GYC 2015: Called. Chosen. Faithful.

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Reach the World Next Door

Dee Casper

Scott Griswold

1. How to Lift the Cross for Buddhist, Post-Moderns & More

This message was presented at the GYC 2015 conference called Chosen Faithful in Louisville, Kentucky.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

Everybody's running around trying to find their place.

And the most important thing we want to do is pray, but we do want to at least say hi before we rush into what we're doing.

My name is Scott Griswold, and this is Dee Casper.

We've been talking over the phone, both doing something similar that we're very interested in and excited about, which you obviously must be because you wouldn't be here when there's so many good seminars to be going to if it wasn't on your heart too.

And we're going to jump into that in just a moment.

But our backgrounds, we just want to share very briefly.

I've been in Cambodia and Thailand for about 16 years with my family.

Still get to go there about 3 times a year because I'm working with ASAP Ministries, which is an organization that raises money and prayer support for national missionaries, Cambodians, Thais, Vietnamese, Laotians, Burmese, Karen, right out there in Southeast Asia where most everybody you meet is Buddhist and hasn't ever had a chance to know Jesus.

So that's just a little bit of background.

I worked in Southern Illinois with a church plant on a secular university campus and at the same time was helping to run a non-profit organization that had interpreters in 8 different languages for the families of the international college students, for the migrant workers and so on that we interpreted for their medical visits, their legal visits and had lots of service projects geared towards the international population.

We saw a bunch of wonderful ways to reach their hearts and so our burden this week is to just give you guys opportunities to know how to take the heart that Christ is giving you and making you like himself and how to find ways to use that heart through means of service, through means of instruction, through means of preaching, teaching, and whatever means that God gives you.

The most important thing of all is that the Spirit of God be speaking to you.

So it may have nothing to do with something we say, it may be something like last night during Natasha's talk, it connected with what she was saying but the Holy Spirit took something and just put it into my heart so deeply.

So whether you're here the whole time with us or you bop off to some other place, it doesn't matter.

What matters is that the Spirit of God take you, prepare you and send you back as his missionary, closely connected with him.

It is holy time because you are here, you are present, but we need you in our hearts.

We need that heart of flesh this morning, fresh and new.

We've been told that we're wretched, poor, blind, miserable, and naked, and that we don't even see it.

So this morning we ask for the Spirit of God to lay our hearts bare before you, and at the same time to show us a huge vision of what you want us to be, of what we are in Jesus Christ, what has happened for us at the cross, and what we can walk in, not just for ourselves, but for the entire world that you are loving, that you are caring about.

So right now, Lord, we open our hearts and minds to the Spirit of the Living God, take us, reveal to us the cross of Jesus Christ so that we can be the channel you need to finish the work in this world.

Whenever I go anywhere in Southeast Asia and beyond, I am just overwhelmed by the people that haven't been reached.

I grew up thinking in California that I did not need to be a missionary.

I figured Jesus was everywhere, because Mission Spotlight had shown us that the church was everywhere, all these baptisms, Jesus was about to come.

And then he opened up my eyes to see what is still left.

We have 4, 073 completely unreached people groups.

That's languages, cultures that do not have a significant enough amount of Christians to even give a serious witness.

So when we look at that, it's just overwhelming.

The other quote that goes with that or the statistic is that includes 3 billion people.

That's almost half of the world that do not have the gospel witness.

So when you look at that, okay, it's just statistics, but I think of it as this little girl's stray mouth.

When we were in Cambodia, we decided to do a vacation Bible school.

We didn't know how many kids would show up, and so we just took the church big open area on top of the roof and invited kids to come.

And we had so many in the morning, we had 250 kids cram into there, that we decided to do 1 in the afternoon.

Another 250 kids crammed in, as many as could come.

We were coming from our house, which was only like 5 minutes away, with our Jeep and another truck, just jamming the kids in because they wanted to come.

And as we went back and forth, in the rush of it, Vyasana, a guy who was working with me, towards the end of the day, suddenly turned to me and said, Scott, where's my niece?

Like, I would know, out of 500 girls and boys running around.

You see, In Cambodia at that time, there were a lot of kidnappings going on.

There were children that would just disappear and they would never be seen again.

1 of the ladies in our church lost her daughter that way.

But to Vyasanash, she mattered and he was really worried.

Well, we dropped to our knees, barely, and jumped up.

And we ran in every direction trying to find her, because she was gone.

All the other kids had gone home, and she wasn't around.

And we searched and searched for 45 minutes in panic, until finally Vyasonov found her way across the main street of town, down a little road, just wandering, lost.

No clue where she would go or what would happen to her.

He was so thrilled that even while he was shaking and crying and laughing, I could just feel the passion of Jesus Christ for every person.

When we wake up around the world, every person every day, Jesus sees every single individual and he loves them as if they were the only person in his life.

