Testimony about the Gospel and Tracts

Yesterday we had the opportunity to host two Lutheran churches/youth groups from Indiana for some evangelism and rock climbing. We started the day at Red Rock Canyon, doing a short evangelism training and then took as many of the 27 people rock climbing as wanted to go – which was most of them! It was a blast - most of them had never seen anything like Red Rock Canyon!

We met back up in the evening at the Bellagio and in around an hour reached over 2000 people with the Gospel. Personally, I talked with people from Holland, Turkey, Hungry, France, England, Scotland, China (we gave a whole stack to a couple from China who wanted to take them back and give them to their friends), Mexico, Ethiopia, and many, many more places. And with our new tracts, they not only share the Gospel but also include information on how to plant underground house churches.

How did this group find us? The reason why they found us is because a person from one of their churches got a Gospel tract from us last year with our web address on it, and the youth leader then contacted us and they came to Las Vegas to share the Gospel. Pretty cool!

-Scott Linklater

Simple Church, Trust, and Unity of Vision

Regarding a new Barna study that says...

∆ 71% say they are “more likely to develop my religious beliefs on my own, rather than to accept an entire set of beliefs that a particular church teaches.”

and regarding questions...

"What would be your insight and experience with Simple Church being a means to re-establish trust in a community? How does a group of people in a Simple Church environment develop their religious beliefs?"

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D*******, first, amazingly great questions!!!

the fundamental question is do we feel comfortable with people coming to their own conclusions in their relationships with God after we've laid the initial foundation of trust in Jesus out of our own relationship with Him --or-- do we need to direct their conclusions in a unified manner and structure their interactions with God in a quantifiable fashion?

On the first question of developing beliefs in a simple church community, certainly, I would argue that there are clear primary doctrines that stand out in the Scriptures (Jesus being God, Jesus's grace and our faith being the pathway to salvation, divine scriptures, etc...), but here is a difficult question to complete unity in vision and doctrine: Is my 9 year old, who believes in Jesus as Lord and Savior, saved? She has no doctrine, other than Jesus.

The next fundamental question: is discipleship a structured action following a preset course of study and doctrine --or-- is it primarily a relational activity of being available to the person to help find answers to their questions as they have them through prayer, by asking good questions, and pointing them to scripture (socratic in a sense)?

My daughter believes in Jesus and has a functional understanding of Jesus, reads here bible, etc... but does not fully grasp deeper points of Christianity. But is she saved? I would argue yes. Does discipleship happen? Yes. Last Saturday we had a friend in the home that prayed for another friend and prayed in tongues during the meeting. After the meeting my daughter asked my wife what that was...and then she helped her find the answers - we didn't sit her down an teach her, ...we were available and when it came up, we searched it out together. This pattern is not only with our daughter, but our neighbors, and those we've discipled for years (I just didn't know that it was called simple church then - lol!!)

I would argue that our desire for mass unity to very specific visions, teaching methods, church models, etc... has hindered the expansion of the Kingdom on it's most basic level, salvation - a level that a child can understand and, because of that child-like faith, is saved. Unity of vision is not all bad...currently, it's just unbalanced.

Education beyond our personal level of faith breeds a false sense of righteousness and a false sense of religion/Godliness. Lets let our knowledge of God grow from our personal relationship with God, based in the Scriptures, and not on a 9 week course (because 8 of those weeks will cover information that the person hasn't really sought out yet, nor will they understand largely, and will probably forget). "But what if they don't understand everything?" My question back is "are we secure enough to let that be OK?" and "Doesn't that lack of understanding drive them to God to find answers over a period of time, when they are ready to hear it?" We sort of get the attitude that, "OK God, we got it from here."

This does not discount teaching and the value of teaching, but we have become unbalanced toward knowledge and placed too high a value of structured knowledge ... and sacrificed simplicity and authenticity along the way. This is largely driven by our desire to grow at a rate that is not natural, both our church size and spiritual maturity (which then puts unneeded pressure on all involved). and then, if they haven't followed our unified path, we question their maturity and limit their movement forward in serving - because how could they grow outside of our direction? ...this is not health - this is control. We need less control and transfer more control back to God's direction and his ability to direct a relationship with a person outside of our control - we have to trust God again, and stop convincing people to trust us.

So, back to the other original question: how do we establish trust? What are we asking them to trust in? Us? An organization? or Jesus? If I am pointing them to Jesus, then I am not asking them to really trust me - they can come to their own conclusions, I am a messenger....but awe ha: are we secure enough to let people come their own conclusions?

great questions to kick around!!

Scott Linklater

Interview on SOS Radio

This interview with Kurt Goff from SOS Radio (a nationally syndicated Christian radio station) was recently played on their station and wanted to share it with you! It covers a book that was published with Joshua Tree Publishing in February which focuses on landing a job in Las Vegas. Click on the link below and you can play the interview.

http://www.box.net/shared/xgbd1udxli

-Scott

Gospel Tract Update: 80,000 !!!!

