ASI 2014: Lift Him Up

Seminar: Spiritual Enrichment

Scott Griswold

Reaching the World Next Door

Father in heaven, this is your hour that we have together.

You have seen it before it was ever created You gave us this moment to be together.

And so we ask that you would send your Holy Spirit You've promised that where Jesus is present I mean where 2 or 3 are present that Jesus is there and so that's our request is that this time would be taken over by the power of your Holy Spirit that you would speak through me that you would speak to the hearts of each person that are here individually that you will help us to hear the unique distinct voice that you want to say to us through your word, through your principles, and that we would know how to put it into practice, that our time would not be wasted in any way, but that the seed would plant deep, and that each of us would grow further in the measure of Christ, that we would know how to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, starting with right next door.

And so we lift up to you the many, many people who have come to North America, the Afghani, the Muslim, Iraqi, the Buddhists from Bhutan, from Myanmar, animists, the secular people from China, from beyond.

And we ask that you would give us your heart for them today, that we would be able to feel the passion that Jesus Christ has for those who have not had a chance to know you.

Come and be with us and be with those that are still on their way.

Bless them as they come and join us in Jesus name amen.

Just give my background very briefly we have spent 16 years of our lives in Southeast Asia we're headed over there in 2 weeks so we're still a part of it even though we're living now in Berrien Springs Michigan I'm working with ASAP ministries which used to stand for Adventist Southeast Asia Projects, working with the many refugees that came out of Laos and Myanmar and, okay, thank you, and Cambodia, Vietnam, and into Thailand, and then on into America and other places.

And so that's how we are connecting, even though we've moved back from living overseas, we're able to be part of that special ministry and go and help with training, about 600 lay or national missionaries that we work with there, doing church planting, medical work, working with literacy teaching.

For those, that's 1 of the best things you can do to help a country is teach the mothers to read and write.

We're involved with feed and read schools, getting children off the streets of Phnom Penh and into the schools where they can have a free meal and Christian education.

I'm very excited to be going back to be there.

Our son, our Cambodian son, his wife has given birth to a little baby, so I've become a grandpa.

So our background is cross-cultural missions.

And grew up in California, pastored in the Bay Area in a multicultural church.

And so the Lord has led us to have these experiences.

And as we started to come back to America, we had that feeling of, I shouldn't be doing this.

The work's out there that needs to be finished.

I speak Cambodian, I speak Thai, I should stay there.

But we felt it was time to for our parents sake for our children's sake education level at college Daughter had been homeschooled all the way through high school and and so we began to pray Lord What are we going to be doing there in America?

The land with so many churches, with English bookstores and radio and television programs already.

I remember landing for a meeting at the general conference in Washington, D.C.

Area and I wanted to pick up some goodies for my family.

This was when we were still living in Thailand.

And as I went to Target to pick something up, I looked and I saw a tall, big man, Asian, dressed in an orange robe.

I knew he would immediately that he was a Buddhist monk, but I wondered where he was from.

Because I had been praying for many years as director of the Buddhist Study Center for Adventist mission for Bhutan.

Bhutan is this tiny landlocked country next to India and Bangladesh and Myanmar, that area, Nepal.

And unentered by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, little work on the border, but we'd been praying for this very hardcore Buddhist country where you can't even climb the mountains because they're considered holy.

And I looked and I saw and I thought, I wonder if he's Bhutanese.

Went up to him, talked to him, and sure enough, here he was, living in America, open and ready for someone to share the gospel with him.

As we look at the 7, 276 unreached people groups yet in the world without any Christian witness, nobody who can speak their language, we wonder how is the work of God going to be finished, Right?

Praise the Lord for everything that's happening.

This time is so exciting to see what God is doing.

And that is just representing where there is no Christian witness, let alone A Seventh-day Adventist presence preaching the 3 Angels' messages.

We could spend a long time thinking and praying about that, but 3 major summaries that we all know about are Acts 1, verse 8.

It will be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in his church, transforming our lives, working through us in a mighty way as at the day of Pentecost and beyond.

We will see him move and finish his work.

There's also a disciple multiplying strategy in Matthew chapter 28, 18 to 20.

This great commission has built into it the very way Jesus intends the work to be done.

As we go, not sitting, but as we go, We are to teach people to observe, calling them to obey.

