(Good) Internet Resources for Christians

by Stephen Rodgers

I get a lot of questions about Christian resources: books, sermons, blogs, software…even Twitter, Facebook, and magazines. I hope that this article will serve as a helpful introduction to some excellent and trustworthy resources that will help you in your walk with the Lord.  And as always, if you need help with any of these, just find me at church.  They day I’m not happy to talk about the Bible and study-aids is the day I stand before my Maker.

Blogs

Sometimes a Christian just needs something good to read! Any of the blogs below would be a great place to start adding to your diet of Christian writing. And all of them support RSS as well, in case you just want to be notified when there’s an update. (If you don’t know what RSS is, ask Stephen Rodgers at church and he’ll explain it to you).

Shine the Light – This is the official blog of the Pastor’s of LBC. If you’re not reading it already, what are you waiting for?

Al Mohler’s Blog – Al Mohler blogs several times a week with a focus on current events and cultural issues. Just reading him is guaranteed to make you smarter!

Pulpit Magazine – Pulpit Magazine is the official blog of the Shepherd’s Conference at Grace Community Church, and they recently redesigned their website to make it much easier to read. They post several articles every week.

PyroManiacs – Updated daily, this is a Team Blog by Phil Johnson, Dan Phillips, and Frank Turk. They are some of the most outspoken voices (who can actually support their statements Biblically) on the internet today, and you would do well to give them a read.

desiringGod Blog – This is the blog of John Piper and several other folks at his church.

Sovereign Grace Ministries Blog – This is the blog of CJ Mahaney and several other folks at his church.

Twitter

Twitter may be a relatively recent phenomenon, but already several Christians have moved into the space and are working hard to encourage fellow believers and redeem this corner of social networking for the King.

JohnPiper – John Piper takes Twitter to a whole new level. His tweets are frequent, timely, and incredibly Bible-centered.

johnmacarthur – John MacArthur mostly uses Twitter to link to relevant articles at either Pulpit Magazine or Grace to You.

Rick_Holland – Rick Holland tweets often about the Bible, pastoral ministry, and life as a pastor/husband/father.

Kim_S_Holland – Kim Holland (Rick Holland’s wife), may actually be more prolific than her husband, and offers interesting comments and insights as a Christian wife and mother.

iamresolved – Even the Resolved Conference is on Twitter! You’ll want to follow them to get the latest information on resources and scheduling related to Resolved.

Sermons

Didn’t get enough of the Gospel on Sunday? Good for you! Listed below are links to a LARGE libraries of available and trustworthy sermons freely available on the internet.

LBC Sermons – Our first stop is the sermon library at our very own church. Ever wish that you could be in two (or more!) Sunday School classes at the same time? Now you can be! And while it may seem that the sermons only go back to 2008, Kyle and his team are busy getting the rest up there soon!

Grace to You – Another fabulous resource is what GCC affectionately calls “The Vault.” Here you will find 40 years (!) of sermons by John MacArthur, organized by title, scripture, date…if you can’t find something here to help you, then you’re just not looking hard enough. And the vast majority of the sermons have a transcript as well, so you can read them if you prefer that to listening.

Desiring God – John Piper has 20+ years of sermons available here, as well as messages from innumerable conferences. And yes, they are organized, categorized, and have transcripts as well. Honestly, I don’t know what DG feeds their webfolks, but the speed, quality and sheer amount of material that they make available is staggering.

Sovereign Grace – Something happened to the old page, and there’s only 3 of CJ Mahaney’s sermons up here now, but if you poke around a bit you can find many more.

Christ Fellowship Baptist Church – And while he doesn’t blog, another fantastic place to get some sermons is from Steve Lawson’s church. The man has a distinctive voice and a distinctive style that really make his messages come alive. And he’s one of my favorite expositor’s to boot.

Software

While there is a variety of Christian software available, I chose to highlight the following two resources because they’re good, easy to use, and best of all: free!

e-Sword – My personal favorite Bible-study software, e-sword makes the ESV Bible freely available. Other study guides such as commentaries, dictionaries, devotionals, and other translations of the Bible are available as well. Some require a small fee, but many are freely available. For ease of use, price, and value, I honestly believe this is the best software out there.

