ISEMA Newsletters
Calling the Nations to Worship
Already 80 nations around the world are planning to March for Jesus on June 12, 1993. Over 500 U.S. cities are planning marches on the same day. Christians of all nations and denominations are responding enthusiastically to the idea of getting outside the walls of the church building to proclaim the joy of knowing Jesus.
At recent international consultations held in Europe and the U.S., leaders responded enthusiastically to the vision of Christians standing together as they take to the streets with praise and prayer. “Calling the Nations to Worship” is the theme that was chosen for this year’s march. The international outlook reflects the growing participation of nations around the globe. The theme also looks with anticipation to the March for Jesus in 1994 (June 25), on the Day to Change the World, when a worldwide procession of prayer and praise will conclude months of intercessory prayer for unevangelized peoples.
(Last year, about 600,000 Christians from 142 U.S. cities and 45 cities around the world participated in the march. This year, over a million Christians are expected to participate in marches around the world. For more information, contact March for Jesus, Box 3216, Austin, TX 78764, (512) 416-0066.)
Mardi Gras Outreach Report
(from the Christ in Action Newsletter)
We stayed in a new facility this year and our host church has a regular outreach to a juvenile detention center. They asked if any of our people wanted to do the service while we were there. James Bailey, from Indianapolis, picked a team and he returned with a report that all thirty-five youths in the service wept and received Jesus as their Savior!
People from 19 states and Canada joined us for this year’s ministry to the Mardi Gras. We covered two parades as well as the “French Quarter” and “Bourbon Street”. One day Rachel, our 10 year old, was singing “Oh how I love Jesus” over the PA system in the “French Quarter”. A man who had been listening from his hotel room came to the front door of the hotel and listened. At the end of the song he walked “teary-eyed” over to Rachel and her partners and asked to be saved….
January 15, 1993 we received a letter from Norman Rogers, a young man that was ministered to by some of our soulwinners during Mardi Gras 1991….His states in his letter…”I am free inside. It truly is like I once had iron chains on my every part & then I realized that those heavy chains were gone, off of me. And all I did was tell my sins, ask for forgiveness, ask Jesus to be the leader of my life and made my mind up that I believe every word of the Bible & decided I want to go to Heaven and not hell.”
The same crew from New Mexico that did our “Balloon Fiesta Video” came to do a documentary on the Mardi Gras. This will show the whole scope of the outreach to recruit workers for the harvest field. The film will be a fast-paced, hard-hitting, concise format. We are making them available for $30 including shipping. The entire film was shot on NBC cameras by a NBC camera man and will be edited in their studio. (If you want a copy, contact Christ in Action, Box 100, Chatsworth, GA 30705, (404) 695-1868.)
Cloud of Witnesses
A few weeks ago, I picked up a book that was sitting in our living room and began reading it: From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: a Biographical History of Christian Missions by Ruth Tucker. I had glanced at the book from time to time, but 500 pages is a lot to read. Once I started, I found the book fascinating and before long I had finished.
As I read about Christian missionaries from the book of Acts to the present, I was most impressed with the suffering and sacrifice so many have endured for the Gospel. In the Congo, only one in four missionaries would survive their first term of service. They would see their wives die, their children die, or they would leave their families behind and not see them for many years. They were murdered and sometimes cannibalized by the people they were trying to reach, but most died from diseases such as malaria.
In 1876, Alexander Mackay led a team of eight English missionaries to Uganda, responding to an invitation by King Mtesa for missionaries. By the end of the second year, only Mackay was still alive. There was tremendous persecution of the church there, led by the King who killed 30 Christian boys one year for not submitting to his homosexual passions. Mackay died of malaria in 1890 at the age of 40, but by that time the Uganda church had grown to 65,000!