We are to lead people to a deep conversion, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We are to make disciples in the way Christ did, which if we had time to look at it, takes from what we could do.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into that now.

Anyway, that's a whole other area at our website.

I can share with you some of the things there that I believe God is going to do at the end.

And Matthew 9 verse 38 tells us, he has specifically promised if we will pray for him to raise up labors for the harvest, he will do so.

So these are 3 key things that we know God is going to work mightily through at the end of time.

But that's not what we're gonna spend most of our focus on even though we'll touch on all 3 of those in some way There's another 1 we seldom see and that we can find also there in Acts chapter 2 verse 5 It says and there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews devout men from every nation under heaven.

How is it, they said, verse 8, that we hear each in our own language in which we were born?

We know that miracle of the Holy Spirit empowered the disciples to speak in a way that everybody heard in their own language.

But what about the idea that God had brought them all to 1 place?

In America, in the United States, we have 2 new legal immigrants coming in every single minute.

More than a million a year, not to count the illegal ones.

That is a lot of people who have just come and in their transition are wide open to the gospel of Jesus Christ, to loving care.

We were told about a hundred years ago in evangelism page 570, we should be able to see in the multiplying opportunities, and they have multiplied since that day, to reach many foreigners in America a divinely appointed means of rapidly, rapidly extending the third angel's message into all the nations of earth.

God in his providence has brought men to our very doors and thrust them as it were into our arms that they might learn the truth and be qualified to do a work we could not do in getting the light before men of other tongues." There is so much packed into that quote.

His hand was in bringing the nations to our earth, to our land, to America, so that this gospel might be shared.

He's had to thrust them into our arms because we're busy, because we're not thinking about it.

But the Catholics, the Baptists, many others have been there right at the airport to receive them off the plane and to care for them and then to fellowship with them.

Some have been there and we'll share about that in a few moments.

But this is clearly his plan and they will do a work we could not do.

Would you like to be a missionary in Saudi Arabia today?

You'd likely be sent out on the next plane.

But the people you shared with, what about them?

20 of the largest unreached people groups are here in huge numbers.

Okay, so these are major unreached groups that we have no evidence of presence.

They're here in large numbers, plus many others in small numbers.

Almost a million international students are here in the United States and Canada studying.

They are either the leaders of the world or the future leaders of the world.

The previous Egyptian president had studied here.

The present vice president of Taiwan studied here.

They're here especially from China, India, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

75% will go back to their countries having never entered an American's home.

80% will never have walked into a single Christian church.

70, 000 refugees, a smaller group, but a very important group, come into our country every year.

We can know exactly where they're going to land, what city they're going to be living in, at least for the first few months.

And we can be there to take them off the airplane and help them find, and help them begin to adjust.

Seminar: Health

Fred Hardinge

Essentials Ingredients for Successful Local Church Health Outreach

I would just like to invite you each 1 to bow your heads with me as we invite God's Spirit here.

Father in Heaven, we are thrilled with the message that we are all a part of.

We are especially grateful, Lord, for The knowledge we have of Jesus as our Savior, and for the life-changing power that comes from his gift on the cross of Calvary.

We ask, Father, that you would bless us now, that you would enlighten our minds and strengthen us for the tasks, the mission, and the work that you give to each 1 is our prayer in Jesus' name.

Now my wife is very anxious that I clarify something that is in the program.

I'm not sure, I'm not trying to point any fingers, but I don't work for the ministry that is listed there.

The description in the program is totally in error as far as who I am.

My wife's name is April, just like the month.

And I work for the General Conference as Associate Health Ministries Director.

And I am particularly, my portfolio includes nutrition, and I am a nutritionist and a dietician.

I am a pastor, and I have my doctorate in public health.

And I have been in the General Conference for 4 years, for the past 4 years.

And I have the privilege today of traveling around the world, really, and interfacing with those who are really doing health ministry in many different parts and corners of this earth.

I am thrilled to see what God is doing in many, many, many of these projects.

Let me just tell you 1 quick story because I just recently heard it.

We have in the city of Kiev in the Ukraine recently opened the Adventist, the Adventist, the Kiev Adventist Medical Center.

Now when you see the word Medical Center you may think of Loma Linda University or Florida Hospital.

It was almost 10 years in the building and the development.

There's a lot of sacrificial giving has gone into the preparation of this center.

And it's a large, it's really a remarkably large structure.

