The Seabourns

Ministry

Courageous Pastor

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The pastor was really courageous. After the evangelism class he taught, I chatted with him about how courageous he was. Evangelism and Giving are two subjects likely to make people uneasy. Many leaders avoid them or minimize the time.

Why?

I think that evangelism (and giving) dredges up guilt and shame. We know we should be more active in talking with others about Jesus. And we are ashamed to admit how little we proactively initiate with others.

I visited church with my son and daughter-in-love yesterday.  That’s where I attended the pastor’s evangelism class. Training others in evangelism is what I’ve done all my adult life. It doesn’t make me an expert evangelism trainer, just an active participant in trying to help others experience the amazing privilege of seeing someone open the door of their lives to Jesus. Getting to see a new birth is a tremendous privilege.

I had several thoughts during the class. Here are some the things I’ve found helpful.

  • Having the proper perspective: Success in evangelism is simply taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God. This simple explanation frees me to be successful because the results are God’s.
  • CoJourners is one of the best approaches to evangelism I’ve used in recent years. The focus is coming alongside others on the roadtrip called life. I’ve written about my experiences here and here.
  • Sharing your personal story is an excellent way to share with others. The 5clicks.com site is very helpful in preparing your story in a compelling, winsome way.
  • A friend of mine uses a very intentional approach to prepare to share with someone every day. Each morning, he takes a booklet or a New Testament or a Jesus Film DVD in his hand. He prays, “Lord, this belongs to someone else. Please lead me today to its new owner.” Then he goes out for his day eagerly expecting to find someone to give the booklet or DVD.
  • Don’t be afraid of a question you can’t answer. I don’t hesitate to ask someone to play basketball because I’m afraid they might ask a question I can’t answer. And if I am asked a question, saying “I don’t really know a good answer right now. How about if I think about it and get something to you tomorrow?” Then go to search.ccci.org which searches across 2,000 websites in 50 languages for the best articles to questions like “How do I know if God really exists?” or “How can a good God allow all the evil and suffering in the world today?” Go to the search engine and type in one of these questions. See, good results that you can forward to your friend.

My son wrote about another misconception voiced yesterday.

It works! It takes courage. It takes overcoming all sorts of little whispers from the one who would have us keep silent. “He’s not interested.” “Don’t interrupt her now!” “You’ll only embarrass yourself.” I hear these and more every time I’m about to take the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leave the results to God.

As Nike made famous, just do it.

Distance Learning Project

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The meetings part of my Africa trip are over. I’m partway into the travel remaining. I’m returned from Nairobi, Kenya to Johannesburg, South Africa on the first leg of 33 ½ hours of travel, leaving the hotel at 4:45 am until I touch down in Orlando on Thursday. The reclining cocoons of Business Class sure look nice as I walk past them to the Economy section!

Yesterday, Chris and I met with Dr. Emmanuel Bellon, Vice Chancellor of Nairobi International School of Theology. We were joined by Nicholos Kimolo, Managing Director of Futuristics. Emmanuel’s vision of the need and urgency of distance learning in Africa is motivating. Nicholas seems a very competent consultant and advisor to come alongside and help implement the vision. Emmanuel shared the urgent need for trained leadership to guide the exploding church membership in Africa. Theological education schools in Nairobi do not graduate enough leaders to supply the new churches planted each year in just the city of Nairobi alone. It’s fairly normal for a church to see its trained pastor preach once every 3 months. The interim times are led by lay leaders and women, mostly untrained. There is an urgent need for trained leadership across the African continent.

Emmanuel sees distance education as an effective way to increase theologically-trained leadership beyond what resident schools are able to do. He began working on a plan 3 years ago, and really launched about a year ago. They have contracted Futuristics to help with the technologies needed.

As we talked, we identified several areas where my technology team in Orlando may be able to partner with this distance learning project. We have developed several systems that are needed in this project. It’s exciting to see the Lord enabling the work of our hands to be helpful to this distance learning project in Africa.

In addition to assisting with their current distance learning project, we agreed to a pilot project to test the ability to deliver distance learning in mobile phones. The current distance project seems focused on the centralized components of distance learning. I think the mobile device project can add value by addressing the end-user component of distance learning by providing a way for remote users to be trained without needing to have a computer and a high-speed internet connection.

This has been a very productive time. I am very aware of your faithful giving and praying. Kay and I are privileged to partner with you. We get to be your hands and feet, your personal representatives working with Dr. Bellon and others to develop new ways to help others grow and develop as Christ’s ambassadors.

More photos from Nairobi are online here.

Our September prayer calendar is online here.

On the journey together with you,
Keith & Kay

Springbok and TOM

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Springbok

“We’re having Springbok pie with Chutney for dinner,” said our hostess Marie Dell. Springbok is a South African antelope. It tasted like venison (meat from deer) which I enjoy. But I’d never had it in a pie. A “pie” means a crust, something like a chicken pot pie. Chutney is a spicy relish made from vegetables or fruit. Good dinner!!!

I asked where the Springbok had come from. Marie’s husband Stefan had taken his discipleship group hunting. They had licenses for 5 springbok. We were eating from one of them.

Sounds like my kind of discipleship group! Maybe a transfer to South Africa will be in our future!

South African group

Nicholas and Pravani wanted to learn about TOM and other tools to build movements on their campuses. TOM is our nickname for a Facebook application called Together on Mission. TOM helps build movements through several momentum-building activities like

  • encouraging praying for one another
  • encouraging students to identify their “sphere of influence” whom they hope to influence for Christ
  • sharing stories contributed by students of evangelistic opportunities
  • helping students find a Bible study group and join it
  • reporting statistics of God’s activities on the campus

We recently released TOM version 1. Nicholas and Pravani quickly grasped how TOM could help them with their students. They saw how TOM could be used to launch ministries on campuses where they are not able to go.

More photos are available on our photo site.

Interesting approach to online ministry

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I read an interesting article this morning by Paul Watson, 6 Strategic Elements of Online Ministry and Gospel Planting. Starting from Luke 10:1-12, Paul outlines his 6 strategic elements. Paul’s 6 elements are helpful. Other insightful things for me are:

  • Start with existing communities, listening and conversing while looking for a person of peace (like a Cornelius, see Acts 10:1-2).
  • Work with the person of peace to begin a discovery bible study in which the person invites his friends (as Cornelius did, Acts 10:24).
  • Be willing to move from house to house, or community to community, looking for the God-fearers who want to learn more and are willing to take some leadership responsibility in bring others together.

What do you think about this strategy?

Sponsoring Bibles

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I’ve joined the Bible sponsors, or maybe even the Bible smugglers. I’ve distributed 4 Bibles in 2 languages in the past 4 days. Anytime my computer is turned on and connected to the internet, I’m available to help provide Bibles around the world.

I recently learned of this cool way to help provide audio Bibles to many countries, including those where it’s difficult to distribute Bibles. Click here to read a good article.

In the past, some of our evangelistic websites have been successfully blocked by governments in some parts of the world. This works because the website is in one location and governments can block that specific address. But this audio Bible distribution tool spreads the downloads around to hundreds or thousands of computers. Here’s what they say about it:

The best part is that it’s virtually untraceable. It also is virtually unblockable. The Audio Bible Ambassador is the perfect tool for church planters and evangelists in countries where persecution makes Bible distribution dangerous. Even if government officials catch one sender, they can’t catch everyone when the information comes from a million computers across the world.

Click here if you want to get involved