The book is filled with similar examples of sacrifice. In some cases, missionaries saw much fruit to their labors. In other cases there was little apparent fruit. William Carey labored for seven years in Bengal, India without a single convert. He spent many years translating the Bible into native languages, only to have his work destroyed in a warehouse fire. His first wife was totally opposed to the missionary work. After she lost her 5 year old son, she became totally deranged. Carey’s missionary team had many conflicts and ended up splitting over personality clashes. Despite all this, he inspired hundreds of Christians to enter missionary work. Carey was called the “father of modern missions” because of the way he approached missionary work–being sensitive to the culture of the people he was reaching, instead of trying to substitute western culture.
Why the sacrifice? The only thing that could possibly motivate people to make such sacrifices was the prospect of saving people from eternal hell. As A. B. Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance wrote, “A hundred thousand souls a day/ Are passing one by one away,/ In Christless guilt and gloom./ Without one ray of hope or light,/ With future dark as endless night,/ They’re passing to their doom.”
Several of our states even include evangelism in their charters as their reason for existence. Virginia’s charter opens with the King blessing the colonists “in propagating the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance.” The Massachusetts Bay charter pledged to “wynn and incite the natives of the Country to the Knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Savior of Mankinde, and the Christian fayth.” The seal of the colony was an Indian crying “Come over and help us.” Connecticut’s charter maintained that “evangelization” was the “onlye and principal end” for the colony’s existence. Similar statements about the need to convert the Indians are in the charters of Pennsylvania and other states. How far have we moved from our origins!
Coming Events
Sat. May 8, 15, 29 Worship Rally and Evangelism Outreach, San Francisco. 3-6 PM. Meet at Powell Street BART Station. Contact SOS Ministries, Box 27358, Oakland, CA 94602, (510) 531-5325.
May 21-23 Evangelism Conference with Danny Lehmann. Contact Vineyard Christian Fellowship, 1098 Harrison St., San Francisco, CA, (415) 558-9900.
May 27-30 Indianapolis 500 Outreach, Indianapolis, IN. Contact No Greater Love Box 263, DuQuoin, IL 62832, (618) 542-4503 or Christ in Action, Box 100, Chatsworth, GA 30705, (404) 695-1868.
Sat. June 26 Ministry Conference and Street Machine Nationals, DuQuoin, IL. Contact No Greater Love (address above).
June 25-July 2 SOS-Hollywood Outreach. Contact The Oasis, Box 1590, Hollywood, CA 90078, (213) 77-OASIS.
July 2-3 7th Annual Freedom Festival, Houma, LA. Jeff Fenholt, Bill Henderson, Jules Boquet, and others. Contact Sharon Saltee, Christian Community Fellowship, Sta. 2 Box 5, Houma, LA 70360, (504) 851-3000.
July 3-4 St. Louis VP Fair. Contact No Greater Love (address above).
July 9-17 14th Annual SOS-San Francisco Outreach. Chuck Girard, Ray Comfort, Jerry Brandt. Contact SOS Ministries (address above).
July 23-31 Jesus Loves You – New York. Contact Abounding Grace Ministries, 7040 Colonial Rd #3G, Brooklyn, NY 11209, (718) 836- 2957.
March for Jesus is scheduling public praise marches in many cities around the world on Sat. June 12. For more information, contact March for Jesus, Box 3216, Austin, TX 78764, (512) 416-0066.
Forward Edge is sending outreach teams to Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Crow Indian Reservation, Romania, Kazakhstan, and China this next year. Most outreaches are about two weeks long. For more information write or call them at 15121-A NE 72nd Ave., Vancouver WA 98686, (206) 574-EDGE.
1993 International Street & Evangelism Ministry Directory
The 1993 International Street & Evangelism Ministry Directory is now ready. This directory contains the latest revisions in our listing of street and evangelism ministries around the world plus new listings. I believe you will find this directory helpful in learning about ministries in your area and around the world. It is filled with valuable information not available elsewhere and is easy to use and easy to read.
I want to thank all of you who have been praying for ISEMA and supporting this ministry. Thank you for helping us, so we can help those who are on the “front lines” of street ministry.
Our Tape of the Month is Evangelical Paralysis by Ray Comfort. In this tape, Ray shows how Satan has kept Christians from their calling to evangelize through rejection, condemnation, and fear of man.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