Libronix – If you have an ESV Bible, then you have qualified to download the ESV demo version of Libronix. It comes with the full ESV text, several other resources, and it is quite common for new resources to be made freely available (you’ll receive email notifications after you’ve registered). For example, last week, they gave away John MacArthur’s Study Guide to the book of Romans. It’s a bit more complicated to use than e-Sword, but it does give you access to material that e-Sword doesn’t. And since it’s free…why not have both?

Websites

Let’s be honest, there are a lot of BAD Christian websites out there. But listed below you’ll find that three are actually quite good, and will help you a LOT as you study the Word.

Bible Bulletin Board – BBB collects a variety of sermons, articles, and notes with an emphasis on John MacArthur, Charles Spurgeon, and Christian classics.

Biblegateway – It’s not fancy, but Biblegateway brings together hundreds of translations of the Bible, makes them available, searchable, and free. If you just want to read a passage in several translations, this is a great place to do it.

Blue Letter Bible – Blue Letter Bible is a fantastic resource for Bible translations, notes, commentaries, study aids, dictionaries, and devotionals online.

NET Bible – The NET Bible is a very interesting site. In addition to being a very credible translation in it’s own right, they also make their footnotes, cross-references, index, and translator notes freely available. You can learn a LOT from checking out their site.

And don’t forget…if you have an ESV Study Bible, then you have a code that you can register to get access to the Bible, notes, and account software online for free as well! Anywhere you have an internet connection, you have your ESV Study Bible.

Editor’s Note: November 2009

by Stephen Rodgers

Well, it’s almost that time.

And by that time I’m referring to the transition of the Beacon to a weekly update schedule. The last month has been a bit exciting: we’ve redesigned the site, enabled some cool features, and uploaded literally hundreds of old articles. We’ve made some pretty significant announcements regarding new content, and we’ve had some special posts from some special friends. We’ve also prayed a lot of prayers, drank a lot of caffeine, and worked out some of the kinks in getting a group of people in different places able to work together effectively (the prayers and the caffeine helped a lot with that).

If all goes well, starting next week you should be starting to see anywhere from 4-6 articles every week. Eventually we hope to roll out some rather big changes on the way we host the blog, which would allow us to enable some other neat features…but that will probably be a little while in coming.

Please keep us in prayer as we try to make this work.

Pro Rege

Editor’s Note #2: October 2009

Well hello again everyone!

As you can see from the site so far, the team has been hard at work uploading the old articles from previous issues of the Beacon. So far, we’ve uploaded about 70 articles and there are even more to come! If we manage to stay on schedule, you should be able to access all the articles from all the previous issues by the end of the month.

Which brings us to the next big announcement: after we finish uploading the old Beacon articles, we’re going to start in on sermon notes! JR has been kind enough to supply us with his sermon notes from 2008 and 2009, and we’re currently looking into the best way to get those included and accessible to you.

Well, that’s it for this week. Tune in next week for an article highlighting some of the best Christian resources available on the internet. Until then, we’ll be copy/pasting as quickly as we can.

Pro Rege

A Letter from Hanka

by Hanka Tomáškova’

Editor’s Note: As you know, we recently had the joy of having Hanka visit us from the KSOP church in the Czech Republic that we partner with for missions every year.  While she was here, she gave her testimony to the church.  I asked her if she would be willing to write it out for us as well, so that we could post it on the Beacon.  She agreed, and what you find below are her own words, completely unaltered.  I hope you will be as encouraged by them as I was.

My name is Hanka, I am from the Czech Republic and I am really happy I can be here, standing in front of you, sharing my testimony.  Lighthouse people have been a very important part of my life and I am so happy I can tell my story here.  I actually think I have imagined this several times before, since though it was only a few LBC people in 2001 who changed my view on God and Christianity, I have always wanted the whole church to hear it and see how God was using their church to reach me.

