Equipping Families to be Strong in the Lord
What a significant event happened sixty years ago today! After we watched this video, my grandpa began sharing stories about Jim Elliot. He and Jim led a youth group together at Lombard Gospel Chapel, and Jim was in my grandparents’ wedding. I have appreciated hearing stories from them, both serious and funny, about how Jim was the “real deal” – with a huge heart for God and people…even walking in between stopped cars at traffic lights to pass out gospel tracts 🙂
Over the turn of the New Year, I was blessed to be surrounded by about 70+ youth, praying in a hotel hallway, asking God to bless missions around the world in 2016. We split into several groups and divided the world into sections so we could “cover it all.” I think many would report that an hour was only long enough to “get started” … but at least it was a start!
Why pray together with our brothers and sisters in Christ?
– It’s the pattern modeled for us by the apostles / early church
– We get to know each other’s hearts
– We grow in love for each other as we “wrestle together” asking the Lord to work
– We’re strengthened by each other’s faith
– We learn from each other
– We are reminded of more things to pray for than we’d think of on our own
The reason we were in a hotel was because we were all attending a conference together called the “Believers Bible Conference.” There were about 500 in attendance. About a third of those in attendance were young adults.
Nate Bramsen and Brady Collier led sessions with the young people at 9pm after the normal conference sessions were over. These times were fantastic.
I snapped this picture during the Q and A time the final evening. Questions answered were mostly on courtship/dating, pornography, evangelism, and decision-making. Nate and Brady both have a way of powerfully articulating what it means to be a sold-out follower of Jesus… not asking “where is the line?” or “is this okay?” but rather running as far from “the line of sin” as possible, for the glory of God. Victory is found when we daily experience the “explosive power of a new affection” which transforms every area of our lives.
If you look closely, you can see that little clay oil lamps are now part of my “Will Our Generation Speak?” table display. I was blessed as I explained to people over and over a few analogies between us and oil lamps. The lamps are a continual reminder that if we want to burn brightly, we need to make our relationship with Christ first priority–going to Him daily to be refueled. 🙂
Heidi and Haley rode with Sarah and me to and from the conference. Our fellowship in the car was enriching and basically non-stop. 🙂 Thank you, Haley and Heidi, for your vibrant walk with the Lord and the refreshment you are to us!
Our good friend Arturo came over for Christmas breakfast and brought us all a gift. Can you guess what it is? Now I own my first Hawkeye item. 🙂
“So do you love the Hawkeyes, Arturo?” someone asked him.
“I love JESUS,” Arturo exclaimed.
No question there, Jesus is basically all Arturo talks about.
“Jesus loves us. Soooo much, too much,” he said, with a glow on his face.
Anyone who knows Arturo knows you only have to talk to him for about five minutes and he’s quoted you about five Scripture passages. Hard to believe he’s memorized so much Scripture since Jesus radically transformed his life five years ago. It is no stretch to say he is an example to all of us!
You know how you can meet someone and bond so quickly you feel like you’ve known them forever? That’s sort of how it was when Anderson, Josue, and Keren visited us over their Thanksgiving break. (They’re students at Rio Grande Bible Institute, a Spanish speaking college in Texas, and a mutual friend arranged for them to come help with Spanish ministry in Cedar Rapids for a few days…sort of a “practicum” with our church.) It didn’t matter that they were still learning English, we were instant “family,” and we appreciated their fellowship and passion for Christ so much.
The first thing they did while with us was help with the annual Thanksgiving Event that our church hosts. We do this every year, partly as an outreach to extended family and international students. It’s always a great time.
After dinner we had a time of sharing and our Hispanic friends shared Christ boldly from the heart. I believe it left a real impression on everyone.
Good talks also developed with the international students at their table …
So much so, we arranged to meet at a coffee shop in Iowa City to continue the conversation.
Josue (from Argentina) told us that one of his dreams was to build a snow man. He wanted to know if he could go outside and make one. Of course we said “sure!”. I thought he might make a 1-foot snowman on the back deck of our office (because we didn’t really have that much snow), but he got some help and the snow man ended up being huge!
In fact, it started drawing observers over to chat, and we ended up sharing with two people about the Lord — all because of the snow man. (New evangelism strategy: build a big snow man and see how many neighbors come over to start chatting with you. 🙂 )
Keren got together with a Hispanic mother at our church that really needed some encouragement. At the same time, the guys met up with some of the Hispanic guys from our church, and one boy trusted Christ for salvation! There was much excitement.
