almost 2 churches for every orphan, but nobody has collectively stepped up. I haven't stepped up. Doesn't this seem unacceptable.?

Pastor Jayde Duncan mentioned this in a sermon last week:

As a Church, are we ready for Roe. V. Wade to be changed? If we can't care for the children in our own backyard now, what would we do with the overflow of a un-aborted children?

Here's the link Ryan left. Please let me know what you think.

http://prolifeproobama.com/

Ryan, I want your response too.

-Pradeepan

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Easy Evangelism

Three Fridays ago, Daniel Henry, Amreitha Miller and I did an outreach. Our plan was to give out free hot chocolate, but that seemed too complicated (water and powder are difficult to put together). So we went to Safeway and bought 40 boxes of LITTLE DEBBIE snacks. Delicious.

We went to a movie theatre, set up all of our boxes, split up and handed them to people walking in and out of movies. Basically, we executed a simple plan:

1. Ask people if they want a free cookie
2. Give the free cookie
3. If they asked why we were doing this, we said “We want to show you God’s love in a tangible way with no strings attached.”
4. Refuse to accept any money.

I love this type of evangelism because it’s a low cost/high gain scenario. It’s not as awkward as approaching a stranger and beginning an intense conversation about the their past, and explaining how their future can be changed. If someone rejects us in this scenario, they are rejecting the cookie—not us. This makes it easy for most people--no matter how afraid--to engage in this evangelism.

For the most part, evangelism is something that Christians and non-Christians hate. So, we gave out cookies in an attempt to redefine what evangelism can look like.

Stories:
-Cop grabbed our goods and allowed us to stay on the property
-Engaged cop in philosophical conversation about Jesus
-People tried to pay us, but refused to take their money. They couldn’t believe that we would give them something for free.
-Prayed with a group of young girls
-Prayed with a girl about her mom going to jail for 15 years
-Shared the Gospel with many people as they asked about why we were out there
-One guy, Mike, joined us for the entire night. He even went out to eat with us afterwards

I want to do ministry like this more often and show people how easy and effective evangelism can be. People thanked us for being out there. We left very encouraged, and so did they. Booya.

Outreach Update

This is an email I sent out yesterday to the staff of Generation Church. It's pretty cool, so I'll let the internet take a peak.

Greetings Staff,

This email is just to let you all know what happened last night at Mitchell High School and some of the events leading up to it.

For the last couple of weeks, Ami has been doing an incredible job getting us into the schools. Basically, she talks and tries to work the legistics out with their staff everyday.

She got us a meeting with the Dean of Students on Tuesday Morning, so P.Jayde, P.Daniel and I went to Mitchell for that meeting. We shared our hearts, listened to his, and talked about how we could partner with the schools. At the end of the conversation with him, the Dean of Students began to cry as we prayed for him. It was a powerful moment and he asked if we would like to speak for 2-3 minutes at a Hispanic Family Night on Wednesday, as well as set up a table representing Generation Church.

This is quite amazing because the district specifically said we would not be able to advertise on any school grounds.

The Carillos, Joe, Carlos, Ami and I went there to speak and run our advertising table.

While we were there several amazing things occurred:

-Almost a month ago, 150 students were expelled for gang affiliation. This was the first event they were allowed back on the school grounds. We got to interact with almost all these kids

-Joe had been praying for an opportunity like this outreach and Ami called him within two days

-Everyone was super interactive with the students--our table definitely stood out in the group (we were the only group that had a table in the adult section and the distant youth section)

-Carlos intentionally smiled and pursued hard faced children. Many of them warmed up as soon as they received the warm greeting. This really messed with Carlos because he realized these kids weren't getting that kind of interaction at home

-We handed out free suckers and oatmeal cream pies. The people really wanted them!

-The school made us a banner to advertise! Amazing!

-Had several conversations with the principal and vice-principal

-Met several teachers asking if we wanted sponsors to get into the school

-One teacher asked if he could send "cutters" to our ministry

-Received prayer requests

These are just a few of the testimonies. It was an exciting and refreshing night. Thanks for all of your prayers.

I'm encouraged. We actually had our first ministry opportunity on MITCHELL!

We are walking in a lot of favor and I believe it's going to increase as we get closer to the plant.