To help you understand a little more, I should start in the beginning.  I was raised in a kind of Catholic family.  My grandma is a strong Catholic, but the rest of the family was basically trying to make her happy and attended the church because of her.  When I was a child, I enjoyed going to church and probably even believed in God, but at certain age I realized that all I was doing was only because I saw other do it and because somebody told me to do it.  I did not have a real reason for neither believing in God, nor going to church, which slowly became a problem when I was growing up.  At school I heard about evolution as the only possibility, and my friends there sometimes laughed at me when they heard I was going to church.  I had no reason “being a Christian” anymore and I wanted to quit with the church, but I was not allowed to.  I gradually started hating the church and even hearing the word “God” and though eventually we stopped going to church, my grandma did not give up and tried to make us “return”, which made me hate the “whole Christianity” even more.  That was why my closest friends, Lucy and Lenka, knew they could not really talk to me or my sister about God, we not only did not listen, we hated it.  They tried something else though.

Lighthouse started sending their teams for English Camps in Czech in 2000 and I remember that was a camp I was invited to.  One afternoon Lucy and Lenka came over, brought an English Camp flyer and invited me and my sister for that camp.  After they left, my sister and me looked at the flyer, then looked at each other and said: “No way” and we started laughing, since we did not understand how they could think we would come to a camp that is organized by a Christian church.  We did not even think about it, we saw the word “Christian” and “Christian evening programs” and said “no” right away.  So that was why I missed the first camp and why I do not know some of you.  I was invited, but never accepted the offer.  But God did something else to make me come next year.

The girls get back from the Camp really excited and I heard a lot about the team, saw some pictures and heard how much fun it was.  But I was still pretty glad I did not come, since it was Christian, plus, the Americans looked more like Asians.   ;-)

I do not remember exactly, but I think Lucy and Lenka tried to invite us again next summer, in 2001, and we probably said “no” again.  But right before the summer I was invited to one English class in the church that was taught by Canadians, and I loved the class – it was English and it was fun.  Lucy and Lenka told me that English Camp is even more fun and made me sign up for the camp, though it was actually pretty late and they said they had to make an exception.  So I went to the Camp, only because of the Canadians and only because of English and fun, and I planned NOT to come to the evening programs (since they told me I did not have to).  But there have been a lot that I have planned since then and God decided He would “ignore” my plans.  Anyway, Lucy and Lenka asked me to go to the first evening program and decide after I see it if I want to come again.  So I went there the first evening and then came back every night.  The evening programs turned out to be very important for me.  That was where I found out that I have a very distorted view of Christians and Christianity.  When listening to the messages about evolution and other topics, I realized Christianity is not that illogical and irrational.  When watching the team dancing and singing, I realized Christians can be really, really funny.  And when talking to them, I saw they are not even that stupid.

I was shocked.

I thought all Christians are older people going to the Catholic church, believing in God only because it is what they were told and they do not know any better.  I saw Christians as people who are not smart enough to make their own logical decision not to believe in something so irrational and stupid like “God”.  But the team showed me I have no idea what real Christianity is about.  That was the most important thing that they could do at that time.  I did not convert right away, I did not pray to accept Christ at the Camp.  Honestly I do not even remember I heard the gospel…though I am pretty sure there were people trying to tell me.  I actually did not care that much about Jesus then…for me the first step was to realize that people who believe in God, are not crazy and have good reasons for that, which was exactly what the team did.

Anyway, while at the camp, I started thinking about God and Christianity much more seriously and towards the end was pretty sure there is something worth more thinking.  But already then I also saw what becoming a Christian would have meant and what would have changed.  I knew I would get busier going to church, reading my Bible, praying. And I also knew my family would not understand and some of my friends might laugh at me.  I did not really want any of those and decided I do not want to go to church again after the team leaves.  But again, as the Proverbs 16:9 says: ” The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”  The day the team was leaving I overslept and almost did not get to the train station on time, but I did, and when I was saying “Bye” to Jane Kim, she hugged me and made me promise I would come to church again.  First I pretended not to hear her, but she did not let me go, so I did promise it…the next Sunday I went to church only to keep my promise but I never stopped coming out since then.

I still took my time, had a lot of questions, talked to Meinolf, Lucy and Lenka.  I think Meinolf said that he thought I would not even make the decision, since I was thinking for too long, but eventually I did.  I was reading a book and at the end there was the author’s testimony and a prayer I could pray to accept Jesus.  With all I already had in my head and with all I had seen and heard, I could not do anything but pray and accept God’s forgiveness.