After 3 great days of ministry, discipleship, fellowship, street-witnessing, coffee shop discussion, and snowman witnessing, our three Hispanic friends shared with the rest of our church of what God had done. What a joyful time that evening was as we rejoiced together.
As we drove to the place we’d have to part, we shared some verses from the Word on “thankfulness.” Though it had only been 3 days, it felt like 3 months. We had bonded so quickly as we did ministry together. That’s what I love about brothers and sisters in Christ. And, the fact that goodbye is never really goodbye. 🙂
Today a semi-truck delivered 139 boxes of “Will Our Generation Speak? Study Guide and Handbook for Witnessing.”
This project has been in the words for a while, and I praise the Lord for His faithfulness from beginning to end.
We did a small “quick print” this past summer, but now we finally have the full quantity finished available for order.
Stephen and Grandpa, stacking the boxes in our little “warehouse” (the basement of our office).
Although we are calling it a “study guide” it is more comprehensive than a typical “study guide” – it is actually a study of its own that corresponds with the chapters of Will Our Generation Speak?. For more info, see explanation on our online store here.
Last weekend we hosted a girls’ “Colossians retreat” and were SO BLESSED by soaking in that book together and hearing each others’ insights! I was amazed by how much I began seeing in the book that I had never seen before: themes running through, the flow of argument presented through the entire letter, the core message of it that kept arising in different ways, etc.
If you want to do a weekend like this with your friends, I highly recommend it! Just put it on the calendar, and you’ll be pushed to dive into God’s Word!
Here are a few tips:
• It’s vitally important to study the book individually in advance. Read through the book several times, outline it, circle theme words, and write out questions you have.
• PRAY for the Lord to open your eyes.
• Keep the weekend simple so you can spend basically all your “preparation time” studying Scripture. We had friends sign up to bring a dish to share for some meals, and then did Chick-fil-a for one meal.
• Divide the book up in advance so that you have different girls lead the discussion for different sections. For example, here was our schedule:
Friday Evening:
Colossians 1:1-8 Sarah
Colossians 1:9-20 Shelby
Colossians 1:21-29 Anila
Saturday Morning /Afternoon:
Colossians 2:1-12 Abby
Colossians 2:13-23 Grace
Colossians 3:1-11 Jolynn
Afternoon Break (We took a walk, went shopping, and had dinner at Chick-fil-a. Last time we did an event like this, our 1 Peter Retreat, we went ice skating.)
Saturday Evening:
Colossians 3:12-25 Sarah
Colossians 4: Nickie
Dinner at Chick-fil-a
Since we had been studying Colossians on our own before hand and CAME with questions and insights, discussion on Colossians came quite easily, haha. 🙂
I think most of us are familiar with the pressure of preparing for deadlines. Whether it’s a test, an event, or buying Christmas gifts, as that deadline gets closer you make it a priority to finish preparing. The great thing about planning a “Bible study weekend” is that the way to prepare is merely to spend time in Scripture! How refreshing. 🙂
A few weeks ago my friend Kayla wanted to go somewhere to share the gospel, and she suggested the “Pumpkinfest” in a nearby town. I was so glad she mentioned this idea. We decided to meet up and go together. (And no, we didn’t plan to match 🙂 )
As the parade was getting started we tried to engage some people in conversation (using a questionnaire), but they didn’t seem very interested, so we felt a little discouraged. Sometimes that happens. We just have to persevere!
Once the parade was in full swing, we decided to take a break and get pumpkin soup and sit down for a few minutes.
Then we saw this booth selling cookies run by a Baptist Church. I went up and asked them about renting a booth because I am thinking of renting one next year to give away gospel tracts, etc. The lady told me her husband was passing out gospel tracts at a different location in the parade. We learned that they had already heard of our little witnessing team in Cedar Rapids and had wanted to get in touch with us! We told them we’d come back later that afternoon to talk more about it.
Then I noticed a guy walking with a t-shirt that said “Jesus” on the front. I thought, I’ll go talk to him. I wonder if he’s a Christian?
I gave him a gospel tract. “So… are you a Christian?” I asked.
