Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Personal Ministries

Kameron DeVasher

Special Forces Training - Part 1: Ingathering

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you that we have the opportunity of being co-laborers with you in your work of personal ministries.

Please help us to understand how we can do that work most efficiently, most effectively for the upbuilding of your kingdom and the winning of souls.

Help each local church truly to be a training center for Christian workers.

The, yes, somebody mentioned the title of this seminar series is Personal Ministry Special Forces Training.

It's a really cool militaristic theme, but the reality is, is the Personal Ministries Department has been tasked with getting every member of the church involved in some form of outreach ministry.

In fact, If you haven't read it, I want to share with you a couple of things right at the beginning from the Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual.

It's updated every 5 years at the General Conference session.

All the amendments and edits to this document are voted by the world church.

Now I'm not saying that this holds the same weight as a biblical belief or 1 of our fundamentals or something like that, but it is the agreed upon working organizational document of our church around the world.

And on page 100, we find this about the Personal Ministries Department, okay?

Personal Ministries provides resources and trains members to unite their efforts with those of the pastor and officers in soul winning service.

So notice the 2 things you're supposed to do is provide resources and train members to cooperate in the work of soul winning.

In fact, if you go over to page 132, When you look at the work of the board, 1 of the items you're supposed to discuss every month at the church board meeting is the work of the personal ministries department.

Specifically, it says here, encourage the personal ministries department to enlist all members and children in some form of personal outreach, parentheses, missionary service.

Training classes should be conducted in various lines of outreach ministries, okay?

So if you notice the verbs there, you're supposed to enlist people, you're supposed to equip people, you're supposed to train people and get them deployed or employed in some form of work.

And as we mentioned earlier in the Sabbath School 1, the personal ministries department of the conference gets to work with lay people across the board and our goal is to get all 26, 600 and whatever, 7 Davenists in Michigan, every single 1 of them, not just attending church or staying in the church, but to be active participants in the work of the church, which is the winning of souls.

That doesn't mean that everyone's going to do the exact same thing.

And if you were in the, You've heard the phrase total member involvement.

Okay, that's an initiative of the General Conference.

And if you were in the Emanuel Institute, I asked this trick question yesterday, but I don't know if any of you were, so I get to ask it here.

If every member, if a local church had total member involvement, every single member were active in ministry, would your church grow?

See, I told you ahead of time it's a trick question.

Because for instance, if everybody did felt needs community service right, but nobody was giving Bible studies, nobody was doing evangelism, public evangelism, nobody was doing those, you wouldn't have growth.

Now you might have a good reputation in the community, people might appreciate you, but you've got to do something with it.

Now the Personal Ministries Department is trying to get everybody somewhere in that cycle.

Not everybody's going to be preparing the soil.

Some people are going to be doing Bible studies, some people...

But in-gathering, specifically, is 1 of those wonderful, wonderful activities to especially impact the community in that very first phase, that preparing the soil of the heart so that they can build credibility.

Now, we have, I'm going to, if I, sorry, can I just jump to your testimony a little bit because you are someone who has a wonderful testimony about in-gathering from the perspective of someone who at first had no idea what in-gathering was?

So Joyce from the Ithaca Church, would you mind standing up and sharing, come on in brother, sharing your testimony.

I'm gonna hand this to you just so we make sure we get it on the recording.

A number of years someone knocked on my door and it was in gathering.

I had no idea what it was, but I was so impressed by his kindness because I didn't have any money to give him.

He said, oh, I see you have a little girl here.

And there was a card where you could send away for some materials.

And I thought, I'm going to send for that.

But I put it aside, and as time went on, it got lost, and things in life changed, and I was really desperate.

I knew I needed that information that was on that card.

Because I figured maybe, you know, since he was asking for, you know, money and showing, you know, what they did in the community.

I thought, well, he'll maybe be back next year.

I even went to the extent of asking the neighbors, does he come every year?

And he always comes in and visits, and he's so nice and so kind and has prayer with us.

And I prayed, I said, Lord, please send the man back.

But he never came, and I just kept praying.

And as time went on, I told my babysitter that, you know, I'm going to start Bible studies and start an exercise program for Lent this year instead of doing other things.

So she told me about a Bible study that she was going to.

And so I decided, well, that'd help get me started.

So I go to this Bible study and guess who was at that Bible study?

I said, this is what I've been looking for.

And so it was really an Adventist prayer meeting and it was a powerful studies and I just loved it.

But I was so happy to find the man, but of course I was kind of embarrassed and shy and I didn't say anything to him.

But as time went on, I did get baptized And I always value in-gathering because that was my first information about Adventism.

And it was through his demeanor, his kindness, his lovingness.

And so I value in-gathering so very much.

So when we get our packets together, there is always, I mean always, a card in there for Bible studies because people are hungering for the truth.

There may be somebody out there on your street, in your community that's praying, Lord, send me the truth, send me light.

And it's just a simple knock on the door, a simple being kind, a smile on your face, being genuinely interested in them.

And as years did go by, I did tell him, and he was very humbled about it, but the reason I found out he never came back is that he had cancer and he didn't really have much longer to live.