It has been already almost eight years since then and God has been working in my life as visibly as he was before I became His child.  I started serving in my church and also helping out with the camps.  First, I only helped with games or little stuff, but gradually I could help more and the more I knew about the preparations, the more encouraging it was for me to see people who really love God and want to serve Him, and to see God bringing together different people with almost the only thing in common – desire to serve Him.  I really like your church, but in some ways you are really different, our cultures are different, but at the Camp every year I could see how it did not matter, because we share the same faith in the same God who we want to serve (Romans 12:4-5).

I love my church and there are not many reasons I would be willing to leave it for, it is my home and my family.  Before I went to college, I was praying that God would let me stay in Ostrava and that no colleges in other cities will accept me, because I could not imagine I would leave my church.  And then I came here and felt almost like home.  It is not the same, but I do feel like I came to visit my family.  It is amazing when I think about it – I did not know you in 2001 and I did not understand why everybody was trying to talk about Jesus.  And when I got some emails from LBC people then, the parts talking about God or Bible were my least favorite ones…and now we have been working together to help people see God’s love.  God really is good and though I cannot always see it, His ways are much better than mine.  ”For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord . For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The last thing I would like to use this opportunity for is saying “thank you” to the whole church.  I know it is not only the team that works hard before the camps, and I know the team would not be able to go without support of the people at church, both financial and prayer one.  God has been using the team and the whole church, and I am really glad I could tell you my story that is a proof of this.

Editor’s Note: October 2009

by Stephen Rodgers

As the new editor, I guess this is where I try to say something humorous, informative, Biblical, and profound.

As most of you who frequent this blog probably know, there are going to be some significant changes coming in the next month or two.  We’re probably 5-6 weeks away from genuinely new content, since we have to go through a full 4-week cycle of notifying all our new contributors, reviewing submitted content, and preparing it for publication.

However, the new staff is already hard at work converting and preparing the previous unpublished Beacon content, and if the Lord wills it you should start seeing those articles quietly uploaded to the blog within a week or two.  The absolute easiest way for you to keep up with that is by subscribing to the RSS feed (note: actually, that won’t work since I’m pre-dating the articles so that they’ll archive properly), but I’ve also enabled search functionality, categorical sorting, and monthly archives if you prefer a more manual approach to the blog.  Plus, I’m going to do my best to give you a weekly post as well, be that an update of some sort, links to other material, or a letter from a friend at the Ostrava church.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have also unapproved all comments previously made, closed the comments for all previous posts, and disabled comments on future posts.  It’s one less thing for me to worry about while we get up and running.

Please bear with us as we iron out all the kinks, shake out the dust, and generally figure out what all these pretty buttons do.

Pro Rege

The Debriefing and Return to San Diego (AR09)

by Pastor John Kim

This year’s trip was truly a blessing from God. As our family and the rest of the team were able to continue the work that was started in Tucumán back in 2005, the fellowship and the ministry that we were able to participate in was truly wonderful in every way. Partnering with Pastor Jorge, Norma, and their son Josué was a mutual encouragement as we were able to enjoy the building up of our relationship after a particularly challenging time earlier this year as we contemplated having to possibly end our relationship due to some doctrinal confusion. But God was gracious in not only allowing us to clarify all the issues, we were able to move forward and really enjoy a time of both evangelizing the lost as well as equipping the body at IBM. Our debriefing time in Buenos Aires was quite cold and rainy. We spent a couple of days in discussion over what we had learned during the trip as well as to prepare for our return back to San Diego. Our talks were encouraging as we were able to bless each other on Friend Day, where you give a small gift to those that you would call your friends. We were able to share with one another all the various ways in which we saw God at work but in the team and through the team. Some might wonder if these kinds of discussions are necessary, but they are indeed because during the trip itself it is hard to have time to really think through what you are learning as you are busy with ministry.