It went through, It was originally started and then the church was able, or some people, some Adventists were able to buy it and then they began, because the construction had stopped and they kind of shelled it in and then there were problems and then they ran out of money and this is a ten-year process.

But they have room in it for classes, several beautiful amphitheaters.

And I just want to tell you a story that I just recently learned of, and you're well aware that the country of Ukraine is in turmoil today and no 1 really knows what's going to happen there.

And their grand opening in which they were Starting with a class that they called How to Sleep, on the first night, you could hear on the highway a block away, the military trucks and even some gunfire during that night.

They were, the staff in the morning got together for prayer and said, do we go ahead or should we just not do anything?

They felt really impressed the Lord would have them go ahead.

And so they opened that program at 6 p.m.

And rather than 20 or 30 people, they had 65 people come to the class.

1 of the ladies, and it was a three-night class, and they weren't sure whether they'd be able to even have the privilege of the second night or the third night.

1 of the ladies that came to that class came up and talked to our doctor, who was doing the lecturing, on the third night and said this, "'I need to tell you that this class has saved my life.'" And he said, well, tell me a little more.

She said on the first day, started on a Tuesday, now this is Thursday evening, on Tuesday morning, she and her 2 children found a building that was 10 stories tall, and they found access to the roof, and she had decided that all 3 of them were going to jump off because she was so discouraged.

And they were going to do that the next day.

She just was casing the joint, so to speak.

That evening, on the way down the stairs, as they went out the building, they saw a poster for this class, How to Sleep.

They hadn't heard about the Kiev Adventist Medical Center.

She left her children, they were young children, she left them with somebody, I still don't know who, and she came to the class.

And at the end of that class, she said to herself the first night, I'll do it Thursday.

The next night, she said, I'll do it Friday.

I need to come back for the last class." During the last class, the Holy Spirit brought conviction to her heart that her life was worth more than what she thought it would be.

And she told the doctor, she said, you have saved my life and the life of my children.

And he sat down with her and he prayed with her, the first time anybody had ever prayed with her in her life.

And he invited her to come the next evening to their home, he and his wife, and have a meal.

And that evening, he offered to study the Bible with her.

And what is so thrilling to me is that now, several months later, tomorrow, it is the plan that she will be baptized as a Seventh-day Adventist.

And I want to just share with you some principles that I have learned along the way that I hope will be helpful to you in your local churches as you look to carry out health ministry in the way that God wants you to do it.

But as we begin, I'd like to ask the question, what is health ministry?

And a lot of people have different ideas of what it is.

People think it's selling, you know, this supplement or selling this product.

Some people think it's taking people for a walk.

Other people think it's various kinds of things.

Well, I'm not sure about selling things other than good information, but we'll come to that.

But I would like to just ask you to think carefully about what health ministry is all about.

And I would like at the beginning to suggest to you that it is not just a set of scientifically established health practices that prolong and preserve life.

It is more profoundly important than its component parts of balance, nutrition, exercise, rest, water, sleep, whatever.

It can do far more than modern science has discovered or demonstrated.

The Seventh-day Adventist health message, when rightly understood and linked with Scripture and the God of Scripture, can bring the dead to life.

And we'll come back to that concept of bringing the dead to life.

When we confine any part of the health message merely to its scientifically validated facts, we are tragically shortcoming our audience of the eternal health benefits that only come from our Savior Jesus.

And so I would like to, with that as an introduction, I'm going to share with you some broad principles that I believe are very important in carrying out effective health ministry in the local church, actually anywhere.

But the first 1 is that we need to share Jesus as the only effective agent of change.

You know, I was a freshly minted health educator.

I had my doctorate of public health, and I was invited to come to a large city church to develop in that community a health outreach program that reached out to the community that surrounded the church.

Church members initially said, would you please come and live near the church?

But there was no way that we could even afford to live anywhere near the church.

I wanted to share Jesus with the people who came to our programs.

I was told by 1 of my church members that most everybody that would come through the door to the program would be Jewish.

And so, as I began working in that community, I didn't begin a program with prayer.

I made a few veiled references to divine aid.

I may have spoken about the creator in terms of the wonderful creation of the human body and the need to take care of it.

But I was very...I didn't even finish with a benediction because I was afraid that I would offend those who were coming.

I'm not sure that very many of them had much interest in spiritual things.

And I had worked for about a year and a half and I was very frustrated in my own soul.

