ASI Pacific Union 2014: Building Bridges

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ASI Pacific Union

John Bradshaw

The Question

I know it's not morning, but it's the kiss of death for a preacher to stand up and say, good afternoon, everybody.

That's just like, when are you going to finish already?

Already had the union president check his watch, that's not a good sign.

I tell you what, gatherings like this are just energizing, aren't they?

And it's wonderful to be among our old friends and people I've worked with in evangelism.

Elder Carno, the Central California Conference President and I go way back a little bit.

We worked on an evangelistic series here in the Bay Area.

And I knew then, long before many of you did, that this is a man, You know, if you cut him, he would bleed evangelism.

That's just what he loves and it's what he did and he spends his time doing it.

And I think it's fair to say that the recent, I think it's fair to say, you may not want me to say this, but I've got the mic right now.

When it's your turn, you say what you want, but it's my turn right now.

I think it's fair to say that the relatively recent evangelism uptick, I was going to use the word explosion, but I'll use the word...

That the big surge of evangelistic activity that took place in the Bay Area was largely, if not directly, attributable to Elder Karno's commitment to evangelism at a time when those around him were not committed to evangelism.

So we have a lot to thank this church leader for.

I had the privilege of working with Church Elder Norman Reitz in a series of meetings here in the Bay Area.

It's 1 thing for Norman to stand up here and talk about trips to China and here and there and so forth.

And, you know, You're hearing a fellow give a stirring report about China, but I'm...

But I'm seeing a gentleman who I know lives and breathes evangelism at great expense to himself.

He shuts down his legal practice so he can travel to Armenia or some other place to conduct an evangelistic meeting, not because anybody put him up to it, but because God put that call in his heart.

He didn't know how to say no to God, you see.

So here in our midst are people who we know just love evangelism.

And please understand, when I reference evangelism, I don't simply mean the public evangelistic effort.

As important a part of evangelism as that is.

We're talking about big city evangelism, reaching the big cities this weekend.

That's more than simply renting a hall and preaching, but that can, should be, and is a significant part of it.

And I look around here and it would be remiss of me not to recognize Elder Peterson from Northern California Conference, Elder Jim Peterson, the President.

He ordained me not too far from here some years ago.

So if you don't like what you hear today, blame him.

I wanna share with you quickly a couple of things that we're doing at It Is Written.

1, something for the kids at My Place With Jesus.

We've got a club challenge, a spring photo contest.

You can find out more when you grab this at our booth, but if there are kids who like to take pictures, be part of this.

Medical missionary work is something that I value much, and we're involved with that in not as many ways as we should be, but we'll address that.

We're working with a medical team in India and they traversed the subcontinent doing cataract surgery.

And you know, your grandmother had cataract surgery or perhaps you did and your vision was a little blurry and whatnot, but Many of these people can't see.

They are blind because they've got great big milky white blobs, hypermature cataracts in their eyes.

And in a place like India where you are not getting a disability check for nothing, that's, it's life-ending.

And in a surgery that typically takes less than 2 minutes, the surgery itself, and costs 75 bucks, a blind person can see again.

And when we were holding our meetings in India recently, and there were 3, 000 people baptized.

Among that number were people who had come to Christ through this medical missionary outreach.

In fact, even in the congregation, if I can call it that, there were people wearing their protective sunglasses.

You know, They'd had surgery just days before.

So it's 1 thing to be able to see, but what we do as Christians is we try to help people see, and that's to see and know Christ and appreciate the great gift of salvation.

And there's another thing, I share this because as a witnessing tool, we have a one-minute daily devotional called Every Word.

If you go by our booth, and please go by the booths, a lot of organizations and ministries and people here and they've come here at expense and they've come here because they each believe they have something that you might be blessed by participating in or learning about or praying for at the least, and actually the least is the most.

You'll see in your program when they're open.

We'll give you a fistful of little cards that you might share with others and tell them about this devotional.

It's 1 minute long and you'd be surprised what a minute can do.

We take a Bible and apply it to a person's life.

It may not change the entire world, but it's changing the world for some people.

Next time we were back a week later he pulled us aside.

Then last Thanksgiving Melissa was in the bank again and he pulled her aside once more.

He said, I want to tell you thanks, because when you gave me that card, I was not a believer.

He said, you can be thankful for me this Thanksgiving.

I mean, there are people who are accepting the Sabbath, accepting Christ, some people having babies because of every word.

I mean, incredible things happen when you...

That begs an explanation, but I'm just...

And then if you like what you do is you post it on Facebook or you forward it to somebody.

There might be 1 about racism or 1 about the love of God, or 1 about animals, or 1 about trust and faith and love and so on.

And you say, wait, I got a brother, a neighbor, a friend, a colleague who might be blessed by this.

And then you say, you like that so much, I've got a book to give you.

So there's a tool, a witnessing tool that you might want to use.

Now I'm reluctant to share what I'm about to share, but I will because I've learned it's probably important for me to do that because of the rumor mill.

I just heard the other day that I was on 1 year's leave of absence, and I thought to myself, that'd be good.

But I'm not, I'm not on a leave of absence.

And I was at ASI National last year in Orlando and I was driving from A to B and I had my 3 kids in the car and took a telephone call and found out via the phone call that I had cancer.

And so I went and had lunch and came back and stood up before a room full of people and held a seminar presentation.

I kind of felt like saying, how's your day going?

Because my day had changed rather considerably.

Back to Menu

The Question

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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