He is going to find a way to get the job done.

The question is, how on earth is it going to happen?

Right now, we see 2 new legal immigrants entering the USA every minute.

Probably about another million illegally.

1 in 5 Canadians is foreign-born, so they have a huge amount as well.

It's not just those that are migrating, it's those who are passing through.

Over 160 million tourist, business travelers, or students pass through the USA every year.

And many times, it is the top leaders of the country or the future leaders because the international students, we have about a million people in North America who are from overseas and will return to be the future leaders, some even prime ministers, presidents of their countries.

The strategy we've even been told in advance clear back in the 1800s, evangelism page 570, we should be able to see in the multiplying opportunities to reach many foreigners in America a divinely appointed means of 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's too much in there to pack in right now, but write down Evangelism 570 and look and see the other things that are around it.

As we look at it, this is part of God's final strategy.

This is his plan in advance, this huge migration that people are stressed about and worried about and people are dying in.

2. Four Steps to Help the Three Angels Jet

How many are here new for this time, for this second thing?

It's really challenging when there's so many good things to get in on.

If you weren't here the previous 1, please listen to it.

It was about the cross of Jesus Christ and the incredible beauty in its multifaceted nature so that when you meet somebody and they have a different interest, a different need, you can take a certain aspect of the cross of Jesus and share it with them and will have a huge impact because there are different aspects that are so beautiful and glorious.

So what we're going to talk about now in this next seminar is particularly 4 steps on how you can get the 3 angels messages to people of other cultures.

It would be very difficult to walk up to someone wearing a turban or something else or maybe having a hijab on and just like immediately, let me tell you about the 3 angels and just step by step and give this.

It doesn't usually work that way in most instances.

So how do we get from I'm different, you're different to eventually getting to spiritual conversations to eventually getting to a point that you can actually start sharing these messages.

4 practical steps that are good for witnessing in any situation, but particularly in these to ensure that you can develop friendships first.

So let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll let Scott begin on going through our four-step method here.

Father in heaven, thank you for the privilege to be able to be here again today to have people in this room who want to know how do we get this precious message, the most precious message given to mortals into the hands of the people, every nation, tribe, tongue and people Lord we're grateful for the fact that there's tons of counsel afforded us and I pray that in the time that we're allotted today that it would be practical, that it would be something that can be applied easily, and that many walls of fear would come crashing down in the hearts of your people after realizing that you will be with them and that there are easy means in which this can be done.

I want to tell you, begin with a story that kind of illustrates the overall approach that we're sharing.

And then we have a handout for you at the end.

So if you're the kind of person who doesn't like to take notes, there's something that will go with you when you go out the door.

But if you are and your mind engages better as you're writing down, I encourage you to write.

And the specific reason is because I believe that the Holy Spirit is very present at this whole convention and if you are asking and saying, please talk to me, please get me ready for what I need before I go home, what I need right now in my relationship with you and the service you're calling me to, that He's going to talk to you, very specifically he's going to give you a plan, he's going to give you the experience with him that you need because there is nobody like you, really.

There are people that you can relate to that nobody else in the world is going to have that same connection and the Holy spirit is able to put you together with them, even if you don't feel like it at the moment.

Then we left and moved back to California for 3 years, got a call to go and direct the Buddhist Study Center in Asia for our church to help people figure out how to reach out to Buddhists.

And the first opportunity we had was to go back to Cambodia, even though we were going to live in Thailand, and stay for 6 weeks, work with the church planters, the new group of 30 young church planters, most of them who'd only been at Seventh-day Adventists for 1 or 2 years.

We're going to go out and start sharing and planting the church in the city of Phnom Penh.

We taught in the morning, we went out in the afternoons, we were busy, and by the end of several weeks, I was exhausted, I was really tired, and I was tired of people.

I'm a fairly strange mix of extrovert and introvert, but I need some quiet time alone.

And so I grabbed a book, and I headed down to the Mekong River.

I thought I'm going to find a nice quiet place by the river and I'm going to sit and relax and get rejuvenated.

I'd lived in Cambodia for 6 years and I'd never found a quiet place.

I sat down at a little table, nobody was sitting there, got my book out and immediately there were 4 guys sitting next to me and they wanted to speak English.

So being a good missionary I raised my book and kept reading.

I was tired, I did not feel like talking to anybody.

And after a while they went away, so I got to read for a few minutes.

And then out of the corner my eye I saw a guy sitting on a motorcycle staring off at the Mekong looking really sad.

And the Holy Spirit was nudging me, Scott, you ought to talk to him.

I can speak Cambodian, so I thought, well, you know, I could, but I really don't want to.

So like a good missionary, I prayed, and I said, Lord, if you really want me to talk to him, make him come over here.

Well, the next thing I knew, he's sitting right in front of me, so I put my book away and said, okay, Lord, I'll try it.