His friend (who had a picture of a monster on his shirt) put his arm around him and said “He’s very, VERY Christian.”
We smiled.
“Are you a Christian?” I asked the guy with the monster T-shirt.
“Uh, kind of,” he said.
“Well, either you are a Christian or you are not!” I commented.
They smiled.
Kayla jumped in and said, “Well, we are doing a spiritual questionnaire today, would you like to try it?”
Jeremy (with the monster shirt) agreed. He and his Christian friend (Ben) both looked about college age.
Kayla went through a few questions, asking them about their spiritual beliefs. Then she referred to the Ten Commandments and asked them, “Have you heard of the Ten Commandments?”
“No,” Jeremy said.
“You haven’t heard of the Ten Commandments?” she asked once more, just to make sure she heard right.
“No,” he said again.
Kayla graciously explained about them. Not only did Jeremy seem to understand our point about the seriousness and consequence of our sins, he was very interested to hear the solution God provided in Christ! Kayla did a great job sharing with boldness and love!
I looked over at his Christian friend, Ben. Ben seemed pleased we were talking to his friend.
“You should do Bible studies with Ben!” I told Jeremy. “Not everyone has a Christian friend who can help you understand it.”
He agreed, and Kayla and I were very encouraged by the whole encounter.
Then we went back to talk more with our new friends at the Baptist booth…
They told us that they used to do various creative Christian floats (combining pumpkins and a cross) in the parade, but in recent years they have come to the conclusion, We just need to put our time into getting the gospel message out there! So this year, they did something more simple. Their high school son carried a cross through the parade while his dad passed out gospel tracts.
I gave them a Will Our Generation Speak? book for their son. Just a few days ago I received this e-mail from him.
Hello Grace, my name is Seth. I am the one that carried the cross in the … Pumpkinfest… [My dad] … gave me the book that you made. I am half-way through it … it lit a light in me that wasn’t on. I have prayed and asked God for a witness at school on Tuesday, and guess what?! Moments later my friend Haley walked up to me and started talking to me about God. I was so happy and continued to preach the gospel. Even when people are putting me down. Someone even was being sarcastic and saying “It’s stupid that God would curse man just for eating a stupid apple.” This doesn’t make me mad though, it just fuels the fire of God’s works in me….
Praise the Lord for how He is using Seth. He is just one of so many young people I have heard from recently who have shared amazing stories of how God has opened doors for the gospel. The Lord IS raising up laborers unto the harvest. Let’s keep praying!!
And guess what? It looks like his family will be joining us to witness at the University of Iowa this Sunday. We’d appreciate prayer, “that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ …that [we] may make it clear, which is how [we] ought to speak” (Colossians 2:3-4) !!!
Sarah and I were greatly encouraged to see the Lord’s hand at work in girls’ lives last week at the Daughters of Destiny camp at Mountain Top Youth Camp (in North Carolina).
Many girls made comments such as, “I felt like Sarah was speaking directly to me because she was addressing the very thing I’m dealing with!” or “I’ve been believing ‘that very lie’ and didn’t know it!” It was sweet to see their sensitive hearts to the Lord. Of course, this is all the LORD’s doing, and we’re so grateful for the MANY who were praying!
John 8:31-32 sums up our theme for the week:
“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free'” (John 8:31-32).
It is awesome to witness how the “Truth sets free” – not only in salvation but in all kinds of life struggles! One of my prayers for the girls was that burdens would be lifted as they realize the Truth about God’s character in relation to their current trials.
Lining up for dinner
For example, we might believe fearful or discouraging thoughts about circumstances such as, “God isn’t paying attention to my current circumstances,” or, “Everything is going wrong.” Yet, the Truth is, “God works all things together for the GOOD of those who love Him” (Romans 8:28). And, “No purpose of [God’s] can be thrwarted” (Job 42:2), and, God “works all things after the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11).
The mountains were beautifully displaying colors everywhere we looked.
One topic that Sarah focused on quite a bit was “lies we believe about sin.” It was VERY encouraging to see girls resolve to confess hidden sin to parents–praise the Lord!
One lie commonly believed is, “I should conquer this sin on my own before telling anyone else I’m struggling.” But the TRUTH says, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).
There are many other lies, such as, “That happened so long ago, it doesn’t matter anymore,” or, “The only one I was hurting was myself,” or, “No one will ever know,” or “My parents would be so disappointed it would be better for them not to know,” or even, “This is just the way I am now, and I have to live with it.”
