Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Family Life

Amy Austin

Sharing Your Faith as a Family

Bob Benson

Elsena Benson

Managing God’s Resources at Home

Kaylene Chadwick

Choosing the Right College - Part #1

Choosing the Right College - Part #2

Tami Milligan

Sex- How & When Do I Teach My Child

Cinda Osterman

Family Worship Adventure

Father in heaven, thank you so much for this new day.

And even though it's rainy and nasty outside, we know that your presence is here and we can feel it.

I just pray that you will be with Amy today as she shares the ideas that you gave her.

And we just pray that each 1 of us will be able to take away many things that we will then go back and share in our areas and our spheres of influence.

So today, just be with Amy as she speaks, and be with each 1 of us, and thank you so much for loving us and for giving us the opportunity to be able to share your love with others.

I'm excited about outreach and about ministry and about all these little ideas the Lord gives me.

He gives me 1, I think it's the coolest idea, but then he gives me another 1, I'm like, wow, he always outdoes himself.

And so it's exciting to see what the Lord has done.

And when Gail called me, I had no option but to say yes, because I told the Lord that if He would keep giving me ideas to share Jesus, then I would be willing to share them with others.

I'm also excited because I made all sorts of stuff for you guys and instead of it being on my living room floor now, because it's been all over the house for a while, I get to actually give it to you.

But it seems like the microphone is not on now.

All right, so just so I don't forget at the end, up on this table on the far right, there's a folder for everybody.

It has extra information in it, you don't need it for the seminar.

I have 6 or 7 little samples in it for each 1 of you to take with you.

Oh, if you do need a piece of paper, there's a piece of paper and pens up here.

Because everything, all the ideas that I'm going to show you, I don't have a handout for.

But if you like an idea, just jot it down.

In the folder that I'm going to give you, I have a little business-like card, and I have a Bible Labs blog where I keep a list of all these ideas.

I didn't want to forget them, so I started doing that.

There's pictures and explanations and all, so you'll be able to access it.

So, but if you like something you can jot it down and yeah.

Okay, I think that's all I wanted to say before we start.

Let's go ahead and pray 1 more time really quickly.

Heavenly Father, we just pray for your spirit to be here, for you to lead and guide, for you to be my words, Lord.

All right, So we're gonna talk about sharing your faith as a family.

And really, it can be as an individual, a family, it can be for your school, it can be for your church.

I've used all of these in all those different areas.

And you know, for some of us, It comes naturally, doesn't it?

But for others of us, it doesn't come so naturally, and we need somebody prodding us, or maybe doing it with us, or giving us the ideas.

Frankly, for all of us, no matter if it's easy or hard, It would just be easy to rely on the church or the school for some of these outreach ideas.

Because our kids are sometimes involved in Bible labs or a community service day, and that's wonderful.

It's fantastic for the kids to go out and share Jesus.

And churches should have personal ministries.

You know, some of us might be going to the nursing home.

Or we might call somebody up on the phone, you know, and let them know we missed them.

But is it enough just to rely on our church and our school to provide the outreach that we need?

But for us, for our family, we decided, you know, that's not enough.

As a Christian, it really shouldn't be enough because every Christian is called to be a missionary.

We all have that job to do, and so we all as Christians need to develop a lifestyle of evangelism.

1 of our greatest desires for our children is not just to be trained academically and not just to have a whole lot of spiritual knowledge in their head, but that they would develop a heart that just longs to serve, that loves Jesus so much they're willing to sacrifice, they're willing to do anything to share Jesus and to give for the cause of Christ.

In Matthew 5, 16, it says, "...let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

And that is what we want for our children.

And I'm sure that's what you want for your children or your school children or your church children.

We are told, oh and also, we feel too, my husband and I, that it's not just the school's job, it's not just the church's job to do that.

We feel ownership of that and so we want to help them develop that.

We're told in the spirit of prophecy that the home is the child's first school and it is here that the foundation should be laid for a life of service." Further in Christ Object Lessons, page 345, it says, "...parents should teach their children the value and right use of time.