I believed I needed to go out and meet these people and get acquainted with them.

And so I would tell them that I would be phoning them and I would be trying to set up a visit with them.

And I would knock on the door at the appointed time and they would welcome me in.

Seminar: Lift Him Up

Will Pergerson

Lift Him Up: Evangelism’s Last and Only Hope

Well, pleasant good afternoon to all of you.

Hope you all had a full and fulfilling day.

As you know, this seminar is entitled Lift Him Up.

It's the Lift Him Up section of our ASI seminar.

And the title of my sharing with you this afternoon is Lift Him Up, How the Message of Christ Our Righteousness Saved Me and My Ministry.

I've thought long and hard about this, and I think it's best to stick with God's model and how God likes to explain things.

So as God teaches us about things that are outside of our understanding, it appears to me that often God uses this model of giving us the big picture first.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And only after you've had a chance to kind of absorb the big picture does He zoom the camera in and give you more details as it was in creation.

But the first thing He gives you is the big picture.

Created the heavens and the earth, and now that you've kind of absorbed that, let me tell you how I did it.

The Bible says in Matthew chapter 4 and verse 19, Jesus told his disciples, follow me and I will do what?

And only after he told them, this is what I'm going to do with you, did he spend the next 3 and a half years going over the details and the experience of how that was to be done.

In my haste to begin on time, I forgot to have a talk with the most important person in the room, our Lord and Savior.

Father in heaven, I thank you so much for this time, and I am anxious that your word be clear.

This can only happen if your spirit is our teacher.

We pray that you will impress our minds and our hearts with your word, that none of me will be seen and all of Jesus will be what we remember and hear and we thank you in Jesus name, amen.

And so follow me, I'll make you fishers of men, that's the big picture and then the details, I'll work that out over the next 3 and a half years.

He did it again in John chapter 13 and verse 12.

So after he had washed their feet and had taken his garments and was set down, he said unto them, know ye what I have done unto you.

Do it first, then I'll give you the details of what I just did and help you understand the significance of what just happened.

So as we talk about the gospel, It is such an expansive concept that I was reading something from Ellen White says, she says that this concept is so broad, it is so high that it reaches into heaven and it spans eternity.

In other words, if you grasp this by faith, this literally will take you straight to heaven and stretch your lifetime to last for eternity.

Now how are we going to boil something that large down to a 30-minute talk?

And so what God says is, first, just step back and grab the big picture.

And the snapshot that gets my attention and that got my attention and that literally rescued me from apathy and and probably ultimately destruction is is my favorite hero in the Bible outside of Jesus.

Have you ever wondered how this man, a captive in chains, conquered the way he did?

Conquered kings, invaded courthouses, rescued people from jail.

And often as I was coming up as a young pastor, I often wondered, I wish I could have worked with the Apostle Paul.

I wish I could have been his protege, heard what he said and did what he did.

And yet, thank God for the spirit of prophecy.

She tells us some of the ways that he was able to do all that he did.

And here she says, His cheerfulness under affliction was so unlike the spirit of the afflicted of the world, that they, talking about the pagans, the heathens, the Romans, could but see that a power higher than any earthly influence was ever abiding with him.

When they beat that man back till it was almost like hamburger and laid him in that rat-infested prison, and he broke out with singing, they said, that is unnatural.

Now, if that's a fake, he's going to quit in about 5 minutes.

But he kept it up hour after hour, broke it up with testimony, went back to singing until heaven came down.

And you know the story, though, the walls came tumbling down.

They said, that is, That's the spirit of a God.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Reaching the World Next Door

1h 14m

Essentials Ingredients for Successful Local Church Health Outreach

1h 30m

Lift Him Up: Evangelism’s Last and Only Hope

1h 20m

Emergence Christianity’s Impact on the Seventh-day Adventist Movement: Part 1

1h 14m

Emergence Christianity’s Impact on the Seventh-day Adventist Movement: Part 2

1h 10m

Motivating Employees: The Biblical Record & Contemporary Research

1h 20m

Righteousness by Faith and the Final Conflict

1h 24m

ASI Members In Action

1h 57m

Transforming the Mind

1h 37m

Discerning End-Time Deceptions

1h 17m

Lessons on Loss

45m

God’s Last Message: Christ Our Righteousness, Part 1

47m

Sound Doctrine