And as time went on, his family did invite us over for Vespers on Friday and we had meals together.

I don't know if any of you know Ed and Marge Pomeroy.

That was the gentleman, Ed Pomeroy was his name.

And the pastor at the time was Don McIntosh, the father.

So I have a passion for in-gathering and it's been almost 40 years now and the passion has not grown dim.

So it's just great to go out on the streets every year, inspire the church members to do the same, but it's this very special experience and it's a fire that just never goes out.

So I encourage each of you to have in-gathering because there may be somebody praying for the light that you're bringing to that door.

Now, you mentioned something when we talked about that earlier, about when you go out and get it, what do you make sure is always part of your, because of your experience, what do you make sure is part of your in-gathering process?

I make sure there's some type of offer in there for Bible studies.

Now recently we have the BibleStudyOffer.com but I had usually put in the Amazing Facts Bible Study card.

That's 1 that I use And now sometimes we use the BibleStudyOffer.com 1 too.

And also try to maybe have another small, truth-filled literature in the bag.

Have something in there about our Community Service Center building because a lot of people in our town are familiar with that.

Excellent, so you make sure that it's not just soliciting funds for whatever, but you're actually trying to get Bible study interest through this because you are someone who had that very experience.

Special Forces Training - Part 2: Prison Ministry

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this beautiful, sunshiny day.

Thank you that we can be inside today to be hearing this particular presentation.

As we have assembled lay people representing the different parts of the field here in Michigan Conference, we especially pray for their work in personal ministries and prison ministry specifically.

Please now bless Rod, all the presentations, be with the people who are listening and the people who will be listening to this recording.

Lord help all of it to be a blessing in the further your work and by your grace to hasten your coming.

And the small group, but you're here for a reason.

I got started in this about 5 or 6 years ago.

So I don't have, a lot of people have been doing it for 20, 30 years.

And somebody called the conference office, Justin was my pastor at the time, and Lancy.

Somebody called the office and said, the folks down in Coldwater, Lakeland Prison, that area, need some help, a little support.

I don't know how it filtered down to me, and I thought, ah, the pastor's going, I'll just, prison ministry had never been on my radar screen.

You know, I'd heard about it, read about it, and I thought, it takes somebody really special to do that.

That, wow, you know, just the thought of it, I thought, that's kind of scary.

And I thought, well, a pastor's going, what could happen?

You know, I don't have to do anything right, but the first time, as we sat in a room about this size, maybe a little smaller, in a big circle, maybe 15, 16 inmates, and I got bitten by the Holy Spirit bug.

So I went down there probably half a dozen times and then they got on their feet again down there.

And a gal named Cindy Smith, I don't know if you met her, she was a leader down there from the Coldwater Church.

She says, well, Rod, there's an opening up in the Jackson prisons up there, 3 big facilities up in Jackson, probably between 3 and 4000 inmates up there.

And I thought, oh, I have to go in by myself.

Oh, I wonder who the Lord is going to get to do that.

Certainly not me, But the Holy Spirit kept prompting me.

You have to go through a background check and orientation.

It's all the state of Michigan, Michigan Department of Corrections, but everyone is a little different.

So anyway, some day we pride ourselves that we are in almost every country in the world.

I mean there's only 6 or 7 that we're not in, right?

And hundreds of different languages, right?

And it isn't anything about us, it's about what God has done through us.

And what he's done through me, the lowest of the, you know, never thought of doing this.

But even though we're in all these countries and all these languages, there's about 40, 000 men and women right here in this state that are forgotten.

There's a ministry out here called Forgotten Man Ministry.

It's not Adventist, but it does a good work.

So unless you know somebody, have some of you know or a loved 1 that's been incarcerated, it's pretty much off your radar screen.

Does anybody here do an anti-prison ministry of some kind?

In Florida, my husband and I are involved in it.

There's a maximum security prison near where we live and our church goes there.

Okay, and you do Bible studies, church service?

There's a maximum security in that, they call it a work camp in the evening.

We just do a, usually we do a video and then we talk.

Men are grateful for whatever you do, I tell you.

I think Michigan does it in levels, like level 1, 2, 3, 4, depending on how they behave.

So yeah, we're mainly in level 1 areas, but let me tell you a story.

The reason we want to get coordinated, There's a guy that's been in our prison a lot right there.

Because he worked in 1 for years and he still does prison ministry.

He actually he got paid to go in and now he does it for free right?

So anyway 1 of the reasons why I've been working with Cameron is there's different people in the state doing prison ministry, but I have no idea who they are.

And they don't have any idea who I am, and I don't know what they're doing, and they don't know what I'm doing, and how do you reach this group, and et cetera.

You know, if you're doing vacation Bible school, the conference puts out all kinds of stuff, you know, and you coordinate together.

Let me tell you why we want to get connected.

The Adventist Book Center down in Lansing got a letter from an inmate from Ionia, Bellamy Creek.

And in the letter, Vicky, they were requesting any kind of literature.

So Vicky, yeah, Vicky, she knew that I did prison ministry, that we all go to the Lansing Church.

