Engage Magazine for Wednesday, 26 November 2014 Issue #86

www.engagemagazine.com	November 26, 2014 Issue #86

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Video: Taxi for Christ
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Through a lack of understanding of Christian beliefs and the Scripture, a man in Lebanon found himself married to two women at the same time. When Christ began to deal with Hadi, and he started attending a Nazarene church where he heard spiritual truth, Hadi not only decided to follow Jesus, he turned his job as a taxi driver into a place for sharing Christ with his passengers.
Read the article.
Taxi for Jesus by Gina Grate Pottenger
Hadi*, of Lebanon, may drive a taxi as his occupation, but his preoccupation is sharing Jesus with as many passengers as he can by playing the audio Bible in dozens of languages, as well as handing out Bibles, tracts and copies of the JESUS film on DVD.
He wasn’t always so zealous about evangelism. In fact, he spent half a lifetime simply figuring out what it means to follow Jesus Christ.
Hadi was raised in another religion, but when he was 16, a friend invited him to a Christian church, and he quickly identified himself as a Christian.
However, the teaching at this church didn’t lead him into a personal, transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. It was simply another religion for Hadi to follow, and he didn’t read the Bible.
As a result, he struggled in his new beliefs.
"There wasn’t a very good relationship between me and Jesus. I wasn’t aware of what Christianity means or what holiness means at that time, so I wasn’t really aware of myself as a Christian.”
Without proper discipleship, Hadi floundered in his relationships and decisions. That’s how he ended up married to two women at once.
In Hadi’s former religion, it is acceptable to have multiple wives. After having four children with his first wife, he fell in love with a second woman. He approached the leaders at his church about the situation. They encouraged him to be with both women at the same time, but said he would need to go through an informal divorce ceremony with his first wife to make the dual marriage ethical.
After the “divorce,” Hadi made a habit of spending half the week with the first wife and their children, and then half of each week with his second wife. His relationships with his first wife and children deteriorated.
Then his daughter Sarah began attending the Bouchrieh Church of the Nazarene. Hadi decided to visit and see what it was like. Gradually, the biblical teaching transformed his mind and heart. He began to read his Bible.
Soon, Hadi became convicted by the Holy Spirit about his dual marriage. He prayed and asked Jesus what he should do.
One afternoon he was napping. In a place between dreaming and waking, he felt a hand on his shoulder. This sensation gave him a joy he had never experienced before. A hand took his and led him down the stairs of his home in the vision, but it felt like he was floating.
“I felt such a joy that so far I cannot really verbalize it, I cannot give any explanation to it,” Hadi said, with tears filling his eyes. “I woke up from my nap and I felt I am a totally different person [than] who I was before the nap. Hadi died and another Hadi lived.  A new Hadi lived and Jesus Christ came into my life.”
Shortly after this experience, Hadi’s second wife called him to ask him for a divorce. He tried to share Christ with her, but she wouldn’t listen.
The divorce allowed him to return to a biblical family situation with his first wife and children. Now the entire family attends the Nazarene church, and are growing in their faith, as well as their harmony with each other. They have shared their faith with people from their home village and a new house group is now meeting there.

As Hadi grew in a genuine and healthy relationship with Jesus, doors flew open to share his faith with his taxi passengers. People who knew about his occupation would give him Bibles – boxes and boxes of them. One person gave him 22 boxes. Another gave him three boxes, another five. He had Bibles in many languages of potential passengers. He also was given an audio Bible in dozens of languages. And he carried Christian music.
Whenever a new passenger enters his car, Hadi asks the person if it’s OK for him to play the Bible. Most passengers say yes. Hadi selects the language of the passenger. Later in the ride, he hands the passenger a Bible or a tract in his or her language.
“Jesus just gave me the green light to start evangelizing Him and now today I am a postman for Jesus Christ.”
Hadi has a warning for fellow believers: the most dangerous thing you can do is justify your personal choices and actions through a twisted understanding of God’s Word. He also warns against following teachers of the Word who lead believers into false teachings.