This stadium is planned for the 2012 Olympics in London and it will hold approx. 80,000 people. Imagine preaching to that many people, most of whom not being Christian? We are thankful to God to have been a part of doing just that - tonight, we put the Gospel in the hands of the 80,000th person on the Las Vegas strip.

It was a great night and we had about 20 people/evangelists out there, and actually ran out of tracts very quickly (we did 2,500 in about 30 minutes). Personally, I talked with/shared the Gospel with people from Israel, Germany, Denmark, Kosovo, Serbia, Russia, Columbia, Mexico, tons of different states, England, Scotland, Hungery, France, Phillipeans, and the list goes but I can't remember them all.

We are sharing the Gospel with people at an incrediable rate, the only problem is that we run out tracts so quickly. We need help purchasing more tracts. Please click on the dontate button to your right, or contact me directly at evanglism@jesusinvegas.com and have tracts sent to us.

Thank you for your support - lets keep launching the Gospel all over the world!

A beautifully orchestrated chaotic multiplication

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To download a free copy of Scott's book Spiritual Anatomy, please click here or visit www.lulu.com/expectationmedia.
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{this is a response to a question/phone call regarding some of our simple church members visiting other churches, simple church members identifying gaps in ministry (ours and others), and members feeling called to expand/branch out in ministry without asking me first}

I think one of the difficulties that many pastors and leaders have when transitioning to a more simple model is releasing control, and that lack of control actually makes people from the outside feel uncomfortable because it appears to be weak, crumbly, or doesn’t follow the process we are used to.  Our church culture  says that terms like “unity in vision”, “submission to leadership”, “on the same page”, are signs of healthy ministry which I wouldn’t necessarily agree with, nor do we practice completely. What you witnessed are young people wrestling with the calls that God has on their lives and them sensing the need to fill the gaps of ministry. I feel completely comfortable with those conversations, and actually encourage and lead them in that direction (sometimes without them even knowing it).

We are creating a radically uncomfortable environment that forces each individual to fill in the gaps of ministry and not wait or rely on the “the church” as an organization to do it. They are the church, and they are seeing things that need to be done, and eventually they will respond to that by branching out and starting new ministry, which we will then help them do. This is living in a starfish manner (if you are unfamiliar, research what happens to starfish when they get broken into several different pieces). {they each grow into an individual starfish}

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To download a free copy of Scott's book Spiritual Anatomy, please click here or visit www.lulu.com/expectationmedia.
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How do you reach 5,000 in 2 hours? March 28th update…

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To download a free copy of Scott's book Spiritual Anatomy, please click here or visit www.lulu.com/expectationmedia.
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Last night we broke our one day record by putting the Gospel in the hands of 5,000 people in approximately 2 hours (7-9:30, but we stood around for 20 minutes waiting for a refill of tracts). Thanks to Earth Hour the regular Bellagio Fountain did not happen from 8:30 – 9:30 (they dimmed the lights on the Strip to ….do something important and effective?). The Treasure Island pirate show was canceled, so that dispersed one of our regular crowds. At first we thought this would cause people to vacate the Fountain too, but the opposite happened. Instead, they gathered, and gathered, and gathered, all waiting for the next water show. By the time it did happen, there were several thousand people surrounding us. Immediately after the show, we handed out around 1000 tracts in 10 minutes. We had two different groups join us last night, and we actually had several people spontaneously join us by helping hand out tracts (one of them was Muslim – I have no idea what happened there or how that happened).

After we ran out, the hardest part is seeing how the sea of people keeps flowing and we don’t have any more tracts to hand out. Please consider helping purchase more tracts by clicking on the donate button on the right. Thanks for your continued prayer and support, and please email me at evangelism@jesusinvegas.com if you’d like to join us or learn more about what we do. For an example of what it looks like, please view our newest video short at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW540wuzaD4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fexpectationmedia.com%2F&feature=player_embedded

On a side note, at one point last night a large number of cop cars stopped/blocked traffic on Las Vegas Blvd. The security guard that was down there didn't know what was going on and said he hadn't ever seen that before. They officers jumped out of their cars, threw on some swat vests and started down in between cars. I sincerely thought, "I hope that truck doesn't have a nuclear bomb in it...but I guess if it does then what better place to go out than right here." It got my blood flowing. We never did find out what happened.

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To download a free copy of Scott's book Spiritual Anatomy, please click here or visit www.lulu.com/expectationmedia.
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Reaching the masses with the Gospel...Las Vegas style

Last night (February 21st), 27 people put the Gospel in the hands of 3,800 people in 2 hours on the Las Vegas strip. We could have reached approx. 5,000, but we are running out of tracts. Please pray for us and consider purchasing Gospel tracts – we can reach nearly a limitless amount of people with more evangelism materials, and can train more evangelist to share the Good News. Click on the donate button to your right and help us cover the world with the Gospel.