So she gave me the letter, you know, you want to do anything with this I?

Read the letter and and this guy was a level it was a level 4 where You were somebody else 1 of the other guys is going into now Level 4 is they don't play well with others.

Well, when you're newly convicted, let's say you kill somebody, you'll go in as a level 4.

And if your behavior is bad, you'll go up in security level.

And after a time, when you've proven yourself and your security level and your time goes down, you can go down to a level 2.

I guess probably a murderer wouldn't be able to be a level 1.

They always, as low as they can go, is level 2.

But you might, it has a lot to do with the time.

If you've got 15 years, you'll go to a level 4.

So anyway, this guy wrote and he said, we got a small Adventist group, I think 5 or 6 guys.

You have to have 5 to be considered a church, a meeting.

Anything below 5, they won't let you meet together.

So I wasn't going in there at the time and especially in the level 4, But I knew Billy and Gary Norton and I think the other guy.

Special Forces Training - Part 3: Youth Triathlon

Heavenly Father, we want to thank you so much for the opportunity and privilege to be in ministry.

We ask, Lord, that you will guide and direct us in everything that we say and do be used to give honor and glory to you and to spread our wings as we go out using Jesus' method of reaching people, making friends with our community.

I was in my first district in Gaylord and I was really blessed with a fantastic health ministries director who every spring and fall she was doing a New Start program and it seemed like every single time people were coming to this program there were people who already had diabetes, triple bypass surgery, going through all kinds of health problems.

Most of them were older, gray hair, and I thought, man, if these messages, powerful messages could be given to young people, we could stop this, right?

So how can we get this, the message, the special message that God has blessed us with into the hands of, into the minds, more importantly, of young people.

So as I'm praying about this, God says, why don't you start a triathlon?

But so I started looking at triathlons in Michigan.

And most of the triathlons are in big cities like Lansing, Grand Rapids.

But there's a lot of popularity with triathlons now.

A lot of kids are being involved with all kinds of sports events like this.

And Gaylord was a town close to Camp LaSable.

And it was a community that really loved sports.

Big football team, basketball, you name it.

So in the summer we thought with our Vacation Bible School, when we advertised Vacation Bible School before we had, you know, maybe 4 or 5 kids from the church show up, but trying to get anybody from the community, I mean it was hard and just rarely happened.

I said, I'd like to do a triathlon and it's not gonna cost you anything.

It's a youth ministry that we can get kids to.

And they're like, well, How in the world are you going to get kids to it?

I said, well, we'll offer them a free bike.

How are you going to give them a free bike?

And if you offer all the kids in Gaylord a free bike, you're going to have all kinds of kids come into this program.

And I said, well, I'll go to the businesses in the area and ask them if they'll sponsor a kid.

If they'll sponsor a kid for $100 or 2 kids for $200 or 5 kids for $500, we can do this triathlon.

So they said, if it's not going to cost us anything, we all unanimous vote.

We got everybody on board to do the triathlon.

So I made a little brochure and I'll show you what it looks like.

And I took this brochure door to door to all of the businesses in my community, which started getting me in good shape because I had to walk all over the place.

And if you're going to the business owners in your area, who wouldn't like to have more business owners in your church?

And for the very first thing for a business owner to know is you're the pastor or you belong to the Frost or Gaylord Church, Seventh-day Adventist Church, and you care about young people.

Wouldn't that be a nice thing for the business owners to think about your local church, that you care for young people in your community?

I said, we care about the health of our kids in our community.

We wanted to see them exercise something more than their thumbs.

And I said, we want to give them all a free bike if they will train with us.

So if you turn the page, you'll see, here's how it works.

If they sponsor 1 kid, they'll get bronze sponsorship.

And we'll put the name of their business not only on our brochures for the next year.

But we'll also put them on the back of our t-shirts.

And then we'll make a big poster on the day of the race that says, thanks to our sponsors, and we'll list all of our sponsors.

I get to help a kid by sponsoring them with a triathlon, but I also get my name recognition out there.

So the first year I raised 3 and a half thousand dollars.

So what we did was we told the kids who came, they were excited.

I asked the kids on the first day, there was 36 kids who signed up.

I mean, these are all kids from our community.

Now, that's not counting our church members' kids.

And they came there and I asked them, how many of you want a free bike?

So you're going to exercise with us every week for the next, at that time it was 8 weeks.

If you come every day for that 8 week program, and it's just once a week.

And so if you come every Sunday for the next 8 Sundays, you'll get a free bike.

But you can imagine it's summertime, people want to go on vacation, they want to do something, camping or something on the weekend with their family.

And so by the end of the summer we had about 20 kids who qualified for a free bike.

But we got a picture in the newspaper of 20 kids getting a free bike from who?

The Gaylord Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Because they care about young people, right?

1 of those families wanted to know more about this church.

We want to get to know them a little bit better.

And he became, he got baptized, his wife got baptized, his 2 kids got baptized, And then he became a deacon of the church in Gaylord.

Series

Personal Ministries

Special Forces Training - Part 4: Community Service

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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