This class will give you principles and practices in using Adventist literature instead of “plain Christian” literature in your personal ministries.

Michigan Camp Meeting 2018: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

<p>This class will give you principles and practices in using Adventist literature instead of “plain Christian” literature in your personal ministries.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Adventist Literature

Theresa Broden

Part 1 - A Key to Discipleship

Part 2 - Promotes Successful Ministries

Dear Gracious Loving Father, we thank you for this opportunity to come together, to spend time in fellowship, and to learn more about your work and why you would have us to be involved in the literature ministry.

We ask that your Spirit would be with each 1 here and any that are coming later.

And we ask that you would open our minds and our eyes, guide us with your eyes and teach us what you would have us to know.

Okay, well, for those of you who don't know me, I'll just give you a little background.

I have been an Adventist for about 35, 36, probably 37, yeah, 37 years.

I came into the church as a result of literature.

So literature's always been kind of dear to my heart.

What happened is my family is totally non-Adventist, no religious background at all.

My parents grew up in the church, not an Adventist church, and when they were grown, they said, we have had enough of church, we have put in our quota, we're not going anymore.

I never ever set foot in a church with my parents my whole entire life that I lived with them as a child.

I moved to Michigan to go to the University of Michigan, and there that's where I met my husband.

And my husband came from a Baptist background, but his parents had been given or they had purchased books from Cole Porter's.

And 1 of the books that they had was Bible readings for the home.

My husband's father passed away, and when he passed away he wanted to get that book because they had been studying a little bit about it.

He kept it under the Jewish tradition because he couldn't find an Adventist church.

So he just stayed home on Sabbath and didn't drive his car and he kept the Sabbath as best he knew.

And so when my husband started looking for this book, we had already started keeping the Sabbath because he'd been studying with his dad.

So he went to get the book from his brother, and his brother said, this book is not leaving the house.

So he knew that the book, somehow he figured out it was an Adventist book and he had an Adventist friend.

So he went to her and said, hey, I'm trying to find this book.

Because he had went to places like Sunshine Bible Shop and other Bible places and they're like, oh, that's a cult and we don't have books that they sell.

And so he's like, this place isn't a cult, I've been reading this stuff, this is good stuff.

And so as a result, his friend said, well, this is where the church is, and if you go over there, they'll introduce you to somebody who has the books." And they did.

They introduced us to a coal porter, and the coal porter came to our house and sold us the books that he was looking for, Bible readings for the home.

And as a result, we got into Bible studies, and today we're in the church.

So God uses his literature in a very specific and special way and part of this class is for us to understand how important literature is but also to understand that literature is not an instant reward type of ministry.

And that's, I believe, 1 of the reasons why a lot of people are discouraged because we have gotten into the instant reward mentality.

So if I pass out 100 tracts and nobody asks for a Bible study, I feel unsuccessful.

But God has said that there is no failure in His work.

And once we can understand that and translate that to other people, I think that they will have a greater understanding and appreciation for the literature work.

So what I've done is a lot of what I have has come from this book called The Printed Prophets.

And if you haven't read it, it's a really good read.

And this book was originally written in Spanish and then it was, they had so much good results with it, it was translated to English.

So you'll see a lot of what I have comes right out of this book.

But most of this book is just quotes from the Spirit of Prophecy.

So if you're not a Spirit of Prophecy person, you're probably going to have a little difficulty in this class because this class really is based on the spirit of prophecy.

And it's at the very end of the paper, the name of the book and...

The name of the book and the author is on the very last page.

So you don't have to, I didn't like take his information and just make it mine.

So, but a lot of the information that I have has come from this.

So what we're going to do, this is an interactive class.

We're going to talk about it because basically you need to understand and you need to get the message and you need to make this part of who you are.

You know, me just presenting information is just me presenting information.

It doesn't make a whole, you know, it doesn't change anybody.

So, first question we have is, this is the question that was asked by Mark Finley.

And it says, Why would God pour out His Spirit and latter rain power to finish His work if the majority of the church has little or no interest in witnessing?

If the latter rain, the fullness of the Holy Spirit's power, is to empower the church to reach the world with God's end time message, why would God give us the latter rain if we have a complacent, lukewarm attitude toward reaching lost people?

The fullness of the Holy Spirit's power will be poured out on a praying, totally committed, unified, witnessing church.

Is this the situation that we're in today?

Are we totally Uncommitted, lukewarm, not really interested?

I mean, we have people in our church that are just gung ho for literature ministry, health ministry, pathfinders, and then we have another group of people that we can't get involved in anything.

You've got your workers and your abusers.

And because of that, we don't see what the Lord wants to do in our life and in our church.

And you know, it says here, it says, I want to clarify here that for the purpose of this class, church is individuals, Not congregations or denominations.

Because the latter rain will be falling all around and certain people will be receiving the latter rain and others won't.

And certain churches may, because you know, there's some churches that you can say that church is on fire.

Everything is, I mean, they're witnessing, they're getting people baptized, they're moving.

And then there's other churches who can't tell you the last time they've had someone new come into their church.

So as we talk about the latter rain falling, the latter rain is definitely necessary to do the work.

In gardening terminology, if you plant some seed, you need rain to get the seed going.

But if you only get 1 rain and it never ever rains again, your stuff, whatever you plant it, is going to be pretty small and you probably won't get a harvest.

That latter rain is the 1 that brings in the harvest.

And so we are looking for the latter rain because it's time to go home.

And because it's time to go home, we really want that latter rain experience.

But it's not going to happen, in most cases, to a whole church.

It's gonna happen to individual people who are ready and willing and accepting of what the Lord wants to do.

And that's something we have to understand and appreciate when we do our literature work, is the whole church is never going to get excited about it.

Not everybody is going to want to do literature ministry.

Even when the whole church is excited, there's going to be some naysayers that say, you know, this isn't going to last.

So it doesn't mean that, you know, we can opt out and not have to deal with it.

We're not the only church, though, that understands the importance of the written word.

And so, First of all, Assembly of God leader, his name is Bob Hopkins, he said that Christian literature anointed by the Holy Spirit is always effective and the only way that he believes that we will be able to fulfill Christ's injunction to reach the whole world.

They understand the importance of literature.

Another mass literature plan is for Every Home for Christ.

This is a systematic distribution of evangelical literature to every home in various countries in cooperation with local churches and missionaries.

It has so far circulated 3.25 billion pieces of literature.

Dick Eastman, 1 of the leaders, says a global movement is underway to reach every home for Christ and the impact will be beyond our imagination.

So it's not just the Adventists who have this idea that we need to be getting this literature out.

Other churches understand the same message that we understand.

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Series

Adventist Literature

Part 1 - A Key to Discipleship

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Last Day Events

Interview With the Beast

1h 2m

Why Am I a SDA?

1. Does the Truth Really Matter?

35m

Will He Know You?

48m

All the World Marveled

All the World Marveled

1h 8m

Morning Devotional

Friday Morning Devotional

29m

Eric Walsh Weekend

Storms of Change

49m

God’s Big Surprise

1h 3m

How to Stand at the end of Time

1h 6m

Preparing for the Crisis

06 Is This a Sickness Unto Death?

48m

Globalism, Nationalism, and the Remnant

40m

Our Urgent Call: LIVE the Three Angels' Messages

The Three Angels’ Messages: The Purpose

1h 11m

Sound Doctrine