SOS Ministry Newsletter - March 2008

Help Wanted! - Evangelist

Dear Christian Friends,

When I came to San Francisco in 1975, I looked for a church that was committed to evangelism. I found a small church of about 100 that had two full-time staff members: a pastor and an evangelist. The primary ministry of the evangelist was to train church members to evangelize and oversee outreach ministries in the church.

Today, the staff evangelist seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur. I am familiar with hundreds of churches, but do not know a single one that has on staff an equipping evangelist. Some are large churches with thousands of members and 30 or 40 full-time staff members, yet nobody on staff has as his primary ministry to equip, motivate, and coordinate outreach ministries for the church.

There are two kinds of church growth: the addition of new converts (conversion growth) and attracting Christians from other churches (transfer growth). Most church growth that has occurred in the U.S. since 1980 is transfer growth. Adding a youth pastor, singles pastor, or music minister to your staff will make the church more attractive to Christians, contributing largely to transfer growth. Adding an evangelist to your church staff should lead to conversion growth.

Many churches today experience growth by attracting self-centered, worldly Christians and false converts who like attending church. Our churches would be healthier without such people. Instead, we need to attract true believers who want to die to self and serve Jesus Christ by reaching out to the lost.

"Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but from the strength of the ox comes an abundant harvest" Prov. 14:4. Evangelists cause problems for the church. They challenge complacent Christians to witness. They bring new believers into the church with lots of problems. Often long-time church members don't want these new people in their church.

What our churches need is a "back door revival." We could use a few "blessed subtractions" of those who oppose the Great Commission. A good way to achieve this is to hire a full-time staff evangelist. Give him opportunities to preach on Sunday morning about the responsibility of Christians to witness and to train people in witnessing. Give him freedom to organize, facilitate, coordinate and promote various kinds of outreach in the church. Those who do not want to witness can find hundreds of other churches to attend. Those who believe in the Great Commission will be attracted to a church that is committed to evangelism.

I encourage each of you to speak with your pastor, elders, and church board. Urge them to make the next person they hire an equipping evangelist. You can show them this teaching. Then pray. Pray that God will raise up an evangelist in your church who can be on staff, or lead you to one who would work well with your church fellowship. Pray that God will move in the hearts of your church leaders to hire him. Please call or write me if I can help you with this.

Dan’s Testimony

We have a new member of our ministry house: Dan Losak. Here is his testimony:

I was raised in a Jewish home in New York. I received some religious training and was Bar Mitzahed, but my family was essentially non-religious. My father left home before I was born. I was raised by my mother and step-father. After I entered Queens College, I started using drugs. After my mother died in 1979, I started using drugs more heavily. I committed a felony and ended up in a psychiatric ward with a serious mental breakdown.

After one of the patients witnessed to me, I called upon the Lord Jesus to save me one night. The Full Gospel Tabernacle came to the ward on Sundays, providing me with fellowship. I was released in November, 1980 and still had to deal with the felony. I could have been sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was sentenced to only one year of probation.

For the next 10 years, I returned to my old lifestyle of drug use. In 1988 I moved to San Francisco. In 1989, a Christian friend of my uncle invited me to attend Bayshore Baptist Church in Daly City. I rededicated my life to Christ. I am presently attending Christ Bible Church in San Leandro.

I began doing street evangelism with my church in 1999, and have been witnessing on the streets fairly regularly since that time. Last November, I met Eric Baxter at a Bible study. I began witnessing with SOS and felt that God wanted me to minister with them and live in their evangelism house.

Since moving into the house, I have had some good witnessing experiences. Last Saturday in Berkeley, I spoke with a group of teenagers (photo p. 1). They had lost a backpack and it was returned intact. They asked me if Jesus was responsible. I told them about a Christian friend’s experience getting a stolen car returned. I also witnessed to two Muslims. One asked for prayer. I had the opportunity to discuss the basic tenets of Christianity with the other.

Recently, several members of my church have expressed an interest in joining us on the streets. Last Saturday, Brother Tek showed up in Berkeley and preached over the microphone.

Fruitvale District, Oakland Outreach
By Larry DuBois

One of my favorite places to witness is in the Fruitvale District, about 2 miles from our house. In one part of Fruitvale, there are hundreds of Hispanic people who are very open to taking tracts and Bibles. Most of them are very humble people. Out of 100 tracts I only get turned down about 5 times. Right before Christmas, I was passing a church that had a line of people that went down the block. They were giving out food or clothing. Eric and I stopped and gave out all our tracts. Nearly everyone was eager to take a Gospel of John or a tract and to listen to us. We spent about an hour there ministering to people. I lifted my voice and preached out of the Gospel of Matthew about the birth of Christ. I then got to pray for them. It was awesome.

ON THE STREETS

Click on Photos to Enlarge

	Dan Losak witnesses to Berkeley teens (story above).
	Paul and Noreen Coca and grandson Paul sing in Berkeley
	Girl reads gospel tract in Berkeley
	Fruitvale Village, Oakland
	Paul and Noreen’s grandson Paul Coca gives out tracts in Berkeley

Coming Events

Note: Outreaches are subject to change. Call (510) 531-5325 or 213-2584 (cell phone) to confirm outreaches or for more information.

Friday March 7, 14, 28 7:30 - 10 PM Witnessing in San Francisco neighborhoods.

Sat. March 8, 15, 29 Berkeley Evangelism Outreach. Telegraph and Haste St. 12:30-4:30 PM.

Ministry News and Needs

Thank you again for your prayers and financial support for this ministry. Please continue to pray for us, and for those who have responded to the gospel or have mailed in responses to our tracts recently, including Willis, Joe, Jim, Debra, John (SF), Asia (age 13 – Sacramento), Alex (Anchorage, AK), Brian (Cordell, OK), Loretta (Tampa, FL), Jason (SF jail), Theodorus (Vacaville prison), and Janell (Norwalk, CA prison). I hope many of you will join an outreach this next month.

Our Tape of the Month is The Purpose of the Church by Pastor Dave Wells of Harvest City Church, Regina, Saskatchewan. This teaching is a strong exhortation for the church to be mobilized to evangelize the world. Ancient Rome had plenty of social problems: slavery, killing of infants, sexual abuse of children, idolatry, homosexuality, etc. But there is no hint that the early church focused on anything except our Lord's commandment to go into all the world and preach the gospel. The result was that multitudes were transformed by Jesus Christ and as their perspective changed, many of these social evils were done away with. But the focus of the early church was on the preaching of the gospel and discipling of believers. We also need to make this our focus. People are dying without Jesus. We need to do everything we can to reach them before it’s too late!

Yours in His love,

Larry Rosenbaum