Debriefing is also important because it helps prepare the team members for re-entry back home. Expectations can be raised dramatically as to how church ministry should be because for several weeks the team has been able to do ministry 24/7 with no distractions from school, work, or even mundane things like cooking and cleaning. It is a unique opportunity, but it can also be somewhat discouraging to come back because it seems like the ministry back home can be so slow and not as exciting. It relates to the heart being prepared more than anything, that there would be a killing of pride and nurturing of humility that all the lessons learned would not simply be used as a means of comparison to others but rather to grow in Christlikeness and to be more willing to serve the body.

We also had a wonderful time with Eduardo and Gloria Buldain, who brought their son Matthias along so that we could hear about their churchplanting ministry as well as their pastoral equipping ministry which they just started recently. The energy and vision for the future was exciting to see and hear and I personally was challenged to expand my vision for the future beyond even just what Lighthouse does but how we might also partner with others who have similar vision.

As we traveled back to San Diego, it was a similar feeling that I would experience coming back from a summer mission trip. There is a certain sadness in leaving the people that we have ministered with but there is also a certain excitement in looking forward to the future. One of the biggest encouragements was to see how our team was able to grow together and encourage each other throughout the pre-trip preparation as well as during the trip itself. My hope is that the team would take this experience and build toward the future by investing the lessons learned abroad into the church here at San Diego. And Godwilling, we will see our commitment to the MVP continue to grow.

Thank you all for your prayers, financial support, and encouragement!

Book Review: Missions Reading (AR09)

by Cesar Vigil-Ruiz

Reading John Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad has been such a blessing and a great challenge to my own life. Though it’s not my first missions-themed book (Doran’s book was), it made me aware of a world in real need of Jesus Christ. The view of missions that was typically thought of in my mind made me separate those who were gung-ho about going out to another culture and those who were slackers. However, upon reading and reflecting upon this book, it was a very illinformed impression. It opened my eyes and, by God’s grace, my heart to have a new and great view of God who is working today in this world. Simply by looking at the table of contents, the focus of the entire book is making God seen as supreme in the work of missions. There’s structure and focus that brings us to being captured by this vision of wanting to follow all of Scripture in key issues on missions. It was a very helpful book that brought all of us to wrestle hard with how to describe to one who hasn’t read the book or who disagrees with the importance of saving faith in Jesus Christ exclusively; or what the end goal of missions is; or even what the meaning of worship is. The impact this makes, at least on my part, is that studying a vast body of deep truths forms the foundation of our going out and telling others this great news of the Gospel. Also it shows that we are to call all people to this same vision -to those who don’t believe, to our own teammates, and continually to our brothers and sisters in our church. I would caution you to read through this book, and read it slowly, because it might cause you to want you to be, as Piper one said, “All Christians fit into three categories with regard to missions: the goers, the senders, and the disobedient.”

For the supplemental readings, we read books that helped us come to grips with what great work we were all choosing to participate in. Tell the Truth (Will Metzger), The Gospel According to Jesus (John MacArthur), Finally Alive (John Piper) and The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (Mark Dever) were commended to us all to have a biblical view of conversion, evangelism, and a biblical view of the Gospel. All authors firmly believe in the sovereignty of God and the responsibility and culpability of man to respond to the Gospel, and place a firm emphasis on searching the Scriptures to establish the reality of what we are to do, what we are to say, and in whom we are to trust. Dever explains the uneasiness in evangelizing to non-believers, but he engages with the most common objections to why people shouldn’t evangelize. Metzger drives home the idea that evangelism has too often been man-centered, affecting its methodology in many evangelism programs, and guides us back to having a Godcentered way of doing evangelism, one that gives God honor in the biblical message we are to proclaim and live out daily. Piper treads familiar ground, and yet among many, an almost untouched study into the new birth that is a divine miracle by God Himself, which reawakened me to have a stronger motivation to share the Gospel with someone than not. MacArthur tackles the glorious subject of salvation, defining it in terms of the lordship of Christ to be an essential component to the Gospel for people to believe, embrace, and also deny its opposition to what many have uncritically accepted: non- Lordship salvation. All these issues helped many of us to ask deep questions to one another, solidifying our unity in Christ, and making us bolder witnesses of the grace God has shown each of us individually as ambassadors of the living God.