Those are all lies from Satan! Lies have always been his strategy, and they are damaging weapons. The truth is that total VICTORY can be experienced in Jesus Christ. But it won’t come by hiding our sin. It comes by bringing our sin out into the light! Yes, it takes great humility, but the pain of confessing doesn’t even compare to the joy and freedom of a clean life — forgiven and now able to be transparent — nothing to hide! It’s WORTH IT to confess your sin!
If you want victory, if you want healing, then “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
This young lady, Hope, was in a Bright Lights group for many years before she moved to North Carolina. She shared with us how much the Lord used her Bright Lights leader in her life, and how now SHE is praying about beginning her own group! We were so excited to hear that, and we think she will make a wonderful Bright Lights leader!
“… what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2).
Sarah and I were amazed by the intricacy of some of the crafts the girls were doing!
We were especially grateful for the bread-making class as we got to eat the delicious breads they made.
This fall at home Sarah is writing Bright Lights Set 9 on this very topic of “lies and truth.” Hearing the girls’ feedback last week at camp was a huge help, encouragement, and confirmation that this set would meet a need.
On Tuesday night, Sarah spoke on “Lies we believe about ourselves.” This was one session the girls commented on the most.
Some common lies girls believe about themselves are, “I am worthless and insignificant,” “If I looked like so and so, then I’d be happy,” or “I’m a failure and a disappointment.”
The Truth is NOT to tell yourself “I am beautiful; I am talented; I am special.” No. The Truth is that we are desperately wicked! (Jeremiah 17:9).
But once we are IN CHRIST we have a new identity–we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). We find sweet rest and security when we understand who we are in God’s eyes once we are in Christ!
The Truth is that IN JESUS “we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us” (Romans 8:37). We are “seated with Christ in heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6), we are valuable to Him (Matthew 10:29-31), we are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9-10), and as we abide in HIM we can bring forth much fruit (John 15:4-5)! The list goes on and on.
As our lives bring praise to our Creator and Redeemer we find satisfaction–not in our own value but in His! We find joy, not in our own worth, but in falling before His Throne worshipping Him with gratefulness for His great love.
There’s a little peek into what the next Bright Lights set will be. We’d really appreciate prayer as we’re working on editing it this fall!
Banquet the final evening
After the camp, we went with Bill and Marj Longstreet to Charlotte. Together with their daughter Jan, they hosted a “Bright Lights Seminar” on Sunday afternoon at Fairbluff Bible Chapel. We were very blessed by them.
Quite a few moms and daughters came out to learn about the Bright Lights ministry at little seminar they hosted at Fairbluff Bible Chapel. It sounds like some more groups will be starting in that area, praise the Lord.
Grateful to Jan for all she did to host us!
Sarah and I will be speaking at the Daughters of Destiny, a camp for young ladies held at Mountain Top Youth Camp October 11-17.
Sarah and I had a wonderful time at this camp two years ago (blog post here) and we are looking forward to coming back!
Since we’ll be in that part of the country, we are also speaking to women at Fairbluff Bible Chapel (4650 Fairbluff Place, Charlotte, NC 28209) the following Sunday (October 18). Information Below for the little Seminar we will be doing. We’d love to meet you if you live in the area and can make it.
Radiant in Christ Young Ladies Seminar
Taught by: Sarah and Grace Mally
When: Sunday afternoon, October 18th
Time: 2:00-4:30 P.M.
For: Young ladies of all ages and their mothers (single ladies also encouraged to attend)
Location: Fairbluff Bible Chapel (4650 Fairbluff Place, Charlotte, NC 28209)
Cost: Free
Topics Covered:
Growing Deeper in Your Walk with Jesus Christ
Radiant Purity – Guarding Your Heart and Emotions
How to Boldly Share the Gospel – Using the Years of Your Youth for Christ
Treasuring Relationships at Home – Being Best Friends with your Parents and Siblings
Preparing Young Ladies for Their Teen-age Years (break-out session for moms)
RSVP: If you are planning to come, please email staff@brightlightsministry.com so that we know how many to prepare for.
In our most recent ministry newsletter, my dad addresses the problem of pornography. To read it or to sign up for our monthly newsletter, click here.