*Last name omitted for security.
Nazarene Stories
"Taxi for Christ" is featured in Nazarene Stories -- the online continuation of the previous Global Mission DVD. Nazarene Stories is a production of Global Communications, a department of the General Church of the Nazarene. 
To subscribe to future issues of this video storytelling magazine, visit www.nazarene.org /stories.
Idaho church partners with Nazarene churches in Salt Lake City by Gina Grate Pottenger
When Pastor Jeremy Johnston, of Salt Lake City Central Church of the Nazarene, began chatting with Hugh Friberg, of Nampa First Church, during the Intermountain District Assembly last year, the casual conversation led to what is developing into a major partnership between Nampa First and the four Nazarene local churches in Salt Lake City.
Johnston (with family, photo left) has led Central church for the past three years in a place which has proved to be quite a challenge for the work of the Church of the Nazarene.
The Intermountain District has successfully planted one church in Utah in recent years, but has closed several other churches, and a second attempted church plant failed, according to Steve Borger, the district superintendent.
The state of Utah, particularly Salt Lake City, is headquarters to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Nearly 50 percent of the population of Salt Lake City are Mormons.
Additionally, according to the Salt Lake County, Utah is home to 35,000 refugees. The 2010 census revealed that more than 20 percent of the population is Hispanic, and 27 percent speak a language other than English.  In fact, more than 100 languages are spoken in the immediate vicinity of Salt Lake City Central Church, according to Johnston.
“Our largest metropolitan area [on the district] is Salt Lake City,” Borger said. “That whole valley is about a million and a half population. It is just a huge mission field. In fact it may be one of the most unrecognized and undeveloped mission fields in the USA.”
When Johnston and his family assumed leadership at Central church, the congregation had just five children, three of whom were Johnston’s. Yet the neighborhood was filled with children. So the church started an after school program that welcomes kids from kindergarten through sixth grade. The program now averages about 50 children per week. Some of the kids have grown throughout that time to be teenagers, which led to the organization of a church youth group, as well.
The church gives out food and clothing every Saturday to families in need, getting donations of food from Wal-Mart and several other local grocery stores.
“We use that to reach out to the neighborhood to make those relationships and invite the kids to kids club,” Johnston said.
As a result of its intentional outreach, the congregation has grown from an average of 20 to about 70, with up to 100 people at special events.
Due to the success of their ministries, the church is maxing out its space. Additionally, they have been operating from a building that needed a lot of renovation to be more functional as well as more attractive to the community.
The rapid growth of Central is a ray of hope in what has been a challenging time for Nazarene churches in Salt Lake City in recent years.
“It seems like the Salt Lake churches just never quite get up to that tipping point, they never quite get to that place of critical mass where they can really take off on their own,” Borger said. “It’s so important for our large churches to partner with them.”
Nampa First, which is engaged in official international partnerships in Cuba and Kosova, found a strong appeal to coming alongside Nazarene churches on its own district.
“Our hearts began to go out to that whole group,” said Friberg, Nampa First’s president of Nazarene Missions International.  He and Dan Dillon, Nampa First’s coordinator of partnerships, began to ask themselves, “Is there any way as a congregation we could walk with them in their journey and help them in practical ways in prayer and any kind of leadership development?”
Nampa envisioned a partnership that would start with assisting Central church and expand over the coming years to encompass the other three Nazarene churches in Salt Lake City.
Friberg and Bill Downs, Gary Goode and Larry Durheim, all from Nampa First, visited Central church and spent time with Johnston sketching out what they could do together.
This past summer, Nampa First sent three teams to help out at Central. One was a construction team that mixed teenagers and adults; one was a 5th and 6th grade choir group; the third team was made up of junior high students.
The junior high team (photo right) removed the wallpaper in the nursery and repainted, tore out old carpet and Nampa First provided the funds to lay new carpet. They also held a soccer camp for children from the neighborhood.