And we began to talk, and he shared with me, you know, just, you know, common, I used to live here, what do you do, oh, you're a motorcycle taxi, just back and forth a little bit.

And then I said, you know what, can you tell me what's going on?

You look kind of sad sitting over there on your motorcycle, like you're having troubles, Tell me about it.

And he began to tell me about how hard it was to make a living riding motorcycle taxi, because there were so many of them in Phnom Penh.

And I said to him, you know, do you have a family?

And he said, yeah, I've got a wife and I have a newborn baby and I'm living with my mother-in-law and she's a case and I don't have enough money.

And I thought, what can I say to this guy?

I'm here just for a few minutes, I'll never see him again.

So I was just sympathizing with him, talking with him.

My wife, when her grandmother was living in America, and I told him the story about how in the Depression, her grandmother had nothing for the family, her husband wasn't a believer, she was, and how God provided apples and milk and anyway it's a great story I'm telling him all this and I'm thinking apples no he doesn't eat apples milk he doesn't drink milk depression he probably doesn't know when that was or what that was.

What can I tell him that will make sense for him?

So I told him the story of another friend who in that same city had given his last bag of rice to help somebody and was praying to God to provide for his family's needs.

And God helped his wife found this chain of gold out in the rice field that very morning, and it was enough to provide rice for the rest of the year.

So I shared that story with him, and he's just listening.

You know, it was kind of intriguing, this white guy speaking his language poorly, telling him interesting stories.

And then I said to him, you know, would you like to know more about this God who can really help you in the situation you're facing?

I said, well you know I go back to Thailand on Sunday and I won't be around, but I have a friend who'd be glad to come to your house and teach the Bible to you." And so he said, sure, and I said, but I don't know where your house is.

And he says, well jump on my motorcycle and I'll take you there.

So we rode off and we went to his house and I met his wife and his baby and the mother-in-law.

And the next day, I brought the pioneer worker to meet him.

So there was God, able to use an unwilling missionary who was tired out and didn't feel like talking to anybody, but who had a tiny little opening for the spirit to use with a guy I didn't know in a short time able to make a connection.

9 months later, we came back for the big evangelistic meetings.

Elder Mike Ryan and John Paulson were speaking, and it was the biggest events for the church there.

The church was young, maybe 15 years old, and I'm talking about the church in Cambodia.

There was no Seventh-day Adventist church before 92.

And so we were excited, But the most exciting part for me was on the last day when they were baptizing people and I looked up and there was that man, the motorcycle taxi man, going down into the water, giving his life to Jesus.

It's no limit on his power or his desire.

The problem is with the messenger, who's whatever.

So when we look at it, sometimes it seems really challenging.

There's more information online at the reachtheworldnextdoor.com website.

So there's a longer presentation on this and different principles and things that are there that you can look up.

Whenever I go on a plane, whenever I'm talking with somebody or if it's an ongoing relationship, These thoughts are going through my mind.

3. God’s Pentecost Plan through Today’s Migrant Movement

I want to welcome you to this afternoon and we are in the third part of Reach the World Next Door.

We've been talking about the depth of the cross.

I don't know if I just need to move it away, is that better?

Okay, this morning we looked at the power of the cross of Jesus.

What a real experience with the huge multifaceted, incredible impact that Jesus has made through that.

How that fits different parts of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslim, Jews, post-modern people, those things.

How if we share certain aspects, there are certain parts of the cross that will really appeal to others.

And then The second time we looked at a four-step method of how to share the gospel with people of any background.

So, if you didn't get to hear those 2 this morning, there are handouts on the back there on the seat.

1 looks a little different than this morning's because it's a colored copy, and you're welcome to pick those up and listen to it later.

But we're going to be talking this afternoon about refugees, God's plan, migration strategy for reaching all nations of the world and see how we can actively be involved.

We want God to be able to speak whatever it is He's trying to say.

Casper says or what I say or what 1 of you speaks up and shares or maybe the Holy Spirit just speaking specifically, deliberately what He knows you need as you prepare to serve Him better.

Father in Heaven, we are really, really thankful that We have the privilege of knowing you, of living in safety, of having a knowledge of your plan for our lives and many, many, many things that millions around the world do not have.

And today as we take time to come close to your heart in relation to refugees and the opportunities that are around us, I ask that you would be the 1 who speaks, that you would give us a new heart, a fresh heart to feel what you feel, to understand what you think about, what you want your people to be about, and that we would just pick it up and serve and love like Jesus Christ.

I was 2 quarters away from finishing college and my wife was graduating.

On a Friday night in June, Judy Aiken, who we had just heard about and met a little bit, walked up to us and said, we need somebody in the refugee camps right now.

For about 6 months before that, we'd been thinking about missions, I had never been really excited or interested in going overseas.

And then suddenly we realized there was an opportunity and a huge, huge need in the refugee camps.