Teach them that to do something which will honor God and bless humanity is worth striving for.

Even in their early years, they can be missionaries for God.

And 1 more, in Ministry of Healing, it says, the more fully the spirit of true ministry pervades the home, the more fully it will be developed in the lives of the children.

They will learn to find joy in service and sacrifice for the good of others.

I praise the Lord that my parents did this for me.

I remember as a kid we all visited many, many times on Sabbath.

We would visit a little elderly lady and we'd take things to her and we'd sing with her.

I remember 1 time coming home from church, a man had been riding his moped or motorcycle, something he'd flipped, going over the tracks.

And so we stopped and we helped him, and we got him to the hospital.

I remember little things like that where my parents would involve us in outreach and service.

I remember there's a children's story, an Uncle Arthur's bedtime story.

Oh, shoot, I thought, the Surprise Package Company.

That was always 1 of my favorites, and I love to do little things like that.

I did as a child, and I still love to do it now.

And so that's what we want to develop in our children.

So from planned glow track outings to spontaneously coming home from the store and taking raspberries to our neighbors, to cleaning up somebody's yard.

We're constantly making an effort to live a lifestyle of evangelism.

So everything that I'm about to show you and I have a lot of slides, so hopefully we'll get through everything.

But everything that I'm about to show you are just simple ideas, not hard, not fancy, but ideas that the Lord has given us to help serve those around us, simple ways that we have found to share Jesus in our community and in our home and our churches.

With the Lord's help we're endeavoring to lay that foundation for a life of service and we're being blessed as we do that.

Well We should be missionaries at home first.

Testimonies volume 4 says the first great business of your life is to be a missionary right at home.

Testimonies volume 6 says our work for Christ is to begin with the family in the home.

There is not a missionary field more important than this.

By precept and example, The Lord's Testimonies Volume 6 says, be so educated that they will sympathize with the aged and the afflicted, and will seek to alleviate the sufferings of the poor and distressed.

They should be taught to be diligent in missionary work, and from their earliest years, self denial and sacrifice for the good of others and the advancement of Christ's cause should be inculcated that they may be laborers together with God.

But if they ever learn to do genuine missionary work for others, they must first learn to labor for those at home who have a natural right to their offices of love.

I should say in here really quick, in the folders there is a sheet of paper, a handout that has all the quotes and the Bible verses on it.

Okay, so we want to be missionaries at home.

There are obviously lots and lots of ways that you can do this.

I don't have a monopoly on this by any means, but I'll share with you a few things that we have done.

It would be nice, wouldn't it, if we could just say, little Suzy, please share that toy nicely, or please talk sweetly, Johnny, And we lived happily ever after, right?

But if your home is anything like mine, it doesn't always work that way.

And so we have to form habits of kindness.

We have to help our children form habits of kindness.

By doing it, by repeating it, by practicing it.

And so, we like to do, we like to give opportunities to practice kindness.

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Family Life

Sharing Your Faith as a Family

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Recorded

Effective Evangelism

Effective Evangelism - Part 1: Proper Preparation 1

1h 1m

Emmanuel Training Sessions

8. How to Get Bible Studies- Part 2

1h 4m

The Butterfly Effect of Literature Evangelism

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The 21st Century Challenge

4. New Life in Old Methods

1h 4m

GLOW Rally 2010: Let There Be Light

GLOW 2010 Literature Evangelism Testimonials, Part 1

49m

Living Free: Building a Better Brain, Body, and Habits – for Good!

5. Leaders Lighting The Way

1h

The Joy of Giving

02 Intentionally Prepared

40m

Spark Training: Public Evangelism

Spark Training: Public Evangelism- Part 3

1h 18m

ASI 2013 Seminar: Outreach

Literature Distribution for Today’s Mind in Today’s World

1h 15m

Emmanuel Training Sessions

1. Orientation

50m

Sound Doctrine