The choir completely redid the church’s playground, putting down a weed barrier and spreading 20 yards of new wood chips. They also laid railroad ties around the edge (photo below).  In the afternoons they performed a musical several times,  including at a nearby homeless shelter and in several city parks, followed by a picnic lunch.
A teen and adult construction team replaced all 17 windows in the church. They also put up a new sign for the church installed in a concrete base. And they laid down new electrical wire and added more outlets so the kitchen would be more functional, as well as replaced the kitchen sink, garbage disposal and an oven. They also put siding over a set of doors on the outside that weren’t being used, and the plan is to put a bench and some landscaping there so that people can use it as a place for quiet reflection.
Inspired by all the property improvements, Johnston proposed that his church and Nampa First church set up a matching program so that together they can raise enough money to replace Central church’s chairs.
In October, seven people from Nampa First traveled back to Salt Lake City to help with Central church’s fall festival for the neighborhood.
The partnership has become more than just property improvements or ministry projects.
“We built such great friendships,” said Johnston. “If all they did was come down and hang out and never did a project, just to know they’re there and they love us and pray for us and support us, that love is just an awesome thing. I know that there are a number of people in the congregation that …. really praise Nampa for helping and for being there. And the friendship, I can only see it growing.”
With a solid partnership established at Central, Nampa First is now expanding its attention to Salt Lake City First Church, where Fred and Sheryl Tedder pastor.
The church is in the midst of reassessing its vision and direction, whilst being physically spread out during the week because it has not had its own church building since 2012. The Sunday worship takes place in conference rooms at a local hotel; midweek discipleship happens at a local Assemblies of God building; and the Nazarene church’s offices are housed in a business building in another part of the city, according to Sheryl.
The Tedders will be visiting Nampa First Church later this month for the church’s annual Christmas party, at which time the Nampa congregation will present them with gifts, hear about the Tedders’ vision for their church’s ministry, and discuss how the two congregations can work together, according to Friberg.
“There is much work to be done here in Salt Lake City, Utah,” Sheryl said. “SLC First Church is privileged to be part of the support that will be coming from this partnership with Nampa First and their desire to be in mission so close at home.”
Video: Geovane 

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Made blind by illness as a teen, Geovane has found joy and new purpose in life through Jesus Christ.
Nazarene Stories
"Resurrection: Geovane" is featured in Nazarene Stories -- the online continuation of the previous Global Mission DVD. Nazarene Stories is a production of Global Communications, a department of the General Church of the Nazarene. 
To subscribe to future issues of this video storytelling magazine, visit www.nazarene.org /stories.
Heart of God: Keeping track of everyone by Howard Culbertson
The Lord will write in the register of the peoples. . .”[Psalm 87:6]
In Luke 12:7 Jesus says God knows us so well that He’s counted every hair on our heads.  Psalm 87:6 mentions something else which God keeps track of: Our ethnicity.  The picture Psalm 87:6 paints is that of a listing of the world’s tribal and people groups into which God is entering names of redeemed people.
At least two other Old Testament passages, Exodus 32:32 and Psalm 69:28, mention a divine record book.  In half a dozen places, Revelation speaks of a registry which John calls “The Book of Life.” What stands out in the Psalm 87:6 description of the registry is that it identifies the tribal or people group affiliation of every person whose name appears in it. 
Such a database -- whatever its actual form -- would show the progress of proclaiming the Good News of salvation “among all peoples” (1 Chronicles 16:24). Indeed, Jerry Rankin says that, from that carefully-kept register, “God is tracking the progress of global evangelism and noting which groups have representatives in His Kingdom.”  Perhaps one reason God does this is because He has His eye on fulfilling Matthew 24:14: “This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
One fairly common assumption about Old Testament times is that, during that long period of time, God focused exclusively on His relationship with the Jewish people.  Not so.  Verse 4 of Psalm 87 names specific people groups who were Israelite enemies and notes that there were some individuals in those hated people groups who had become members of Yahweh’s Kingdom.