The Goal of God’s Glory (AR09)

by Kim Phan

One of the prevailing themes of A Gospel Primer and For the Sake of His Name is the glory of God. As we prepared for missions, it was a vital reminder that the goal of all things is to bring God glory. The goal of the gospel is not so much about man’s salvation, but it is about the glory of God. The Great Commission is not so much about making converts but it is about bringing people to worship the one true God.

A Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent focuses on preaching the gospel to yourself daily. In this book, Vincent shows us that the gospel is not just for nonbelievers, but for believers as well. Giving us thirtyone reasons why we should do meditate on the gospel daily, he shows us how essential the gospel is to our daily life and how we can never exhaust the depths of it. We tend to struggle and strive on our own strength, falling into legalism and forgetting that our justification lies in Christ, not ourselves. This is why we need the gospel. As Vincent writes, “On my worst days of sin and failure, the gospel encourages me with God’s unrelenting grace toward me. On my best days of victory and usefulness, the gospel keeps me relating to God solely on the basis of Jesus’ righteousness and not mine,” (20).

In the second and third parts of the book, he writes out the gospel message in both prose and poetic form. In it, we see how God’s glory truly is the main goal of why Christ came to die for our sins. It was God’s glory that was magnified on the Cross as Christ bore our sins demonstrating His righteousness and it was for His glory that we have been saved so that we would live “to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:12).

There are many, however, who do not live for His glory yet they profess to believe. They pursue their own idols rather than following Christ. This is one of the main issues Doran addresses in For the Sake of His Name. Doran says, “The Great Commission produces disciples, not decisions,” (77). It is not merely enough for people to confess that they believe in Christ, but forsake all to follow Christ. If God’s glory is truly supreme in missions, then we should want to see people give Him the glory that He so rightfully deserves. Yet today we see that the goal of missions is getting the most number of people possible to accept Christ, often at the expense of the truth of God’s Word. Doran reminds us that our first priority must be faithfulness to God over fruitfulness in our ministry.

Doran also shows us through the Word that the biblical pattern of missions is done through the planting of local churches. All through Acts, we see that Paul planted churches on his mission journeys and that he was even sent out by the church at Antioch to do the work of missions. It is through the local church where disciples are made and equipped. In this way, the Great Commission is fulfilled and God is glorified.

Missions is meant to be centered around God, not man. While we may want to see people be saved and may have a heart for a certain group of people, in the end, our goal is to see His Name be made known to the ends of the earth – for Christ died for us so that we would no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died and rose again on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:15). Soli Deo Gloria.

An Interview with Naomi Yu (AR09)

by Grace Wu

Which barrios (neighborhoods) did you go to do door-to-door evangelism?

This year, God gave me opportunity to return to Juan Pablo and Smata. This was my second time in both of these neighborhoods.

What was your time in Smata like?

I really enjoyed my time in Smata because I got to see three of my contacts from the previous year! There was this one lady that my translator and I spent a lot of time with last year. She struggles a lot with depression and being paranoid. For example, her reason for not trying out the weekly Bible Studies is because she is afraid to leave the house, even though the meeting place is just across the street for her. She worries every morning when her husband goes to work, filled with anxiety that something bad will happen. She tries to keep her kids home as much as possible to keep close watch over them.

Wow, so how did you minister to her?

Well, last year my translator and I listened as she shared with us fear after fear that consumes her thoughts. Our only response and remedy for her was the gospel. We told her that she needed Christ and the hope that He alone can provide. Her sins have already driven her to spiritual death, but Christ came to give life to those who would believe and live for Him. After going back to visit her this year, I found that she still struggles a lot with anxiety and paranoia. She still is afraid to leave her house but one neat thing is that the church has been following up with her! One of the older ladies of the church has been going to her house to meet with her on a weekly basis. Together, they read the Bible and pray for this woman’s heart to trust in Christ.

That’s awesome to hear! Were you able to see any of your other contacts grow in their understanding of the gospel?

