If you were wondering what happened to updates? Here is one reason why. GCI decided to launch 'Saturday Evening Open Cafe' as a way to reach out to folks around our locality instead of meeting for 3:00 pm service due unavailability of time and other practical reasons.
Sharing with you a video clip of July 19th worship.
A serious concern for each one of us who profess to be Christ' followers, Disciples of Christ, or Christians is the inaction in sharing one's faith to others.
Consider this information I used in my worship message (Source unknown) and measure yourself if you are one among them:
95% of all Christians have never won a soul to Christ. 85% of all Christians do not consistently witness Christ. -2% of all Christians are involved in the ministry of evangelism. 63% of church leaders like Deacons, elders, have not led a single person to Jesus in the last 2 years through the method of "Go, Ye" evangelism. 49% of all Christians spend a ZERO time in an average week ministering outside the church. 89% of all Christians have ZERO time reserved on their list of weekly priorities for going to evangelize. 99% of all Christians believe that all Christians are commanded to share the gospel to a lost world. 97% believe that if the leadership had a greater conviction and involvement in evangelism, that would be an example for the church to follow. 96% believe their churches would have grown faster if they would have been more involved in evangelism.
How does this survey inform you about your statistic as a Christian who often shares the gospel to a stranger or even less, to a friend, family members, relatives around you? Honestly, our faith is now a 'faith for keeps' instead of 'faith for sharing'. For many Christians God is all about 'Me' and 'What He can do for me,' 'What can I gain' and 'How can I recieve' when it should be just the opposite. That is, our Christian faith is about 'God' and 'What He has done for me.' It is about 'What can I do for Him,' 'What can I give' and 'How can I serve'.
May we find the zeal of Christ's disciples and obey Christ's command to 'Go and Tell... meaning Don't stay put. Don't just go to the church. Don't just be a Pastor. Don't just be a church leader, convention leader, youth leader, deacon, elder. Don't just be a seminary professor. Don't just be a Bible student, Don't just be a Christian. BUT...Act out your faith, share it with someone, win a soul for Christ. Spread out the Gospel! Let people know who Jesus is! Come on Folks! A single soul saved leads to a great time of rejoicing in heaven.
God Bless and meet you again here at gciokinawa.blogspot.com
Friday 11th was indeed a time of reflection for me; a time that I needed to converse with God as I was i-witnessing in Mihama. I was impressed by the fact that these street performers (Video clip added) put all their efforts so passionately that I began to seriously think about us if we are as passionate as these street performers to spread the gospel. Really, how does that apply with us Christians? Often times I read from the attitude of Church members that we aren't willing to go out on the streets and share our faith. What is our faith for if we cannot share with others? Christianity is a faith that must be shared to people at all cost. If we, as Christians cannot do that we aren't living out our Christian life as Christ would have wanted us to. Christ shared is Christ lived for! Amen! In several Christian magazines I have found titles like 'People Leaving Faith' etc. Mission Frontiers' latest magazine dated May-June 2008 highlights in the cover page 'Losing Faith: Is there a cure for this Ongoing Problem?' That's not only a warning in itself why our churches are not growing but actually pretty alarming to know people are losing faith in Christ. May we exercise true faith in the truest sense. The more people we win for Christ, or should I say, the more people we bring to Christ, the more people in heaven.
My Pastor friend Tim Smith of Koza Baptist Church, Okinawa recently brought me a gift book called 'Planting Missional Churches' by Ed Stetzer What a fine book. It's timely for me and I am encouraged all the more to do outreach out on the streets. Anyway, my prayer for all followers of Christ is to find the passion Jesus' disciples had, and even like these street performers and learn from them what it means to share our faith with such passion and love that the Holy Spirit will just empower us and in doing so we find joy like we have never experienced. Amen!
July 13th Sunday evening, we started our International Worship Live at FM Koza 76.1. Interestingly, we had few audiences outside the studio listening to our worship. Praise God! Seen in the pictures are Left to Right: Miyui, Tracy, Mutusmi, Vee, Minako and Regin. Our program airs every Sunday from 7:0 pm to 8:00 pm. We have our worship schedule list with Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog and of course Japanese translations waiting to be aired as we worship live in the studio at FM Koza 76.1.
A 10 min video clip of Pastor Roger Adams, Senior Pastor of Crossroads Community Chapel, West Virginia bringing us the message on 'Faith' from the life of Abraham. Osamu Matsunaga serves as our interpreter.
Few months ago, I was privileged to watch, listen and celebrate the 20th anniversary concert of 'Euodia Ensemble' in one of the famous concert hall in Tokyo. A hundred piece orchestra sounded just awesome.
Anyway, this time the main ensemble (Principal players) were in Okinawa. People not only enjoyed the music; they were blessed by the testimonies. Here is a video clip of them playing at Koza Baptist Church.
Paul and Earl have been both playing together in a band and have in some ways playing with me during street live. We've started practicing for our next 'Street Live' that will probably be on the 27th of July. Paul plays lead guitar, Earl plays drums. I am looking for a good bass guitarist and a keyboardist so that I can concentrate on singing and other stuff.
Anyway, will update you all with a video soon.
Earl and Paul (Had lunch together at a Thai restaurant)
Last Saturday's Kosaka Chu and Euodia concert was worth the watch. It was a wonderful celebration of what God is doing in their lives and through their lives. Euodia (String Ensemble) was celebrating it's 2oth year while Kosaka Chu (Mictham Recording) was celebrating their 30th anniversary.