They were only gonna be open for another 6 months, and then they would be closed.

All the people would be going back to Cambodia.

Thailand was ready to get them out of there.

And so we had a short opportunity in which we could minister to the people that were there.

About 300 Seventh-day Adventists were still in the camps.

Thousands had been baptized through the late 70s and 80s during the war.

And right after the war in Cambodia where 2 to 3000000 people have been massacred or starved to death.

So as we heard about it and found out about it we thought we have to go.

This is too exciting, too special of an opportunity.

No church at all in Cambodia and yet 307 of the Adventists who were going to be scattered throughout the country.

So we decided to go, and by September we were there and went in for our first experience.

As we drove the hour and a half to the place where we would go in, we had our papers that we would be allowed to enter with, and we saw long, long fences of barbed wire surrounding a huge area that at its height held about a hundred thousand people.

And their homes were just tiny, like this size.

6 or 7 people living in it, made out of bamboo.

We'd see them in huge lines waiting to receive their bag of turnips, their bag of rice, their bottle of soy sauce, their supplies for the next week or 2, till whenever supplies would come again.

And we went into the little refugee church that had been built up.

There were actually 8 different churches that developed there through the church's outreach and care and began to teach them English and talk with people about what it was going to be like when they went back to their country and how they could share the gospel.

Cambodia up to that time had basically not responded to the gospel very very little.

There'd been Seventh-day Adventist work in it from like the 1920s on, different little bits.

And it's just what everybody in the country did, including the king.

So nothing had really happened until the war hit and shook their worldview incredibly until they said, Buddhism doesn't make sense to us.

How could our whole country be so bad that we are all receiving such horrible karma that 3000000 of us would have to suffer like this and die.

And their heart and mind opened up to say there must be something else out there.

And look, it's the Christians that have come to the camps that are helping us.

They are the ones that seem to really be caring during this time.

And they became Christians by the thousands.

Many moved to the United States, were received here as refugees and immigrants.

And there were certain ones that were there ready to receive them.

The Catholics, the Baptists, the Christian Mission Alliance were especially right there to help them get adjusted and to care for them.

Unfortunately, at that time, most of the Seventh-day Adventist churches were not watching or thinking or looking.

They, in fact, I know of 1 couple who went to a Seventh-day Adventist church in the south and they walked into the church so excited to find a Seventh-day Adventist church.

And the people just basically ignored them.

In fact, 1 of them suggested there was another church across the town that they might find a better place, that they might enjoy better than their church.

There just wasn't a recognition that God was sending these people and that we were to care for them.

I'll share with you a story later that's the opposite of that of what's happened more recently in the last 7 years and how God is moving through people in different places as well as Dee will share some stories of active things that can be done to help.

And we'll be exploring and discovering this together, what we can do in our communities to touch these people.

But we want to start with a refugee simulation program.

So you guys have a blank piece of paper we didn't forget to print anything or run out of ink.

You need a writing utensil and to write the things that are on this board here on the 4 corners of it write down a number of the following things.

4 activities that you enjoy in that order that you know like priority Okay, so the things you enjoy for the first 1 for those 4 things that you're thankful for 4 people that are important to you and 4 roles that you currently hold in your life.

You'll need to have those on your piece of paper because they're really important for the activity we're doing now.

Plenty of water, anybody need some water?

So if you can take just a brief moment, fill in those things on your sheet because this will define the whole activity, but it's really, really helpful.

Again, 4 activities that you enjoy, 4 things that you're thankful for, 4 people that are important to you, and 4 roles that you currently hold in your life.

Series

Reach the World Next Door

1. How to Lift the Cross for Buddhist, Post-Moderns & More

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

The Sweetest Song I Know: Authentic Musical Worship Deepens Our Experience with Christ

What Heavenly Music

47m

Morning Devotional

Elkanah and Hannah

58m

Personal Evangelism 1

The Fragrance of Life

1h 23m

Biblically Correct: How to be Male in the 21st Century

1. Biblically Correct Masculinity & the Mark of the Beast

58m

Egypt, the Exodus & Moses' Quest for God's Destiny

3. The Wilderness, the Training, & the Eternally Burning Bush

1h

How We Can Be Sure Christ Will Soon Come

2. How God Dealt with My Pride and Self-Righteousness

52m

Breakouts

Our Greatest Need: Testimony

1h 4m

Breakouts

Mission, Miracles, and You

1h 3m

Baptizing the Devil: Evolution and the Seduction of Christianity

2. What Science Cannot Do

1h

How We Can Be Sure Christ Will Soon Come

4. Daniel’s Keys to Scripture Interpretation

53m

Plenary

What About the Few

1h 45m

GYC 2012 Seminar: Stories for the End of Time - Forgotten Episodes of Adventist History

The Big Question

58m

Sound Doctrine