Worship and Evangelism
Northern California Worship Celebration – September 21-23
Dear Friends in Christ
“The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks” John 4:23. “Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God, neither were thankful, but their thinking became futile” Romans 1:21. Throughout the Bible, God makes known His desire that all the earth should know of His glory, and worship Him. The root cause of sin is the refusal of rebellious humanity to glorify God and be thankful. All true evangelism comes from a desire in believers to let the world know of God’s goodness so that others will join in His worship.
While our worship of God is primarily done because of our love for Him and because He deserves our worship, we have also seen that worship is a powerful means of spiritual warfare. Satan and his demons hate to be around true worship. God inhabits the praises of His people. We have seen many great breakthroughs on the streets as we have worshipped God publicly. Demonic strongholds are broken and many hearts are opened to God’s Word.
On September 21-23, Christians from all over Northern California will be joining together for a weekend worship celebration at New Hope Christian Fellowship, 1600 Tribute Rd., Sacramento, CA 95815, (916) 649-9046. There is no charge for the event and free hospitality is provided in local homes (but call them right away if you need housing). There will be classes in dance and music and a huge barbecue of two fatted calves. We will be there and encourage all of you to come. It will be a great time of fellowship and spiritual refreshment as we join together to worship our Lord.
Outreach Reports
One of the difficulties of street witnessing is that God requires us to walk by faith, not by sight. We normally are able to see only a little of the fruit that comes out of our ministry. As a result, many Christians get discouraged, assuming their labor is in vain. From time to time, however, God blesses us with reports of people who have been saved through this ministry. Last week, I was driving a brother to church when he told me this story: About six years ago, this brother was a new believer who was trying to witness to a friend in the navy. But his friend seemed like the last person in the world who would ever get saved. One day thefriend was walking through the Powell St. BART station while we were having an outreach. His friend was saved that day and has been serving the Lord ever since!
On June 30 and July 1, we were invited by Lakeport Christian Fellowship to join them for an outreach in the resort town of Lakeport. Forever Grateful led worship at the Lakeport City Park for four hours each afternoon. The park was filled with hundreds of tourists, most from the San Francisco Bay Area, and we had many wonderful opportunities to witness to them in a situation in which they were relaxed and more open to talking with us. I personally had many excellent witnessing conversations, mostly with youth in their teens and twenties. On Sunday, as the worship group was setting up, a Jewish man about 35 years old came up to me. He was from San Francisco and assured me he was an atheist and didn’t want to talk about Jesus, but wanted to listen to the music and photograph us. However, I was able to witness to him for an hour and he stayed for three more hours listening to the music. After the outreach, he spoke with several of the musicians and helped them load their equipment as we left. We are planning another Lakeport Outreach for Memorial Day weekend, September 1-3.
On July 4, a Christian friend invited us to a barbecue and concert in Fremont. About 250 unbelievers, mostly bikers, and 100 Christians participated. Forever Grateful and other Christian musicians shared the gospel from the stage. I spoke with about a dozen unbelievers who were receptive to the gospel, and several others who were backslidden.
I received a letter from Pat and Windy Caspary, who are missionaries to China. They are speaking in churches about the needs in China and are sending a team there in October. If anyone is interested in having them speak at their church or participating on that team, write them at Box 14873, Santa Rosa 95402.
Last month, I spoke about several legal problems we have been having. I was sued in small claims court for “intelligent insult” and “nausea and vomit” by a Berkeley resident. Also, we had our amplifier confiscated by the police in San Francisco, even though we were not charged with violating any law. I won the small claims lawsuit and finally got our amplifier back after three weeks. About the same time, we started getting calls and letters from pastors who had received a letter which claimed to be from me. The letter was extremely offensive and apparently was sent out to hundreds of San Francisco area pastors in an attempt to discredit our ministry. The enemy is certainly trying to hurt us in some strange ways, but we are confident that God will turn back these attacks, and bring good out of them.
Revival in America?
A few weeks ago, I read an article with the intriguing title: “Why God will not bring revival to America.” The author, who works with a missions agency, began the article stating that many groups are fasting and praying for revival. However, he noted that in none of the prayer meetings he has attended was there any mention of the need for repentance for our failure to obey the Great Commission. He cited statistics indicating that only 3/1000 of the income of American Christians goes to world missions. Then he quoted from Isaiah 58, “Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free?” The Jewish people would fast and pray, crying out to God, but they did not repent of their failure to help the poor and act justly, so God did not answer their prayers. As Christians, we too need to help the poor–those without material riches and, even more importantly, those without spiritual riches–the knowledge of God. Without such works, our fasting and prayers will not bring true revival.
Ministry Needs
Once again, I want to thank you for your prayers and financial support for this ministry. We have had a lot of expenses preparing for SOS-San Francisco, but God is faithful and we have been able to pay every bill. Please do pray for SOS-San Francisco, that God will bring many workers, that He will direct every aspect of the outreach, and that many will come to God in true repentance.
In addition to evangelism workers, we need support workers to help with SOS-San Francisco–cleaning the church, babysitting, manning the registration table and follow-up. Also, we need prayer warriors to be praying throughout the week, and hope to be able to set up an intercession team throughout the outreach.
We have a new man living in our ministry house in Oakland: Robert Steward. We are happy that he has moved into our house. We still have two openings for men or women in our house. Write or call us if you are interested in learning more about evangelism and working with us in this ministry.
Our Tape of The Month is “Worship and Evangelism” by Victor Styrsky. Victor is leader of the New Hope Christian Fellowship worship group and has some excellent insights on this subject. I do hope to see you at SOS-San Francisco. If you can’t join us the whole week, come for a night or two or for the weekends. I especially hope you will join us on Saturday August 25. We will have a worship rally at Union Square at noon followed by a march to City Hall.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