In the mid-twentieth century, missionary leaders like Cameron Townsend, Donald McGavran and Ralph Winter began calling the Church to identify all the as-yet-unreached people groups and to pour energy and resources into getting the Gospel to them.  Toward that end, the Joshua Project maintains a database of the world’s current people groups with information as to if and how well each one has been reached with the gospel (www.joshuaproject.net).  Of course, the work of the Joshua Project will not be as precise as God’s “register of the peoples.” Nonetheless, it does help those involved in world evangelism see what needs to be done to bring to fulfillment the Apostle John’s vision of people “from every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the Throne” (Revelation 7:9).
In the light of the “register of the peoples” described in Psalm 87:6, we must answer the question: Does whatever we’re doing for the Kingdom contribute to God writing the names of people from more and more cultural and ethnic groups in His register?  How strongly do our hearts resonate with God’s burden for sharing the gospel with all people groups listed in His register?
The Alabaster answered prayer by Clark Armstrong
Clark and Connie Armstrong are missionaries serving in the Philippines. They recently shared this story via Facebook.
We attended our church today in Taytay, Rizal, in the Philippines, and heard a wonderful story from Pastora Lucinda who brought the message. This church was built years ago with Alabaster funds and now they are a strong church. So a month ago, they decided to receive an Alabaster offering. At that time -- a month ago -- the "Bucket Challenge" was in full swing across Facebook and social media, so their church creative team came up with different colored buckets at the front with varying amounts of pledges in each. People from the congregation went up and selected a pledge from a bucket and agreed to give that amount as their Alabaster offering.
A seven-year-old child went up and took a 500 pesos ($11) pledge card. The child did not fully know what it meant, but he wanted to do something for God.
These are not wealthy people, but the parents did not just lay it aside. They explained to the child fully what it meant. The child still wanted to do it, so he prayed to Jesus to help him get the money somehow. But he had no way to get the money.
A few weeks later, the Sunday was approaching for all the people to bring in their pledges and put them in the buckets. Still the child did not have any of the money.
Near the end of the school week, it was Philippine United Nations Day and all the children dressed up in costumes from home that would best represent a country of the world. The school decided to give a prize to the best dressed student. Guess who won? Yes. Guess who came running home after school with a prize in his hand? That boy. Oh, by the way, guess what the prize was? That's right: 500 pesos in cold, hard cash.
Guess who was the proudest and most excited person to bring his pledge that Sunday and place it in the bucket?
Connie and I are so honored and humbled to be here. How can God not bless this place? Thanks for your prayers.
La oración de alabastro que fue respondida by Clark Armstrong
Clark y Connie Armstrong son misioneros que se encuentran sirviendo en Filipinas. Ellos recientemente compartieron la siguiente historia en Facebook.
Hoy concurrimos a nuestra iglesia en Taytay, Rizal, en las Filipinas, y escuchamos una maravillosa historia compartida por la pastora Lucinda, quien trajo el mensaje el día de hoy. Esta iglesia fue construida hace muchos años gracias a las ofrendas de alabastro, y hoy en día cuentan con una congregación muy sólida. Hace aproximadamente un mes, ellos decidieron recibir una ofrenda de alabastro. En ese entonces (hace un mes atrás) el "Ice Bucket Challenge" (desafío del balde de agua helada) era el furor en Facebook y demás redes sociales, así que al equipo creativo de la iglesia se le ocurrió colocar varios baldes de diferentes colores ante el altar, representando diferentes cantidades de dinero que la gente podía comprometerse a ofrendar. Los miembros de la congregación se acercaban a los mismos y tomaban un cupón del interior de cada balde, comprometiéndose a ofrendar esa cantidad como su ofrenda de alabastro.
Un niño de siete años se acercó y tomó un cupón de 500 pesos filipinos. El niño no tenía idea de lo que significaba, pero él quería hacer algo por Dios.
