Bay Area Outreach Ministries Newsletters
Obeying The Great Commission
Dear Christian friends,
Before our Lord Jesus Christ ascended to Heaven, He left us with one Great Commission, to go into all the world, preaching the Gospel, making disciples of all nations. Two thousand years later, this task is largely unfinished. Every year, the percentage of people worldwide who have heard the gospel is decreasing. According to one study, 90% of all Christians in the United States never witness to anyone. Every year, we see more and more people in our country turn away from God. Yet how can we expect the unbelievers to take the Gospel seriously when we don’t show them that we take it seriously?
The dedication of the cults puts us to shame. Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW’s) have all the responsibilities of job and family that we have. Yet they witness an average of 4 hours a week. (At that rate it takes them 16 years to baptize one convert!) One day, I looked out my window and saw two JW mothers going door to door with their children in baby carriages. Why can’t Christians do that? One of the strongest arguments the JW’s use is that they are the ones who are out witnessing for Jehovah, not the Christians.
Every Mormon takes two years out of his life for full time missionary service around the world before settling down to raise a family. Why can’t we do this? If we did, we’d fulfill the Great Commission in no time. Instead, we come up with excuses for not evangelizing–it’s not my calling, I’m a silent witness, I’m too busy. We find fault with every method of witnessing and every evangelism ministry.
One of the main reasons we have a hard time witnessing is fear– fear of rejection by others. Nobody likes being rejected and when we preach the Gospel some people will be offended and reject us. Rather than admit this, we come up with other excuses for not witnessing. We need to overcome this fear, but we never will unless we are first convinced that we must witness for the Lord in order to be obedient to Him. We all love to claim the promises of God, but how many of us claim 2 Timothy 3:12, “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution”?
We all know that God has a plan for our lives, but many of us don’t realize that Satan also has a plan for our lives. The first part of his plan is to keep us from getting saved. Having failed in this, Satan’s second purpose is to keep us from witnessing to others. He does this through two means: 1. He makes us feel unworthy to witness because of our own sins. 2. He gives us a variety of excuses for not witnessing.
It is time that we stop listening to the enemy’s lies and commit ourselves to obey the Great Commission of our Lord. I believe each of us should be witnessing for Christ in our everyday lives. But I believe each of us should also be involved in some kind of organized evangelistic activity on a regular basis–door-to-door, on the streets, at nursing homes, prisons, juvenile halls, etc. I pray when the Holy Spirit leads me, but I also discipline myself to set a regular time aside for prayer. I fellowship with other Christians when God brings me in contact with them, but I also set aside regular times for Christian fellowship. I witness whenever I am led by the Holy Spirit, but I also set aside regular times for witnessing.
I would challenge each of you to commit at least a few hours a month to some kind of organized evangelism outreach, in addition to whatever witnessing you do in your everyday life. Instead of looking for reasons for being excused from such outreaches, we should instead be dedicating ourselves anew to reaching this lost world by every possible means. I also encourage you to share this teaching with your pastor. I believe that the responsibility of each Christian to witness needs to be taught from every pulpit. Next month, I’ll be sharing about how to get started in evangelism outreach.
Outreach Reports
On Saturday April 8, we joined with two hundred Christian youth from a dozen churches for Firefall ’89, an all-day outreach at the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Music groups from several churches played at the bandshell at the boardwalk all day long. The temperature was over 90 degrees so the place was packed with tens of thousands of people. We spent most of the day talking to young people on the beach. Almost everyone we talked with was extremely receptive to the gospel. Most of the people we spoke with believed in God and Jesus but thought they would be saved by their good works. We were able to explain the gospel to them and know that some were really touched. One young man we spoke with had received Christ earlier that day, and we could see real evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in his life. We hope to see a monthly outreach established in Santa Cruz involving these youth groups. Please pray that this will become a reality as this is an excellent harvest field with few laborers in it.
The outreach in Berkeley is going well. On March 31, thirty students in an evangelism program at Harvest Christian Fellowship in San Diego joined us at Sather Gate, at the entrance of the campus, for an outreach. This was the first time we had been at that location since my arrest, and it seems that we have a new freedom to preach the gospel in this location. On April 12, we preached for four hours at Sather Gate, with a large crowd gathered around most of that time. The police lieutenant told me he would not stop groups from using amplifiers there, even without permits. We have had no problems from the police for several months now, probably because of our victory in court. God has given us great freedom to preach the Gospel on Telegraph Avenue. Please pray that it continues, and leads to a great harvest.
My friend Mark Whitehead has begun a new outreach to San Jose called the Silicon Valley Outreach. Right now they are witnessing in downtown San Jose on Saturday afternoons. For more information, contact him at 1120 Nottingham Place, San Jose, CA 95117, (408) 244-7448.
Ministry Needs
We have a new addition to our Dakota St. evangelism house, Kaylyn Barta. Kaylyn has been a drama student for two years in Southern California. We are really happy to have her join us. We still have one opening in our house for a Christian who wants to join with us in evangelizing the Bay Area. Call or write me if you are interested.
This month’s “tape of the month” is called “God’s Heart for the Lost” by Darrell Walker. Before his death in 1981, Darrell was Director of Agape, Inc. and witnessed on the streets of San Francisco for many years. Darrell also stirred up hundreds of Bay Area Christians with a burden to reach the lost, and I think this tape will also impart to you something of God’s love for this dying world, and what it will take to reach it.
Our tract supply is almost gone and we are very much in need of new tracts. Our friend Al Marshall has offered to print tracts for us if we can pay for the paper. We are writing some new tracts and hope to print them soon. We certainly appreciate whatever you can do to help us with this need.
Thank you for your prayers and financial support for this ministry. God is opening some wonderful doors for outreach–we’ll share more with you next month. Please keep us in prayer. I hope each of you will consider making a regular monthly commitment to be involved in some form of evangelism outreach, and that some of you will join us on the streets. It is a great joy to witness for Jesus.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
Outreach Schedule
WEEKLY OUTREACHES—WEDNESDAY 10:30 AM-2 PM FRIDAY 6:45 – 11 PM SATURDAY 12-4 PM Meet at 3039 Dakota St., Oakland. Take 580 Freeway to Fruitvale exit. East on Fruitvale to MacArthur. Right on MacArthur to Maple. Right on Maple (2 blocks) to Dakota. Left on Dakota. House is 1/2 block up on right. Call to confirm meetings.
PRAYER MEETING – Tuesday May 30 7-9 PM. Meet at 3039 Dakota St., Oakland. Come join us to pray for the Bay Area and the needs of our ministry.
Special Outreaches
Saturday May 20 Santa Rosa Outreach. Meet at 10 AM at 3039 Dakota St. Call us for Santa Rosa meeting location.
Saturday June 3 San Leandro Cherry Festival. With Here’s Life- Greater Bay Area and Neighborhood Church, Castro Valley. Meet at 10 AM at 3039 Dakota St.
June 17-August 26 Vineyard Institute of Urban Ministries. Evangelism training and practical experience. The course concludes with the SOS-San Francisco outreach (August 7-19). I will be one of the teachers. For more information, contact Michael Flowers, Box 1127, San Francisco, CA 94101, (415) 558-9900.