Take that Satan!

-Pradeepan

Persecuted Christians in India

WATCH THIS VIDEO:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7670747.stm

Dear beloved sponsors and friends of Good News India.

We have never seen anything like this. We knew that Orissa was the most resistant and hostile State in India as far as the Gospel is concerned. And we brushed off the continuous threats and harassment we faced as we went about His work. But none of our staff imagined that they would see this kind of carnage.... And it seems to be totally under the radar of the Western Media ....

Let me explain.... A militant Hindu priest and 4 of his attendants, who were zealously going around the villages of Orissa and 'reconverting' people back to Hinduism, were gunned down by unknown assailants in Central Orissa last weekend.

Immediately the Christians were blamed. The cry rose up...'Kill the Christians!' And the horror began.... In the past 4 days, we have first hand witness to hundreds of churches being blown up or burned and many, many dozens of Christian tribals have been slaughtered. For no other reason than they bear the name of Christ.

Night and day I have been in touch with our Good News India Directors spread across 14 Dream Centers in Orissa... they are right in the middle of all this chaos.

In Tihidi, just after the police came to offer protection, a group of 70 blood-thirsty militants came to kill our staff and destroy the home. They were not allowed to get in, but they did a lot of damage to our Dream Center by throwing rocks and bricks and smashing our gate, etc.

They have promised to come back and 'finish the job.' Our kids and staff are locked inside and have stayed that way with doors and windows shut for the past 3 days. It has been a time of desperately calling on the Lord in prayer.

More police have come to offer protection. In Kalahandi, the police and some local sympathizers got to our dream center and gave our staff and kids about 3 minutes notice to vacate. No one had time to even grab a change of clothes or any personal belonging. As they fled, the blood thirsty mob came to kill everyone in the building. We would have had a mass funeral there, but for His grace. In Phulbani, the mob came looking for Christian homes and missions. The local Hindu people, our neighbors turned them away by saying that there were no Christians in this area. So they left. We had favor. The same thing happened in Balasore.

All our dream centers are under lock down with the kids and staff huddled inside and police outside. The fanatics are circling outside waiting for a chance to kill. Others were not so fortunate. In a nearby Catholic orphanage, the mob allowed the kids to leave and locked up a Priest and a computer teacher in house and burned them to d eat h. Many believers have
been killed and hacked into pieces and left on the road.... even women and children. At another orphanage run by another organization, when this began, the Director and his wife jumped on their motorbike and simply fled, leaving all the children and staff behind. Every one of our GNI directors that I have spoken to said: 'We stay with our kids.... we live together or die together, but we will never abandon what God has called us to do.' More than 5000 Christian families have had their homes burned or destroyed. They have fled into the jungles and are living in great fear waiting for the authorities to bring about peace. But so far, no peace is foreseen.

This will continue for another 10 days.... supposedly the 14 day mourning period for the slain Hindu priest. Many more Christians will die and their houses destroyed. Many more churches will be smashed down. The Federal government is trying to restore order and perhaps things will calm down.

We ask for your prayers . Only the Hand of God can calm this storm. None of us know the meaning of persecution. But now our kids and staff know what that means. So many of our kids coming from Hindu backgrounds are confused and totally bewildered at what is happening around them. So many of their guardians have fled into the jungles and are unable to come and get them during these trying times. Through all this, I am more determined than ever to continue with our goal: the transformation of a community by transforming its children. Orissa will be saved... that is our heart's cry. If we can take these thousands of throw-away children and help them to become disciples of Jesus, they will transform an entire region. It is a long term
goal, but it is strategic thinking in terms of the Great Commission.

What can you do? First, please uphold all this in fervent prayer. Second, pass this e-mail on to as many friends as you can. We must get the word out and increase our prayer base for this is spiritual warfare at its most basic meaning. We are literally fighting the devil in order to live for His Kingdom. The next 10 days are crucial. We pray for peace and calm to pervade across Orissa.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please pass it on and help us to get as many people to partner with us on this cutting edge effort to fulfill His mandate: Go and make disciples of all nations....

Prayer works!

Blessings, Chip & Sandy Wanner Col 2:2 MBI
Team Facilitators to YWAM frontlines