Yes I was! There was another lady who I also met the previous year. Although she claimed to be a Christian, she wasn’t active in going out to church. She seemed kind of stagnant in her faith when I talked with her. However, this year, when I went to visit her, I noticed that her demeanor had changed. She shared with me about how her family has been consistently attending a local church around the neighborhood (not IBM, but a solid church I hear). She’s been growing and even trying to share the gospel with those at her workplace. She shared how difficult it was because the message of the cross isn’t appealing to her coworkers, and she feels like they see her as a fool. We were able to spend some time looking into 1 Corinthians 1 together, where Paul talks about the cross being foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. It was neat seeing and hearing of how God’s grown this woman’s heart this past year. The gospel was no longer just a distant message and Christianity was no longer just a label, but to see her actively living out her faith despite the trials that come was such a blessing!

How about your time in Juan Pablo? Was it similar to what you experienced the previous year?

My experience in Juan Pablo this year was very different from the previous year. I felt like God gave me opportunities to be involved in a very different type of ministry than before. Last year, my translator and I were assigned a block of the neighborhood, and we went to each house with one goal in mind – to preach the gospel! However, this year, I was paired with Monica Lizzaraga, one of the elder’s wives, as my national. Monica and her husband Julio are very involved in the neighborhood of Juan Pablo and have built many close relationships with families there. Because of that, our time was spent very deliberately to visit those families. Many of them, I learned, had gone out to the church at some point in their lives, but due to the circumstances of life or their hardness of heart, were unwilling to go anymore.

Can you share with us in more detail about one of these cases?

There was one particular woman we met with who had a very difficult time respecting her husband. According to her, he says one thing and does another. And the reason she has been hesitant to go out to church was because the last time she went to a women’s meeting, she heard a message about wives needing to submit to the leadership of their husbands. It drove her away from the church because she felt like she couldn’t submit and that she would be looked down upon for not wanting to abide.

How did you handle situations like this?

What was different for me this time around was that I found myself doing a lot of listening. People’s circumstances like submission issues, broken marriages, or dealing with disobedient children were some of the hardships they had to endure. The hard part was that these people that we went to visit had already been exposed to the gospel. It wasn’t like they were hearing it for the first time. However, at the same time, their hearts were so hardened. Instead of finding hope in Christ, their difficulties drove them further away from Him. This was hard for me to see, but God used this experience to teach me so much. I learned that in his Great Commission, Christ commands us to go and preach the gospel. However, he also commands us to make disciples, and this entails so much. It isn’t a one-time thing of helping people to understand the gospel so that they can be justified before God through Christ. Discipleship is a lifelong process of helping people to be sanctified in living for Christ. Through Monica’s example, I saw the need to keep persevering in coming alongside people who are struggling. She taught me how to listen, to comfort, to gently rebuke, and to help carry other people’s burdens.

It sounds like God taught you a lot during your time ministering in the barrios. Thank you for taking the time to share with us what you learned!

24 De Septiembre (AR09)

by Stephanie Lim

God gave me the great joy of ministering to the people of barrio 24 de Septiembre with half of our LBC team for two days. He was so gracious to provide opportunities to share His love and mercy with many, some who were hardened to the message and others who had heard it for the very first time.

The dirt-road streets and humble homes were familiar to me, because I had walked the same paths last summer as well. One of the first ladies I shared the Gospel with mentioned that she remembered seeing me walk in front of her home last year, but we didn’t meet or talk at all. (I thought, “How did she remember my face?” But I guess it’s not every day that an Asian girl walks around a Tucumán neighborhood…) By God’s sovereignty, He led me to her home this year. At first I felt like she wanted me to leave because she said she had heard the Gospel before and was opposed to it, but after conversing with her for an hour, I praised God in my heart as she slowly began to acknowledge her sinfulness and need for a Savior.

What brought me so much joy though was seeing the vital role the local church (IBM) has in that neighborhood. They faithfully follow up with these people and provide ways for them to hear from God’s Word through activities and Bible studies. I went to another lady’s home because her daughter attends the weekly children’s program in the neighborhood hosted by IBM, and one of the church members had her contact information. God was so gracious to us, because as my translator and I were sharing with her, she wanted to learn more and more about the Gospel since this was the first time she had heard it in its entirety. In the afternoon, I introduced her to one of the older ladies from the church, who encouraged her to attend the weekly women’s meetings in the neighborhood to get to know and learn from more Christians.

This neighborhood is so precious to me because I witnessed God’s grace and kindness before my very eyes. Praise Him alone!