For this month’s article, I decided to step aside and let some people do the writing for me. I asked two of the original members of Star Youth Ministries to share their testimonials on their soul-winning experiences. I believe that you will be encouraged with what they have to share in terms of their involvement in the Great Commission. Do enjoy reading them!
ANDREA AMOR FRANCO
Since I became a part of the Star Youth Ministries, I’ve yet to have an extraordinary experience when it comes to witnessing. But despite this, I consider each and every witnessing experience to have a great impact in my spiritual life.Talking to strangers has not always been “appealing” to me. I grew up believing that talking to them might put me in harm. Not until I became a part of Star Youth Ministries. I found myself not only talking to strangers but searching for them as well. Yes, searching for lost souls and sharing the good news to them. I have never been a gutsy person when it comes to initiating conversations, never been a risky person as well. I believe that there is always a risk when it comes to witnessing but then God has proven His faithfulness because witnessing has not yet placed me in any trouble or harm. Instead, it has led me into deeper love for people and passion to share His word to those around me who always seem to be happy living their lives, but the truth is, deep down their hearts, they are screaming and crying for help.
Sharing God’s word is not easy but it can be fun. I am not saying this because I have gone to different places (such as Baguio, Pangasinan, Batangas) because of our witnessing sessions. The brothers and sisters in Christ whom we worked with have helped made it fun. But it is those strangers in parks and marketplaces whom we converse with in 3 to 5 minutes, sharing to them God’s life-saving Gospel (of course, the way Jesus did) that makes witnessing such a fun thing. I won’t trade the feeling for anything in the world. Talking to these people has also made me realize many things about my own life. But the ultimate realization is that everything I have done to serve the Lord was not really about my strength or courage but it has always been about God’s power working in me, and continually working in me, because knowing the very timid and fearful “me”, I know that it is impossible to do these things.
But then, I’ve realized that I really do not have to go to far places to win souls. I am a young person. I go to malls, I go to movie houses, and I study in a university. I am not a student who happens to be a Christian but I am a Christian who just happens to be a student. I admit that it is a lot harder to approach those people whom I am with everyday. There are a lot of excuses I could give not to preach God’s Word, but there is one great reason why I should not be afraid of telling the good news that would outweigh those excuses. It is the truth that God died for me. And so I started sharing the Word to some of my classmates without minding if they would laugh at me seeing those two pieces of curve illusions in my hands. It is a great blessing for me that I have a number of classmates who are already believers of Christ. We just had our first small group gathering and we talked about our plans on how to win the souls of our other classmates, and that is what I am really praying for right now.
I was asked to do an article to tell my witnessing experiences. I may have shared things here which you may think are out of context. Pardon me. I’m just so excited to finally be able to tell the world that I am a young Christian “at work”. This is the life I have chosen and if I have to spend my youth in serving my Creator, I would always gladly do so. One day when I’m old and I look back at how I had spent my youth, I know that what I chose to do right now for the Lord is something that I will never, ever regret doing.
ARVIN CUNANAN
Evangelism is the closest thing to the heart of God. The reason why I got saved is because there’s someone who boldly shared the Gospel of salvation to me. As a Christian or a follower of Christ, it is also my duty to lift up the name of Jesus and to share the gift of God, Salvation.I remember one of my experiences in sharing the good news to a group of students. The students were also members of a fraternity. While having their past time, standing in the compound of a Catholic church, I decided to approach them and talk about their sins, their destiny and about Jesus. While sharing the Gospel to them using the principle of the Way of the Master, testing them on how they’ve kept the 10 Commandments, one of the students beside me started playing his balisong (a type of knife here in the Philippines that’s quite dangerous). I got scared and thought that at any moment, this guy could stab me. But God’s protection is with me. He promised that He’ll never leave me, nor forsake me. He said that for people who yield to the Great Commission, He will be with us even to the ends of the earth and that’s the reason why my fear of what might happen subsided. But if He does allow that I be physically harmed, this is what I’ll declare to everyone --- “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.
Despite being just a typical young man in our church, I was assigned in the ministry of evangelism at the same time the youth leader in our church chapter. Our church pastor gave me the responsibility to make evangelism activities and strategies. Knowing the principle of The Way of the Master has been a great blessing for me. I conducted seminars and trainings in our church to teach the most effective and biblical way of evangelizing. Injecting the principle in our church is not that easy. We’ve had some of our ministry heads rejecting the idea of having a street evangelism program. They believe that the best way to bring people to church is by pouring on them Christian songs upon Christian songs until they’ve realized that it’s high time for them to embrace Christianity. Going out of the church to look for souls to witness to, is for them, already outdated. They believe that it is more effective to have an evangelistic concert, showing their talents and abilities to sing, dance and play instruments than to share directly their faith. For me, they are just making themselves the stars of the concert night, not Jesus Christ.
Many of the Christian churches today are loaded down with so many church activities while the real work of the church which is to win souls for Jesus is totally neglected. Sometimes, they substitute prayer for the Great Commission. They always pray for their love ones to be saved but they don’t do their part in bringing them to Christ. They give so many reasons why they are not involved in soul-winning, but in reality, they are not reasons, they are all alibis.
Andrea and Arvin will be joining several young Christians for this year’s missions trip which we call the Gospel Buzz (October 24-26). They will be spending three whole days sharing the Gospel (the way Jesus did) from Bulacan to Batangas and back to Bulacan. We need your support to this evangelism program. To find out how you can send your donation to the Gospel Buzz, just click the blinking bus at our homepage.