Éstas personas no son adineradas, pero los padres no ignoraron la situación. Ellos le explicaron al niño el significado del cupón. El niño quiso ayudar de todas maneras, así que oró para que Jesús lo ayudara a conseguir el dinero de alguna manera. Pero él no tenía cómo obtener ese dinero.
Unas pocas semanas más tarde, se acercó el domingo en que la congregación traería el dinero para ofrendar y colocar en los baldes. En ese entonces, el niño aun no tenía el dinero.
Al final de la semana de clases, la escuela parecía el Día de las Naciones Unidas en las Filipinas, con todos los niños vestidos en diferentes atuendos que representaban diferentes países alrededor del mundo. La escuela había decidido entregar un premio al alumno con el mejor vestido. ¿Adivinan quién ganó? ¿Si? ¿Adivinan quién volvió a casa corriendo luego de la escuela, con un premio en sus manos? Fue ese niño. Ah, y a propósito, ¿tienen idea de cuál era el premio? ¡Exactamente 500 pesos filipinos en efectivo! ¿Adivinan quién fue la persona más emocionada y orgullosa al traer su ofrenda y colocarla en el balde ese domingo?
Connie y yo nos sentimos sumamente honrados de concurrir a esta iglesia. ¿Cómo no va Dios a bendecir este lugar? Gracias por sus oraciones.[Traducido por Ed Brussa.]
Church in India praises God for daily miracles by Gina Grate Pottenger
A church group in India is praising God for a series of miracles among its people one week, according to Rajiv Yangad, the superintendent of the Central Maharashtra District, who has been pastoring this church for the past four months.
The Matru Church of the Nazarene, in Buldana, has a “Cottage Prayer Meeting” that gathers every Wednesday in different homes, with an average of 40 to 50 people. During the meetings, members testify to what God has been doing in their lives during that week.
One 16-year-old woman named Selvi (left in photo left) spoke up to say that she was praising God for how He saved her life just an hour before the meeting. She had gone into their kitchen to heat a bowl of milk on a gas stove. The bowl was already on the burner, so when she held the lighter to the gas, she didn’t realize that it had not caught fire and was simply spewing gas. She went away to have her breakfast and left the milk to boil. A while later she wanted to heat another one of the gas burners. As she clicked the lighter, the area over the stove erupted into large flames.
Selvi said that by all accounts the gas should have distributed around the room, and thus she and everything around her should have caught flame. However, the gas and the resulting fire remained confined to the stove area. The hair on her hands was burned just a bit, but otherwise she was unharmed.
She called for help and her mother, Pratima (right in photo), came and together they put out the fire.
Pratima told the group that the very same thing had happened to her in 2007, but in her case, her face and entire body were burned. She testified that the Lord miraculously protected her daughter and the family from the fire.
Another woman, Dayabai, spoke up. The 67-year-old told how she was traveling by bus to visit her daughter in another town. Wearing higher heels than she normally does, she lost her balance as she was stepping out of the bus at a stop. She tripped and nearly fell across the road, just as another bus was coming. Somehow she caught her balance and avoided both breaking a leg or ankle on the step and also being crushed by an oncoming vehicle.
That’s when a man and his son spoke up. During that week, the man, Baban Isaac (photo left), had given his ATM card to his son, Abhijit, to go to a cash machine and withdraw some money. Baban wrote the password on the card. His son Abhijit then took the card, slipped it into his front shirt pocket and went to the bank.
Somewhere along the way, the card fell out of his pocket, but Abhijit didn’t notice. When he realized it was gone, he had already traveled quite a distance. Together the father and son, as well as the church’s NYI president, Ankit, searched the entire route he had taken for five hours, afraid the entire time that someone would find the card along with the password and withdraw all the money from their account.
After five hours they found the ATM card laying on the street. No one had used it.
“All these people praised God for what is happening in their lives,” said Yangad. “We have been trying to encourage them again and again to open up about what the Lord is doing in their life. It encourages other believers to trust in the Lord, to pray for each other and lift each other up in the Lord.”
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