GYC SE 2010: Infinity - The Pursuit of Excellence

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GYC Southeast

GLOW: Giving Light to Our World

Nelson Ernst

GLOW Part 1: Human Purpose and Prophecy

GLOW Part 2: How to Fit a Preacher in a Pocket

GLOW Part 3: To Sell or Not to Sell, That is Not a Question

I came out here from California because something amazing is happening over there.

This GLOW program is something that started about 3 years ago and we had very small beginnings.

Over in Central California Conference, every year at camp meeting they take up a big evangelism offering.

And it's been around upwards of $3 million for the past few years.

And 1 of the initiatives that came out of that was this GLOW project, which was how can we get adults involved in doing literature evangelism?

Because, I don't know about you guys, but as you look across the North American Division, there's not much literature evangelism going on except for the students who go out during the summers and they sell these soft cover books.

Well, we wanted to get the adults, once again, activated and getting into doing outreach through literature.

And so that idea trickled down to our department in Central California Conference, and they said, hey, start thinking about a program.

I happened to be living in a garage at the time, a renovated garage, that was a little studio apartment, and I didn't have anything to do, lots of time on my hands.

And so I picked up this book called, and I was working for the conference at the time, I picked up the book called Publishing Ministry, and as I began to read that book, this, the blueprints for this program just started coming out.

And GLOW is basically a program that's based off of the blueprints of the Spirit of Prophecy.

It's something that our church has done in the past, but it has a new name and it has a new face.

You know, in the Bible it says, believe his prophets and ye shall prosper.

We've built this program off of the counsel of our prophet.

Since the program started about 3 years ago, we've printed about 10 million tracks.

And it started in this 1 garage and now it's spread to about 13 different conferences across the United States.

We're getting the program going in, hopefully, in Scandinavia pretty soon here.

In fact, I have some tracks I just got this last week that have been translated into Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.

I can't read like 1 word of them except for the glow on the front, but the people over there can.

The Lord is His blessing and it's a very simple program.

So that's what we're going to be talking about today, but let me just give you an overview of the 3 sessions.

Session number 1, we're going to talk about why we do evangelism, the reason, the big picture, and then we're going to hone in on the details.

Session number 2, we're going to focus on literature distribution, which every 1 of us can do.

And then session 3, the last session, we're going to talk about how to get involved in literature sales.

And because those are the 2 different modes of doing literature evangelism, literature distribution, literature sales.

But first, today we're gonna talk about literature and why we do that work in general.

Because we need to have the reason why before we actually go out and do it.

So without further ado, let's have a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, I just thank you so much that we can meet together and we can discuss your word.

And Father, that we can glean wisdom, not only for our own benefit, Lord, but for the benefit of the unsaved, Lord, who live in our communities and in our hometowns.

And Father, I just ask that Your Spirit would speak today in this seminar, and Lord, that as a ripple effect of this seminar, your people might be equipped to better reach out to the lost.

And Father, we pray for these things in your name.

Well, turn with me in your Bibles, if you have them, to Jeremiah chapter 9.

And as you're turning to Jeremiah chapter 9, I want to share with you something interesting I found the other day.

Jeremiah chapter 9, As you're turning there, if you can look at the screen here, in 1707, there was a man born by the name of Jedediah Buxton.

Jedediah Buxton was a farmer and he was a simple farmer.

In fact, he couldn't read and he couldn't write.

But the interesting thing about Jedediah Buxton was that he was a genius when it came to math.

It's said that Jeremiah, when he sat down 1 time, he took a farthing, and he squared it 139 times in his mind.

You guys know what it means to square a number, right?

Yeah, now we're running into a problem, right?

We only squared that number 2, what, 3 times?

Jedediah Buxton squared a number in his mind 139 times.

And then he took that number and eventually squared it by itself.

It's said that 1 time they took Jedediah to a person's property and he walked the acreage.

And as he was walking it, he paced every step and counted the amount of steps and measured the entire perimeter of the property.

And then in his mind, he broke down the acreage into hairsbreadths and told how many hairsbreadths square that property was.

1 time Jedediah was taken over to a play in Europe and rather than focusing on the theme of the play he sat there and he tried to count the amount of steps that all the dancers took on the stage and he tried to count all the words that the people said.

His mind was constantly wrapped in numbers and he was a genius he was a savant.

The Second man that we have up here, his name is Leslie Lemke.

And it sounds like some of you have heard of him.

Leslie Lemke was born prematurely in 1952 with glaucoma, cerebral palsy, and brain damage.

The doctors, actually, when he was born, they had to remove his eyes.

His mother thought, you know what, I'm just gonna get rid of this kid.

She abandoned him, and he was adopted by a nurse at 6 months old.

Leslie lived for 7 years without making any sounds and no movements, and he made no signs of emotions.

In fact, it took him until he was the age of 12 to actually learn how to stand.

And then he finally learned how to walk when he was 15.

But when he was 16, something amazing happened.

His adoptive mother had left him in a room by himself, and as she walked into another room, she all of a sudden heard beautiful piano music coming from the room that she'd left him in.

She came back in, and to her surprise, she found that Leslie was playing a beautiful piano piece that he had just heard on the radio.

Come to find out that Leslie was a savant.

He could duplicate anything that he heard and put it on the piano.

Some people doubted that Leslie was real.

They thought it was a trick, and so they took him 1 time to an auditorium where there was this famed piano-playing lady, and she had created this original piece which nobody had heard before.

And so they set her at 1 piano on the stage, and they set Leslie on the other piano on the stage.

And as she began playing this original piece, which he couldn't have seen beforehand because it was an original piece, the sound from the notes of the piano went into his ears and registered out on his fingers.

And he was playing just a few seconds behind her.

And then as the song progressed, he happened to get closer and closer time-wise until they were almost playing simultaneously.

How many of you guys would like to be able to play the piano like that?

I took 10 years of piano lessons and I have to read those notes.

The third person we have up here and the last that I'm going to share this morning is a man by the name of Kim Peek.

Series

GLOW: Giving Light to Our World

GLOW Part 1: Human Purpose and Prophecy

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Literature Evangelism

Literature Evangelism- Part 2

1h 4m

Annie Morgan, Kevin Sears, & Wes Peppers: Unashamed in Your Neighborhood

Sharpening Your Sword: How to Give a Bible Study

56m

How to Engage People In Our Modern Age With Our Unique Message

1h

GLOW: Giving Light to Our World

GLOW Part 2: How to Fit a Preacher in a Pocket

44m

Tips For Reaching Jehovah’s Witnesses

54m

The Doctrine of Personal Ministries

Part 2 - Who Fed the 5,000?

1h 13m

The 4th Angel: Literature Evangelism Made Relevant In A Postmodern World

3. Angels & Demons: Supernatural Beings, Literature, and the Struggle for the Soul

53m

GYC SE 2012 Seminar: Personal Devotions

The Lifestyle of Worship

51m

True Education

True Education- Part 5

57m

GYC 2011 totalChurch

Total Church: Adding to the Church

2h

GYC 2012 Seminar: Streams of Light

The Great Controversy and the Great Solution: Literature Evangelism

51m

Personal Evangelism 2

Sharing Divine Words with Human Hearts- Part 2

2h

Sound Doctrine