ACTS Ministry

• Messages sorted by:[ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]

>>>>> "Nancy" == Nancy Troutman <nxt116@psu.edu> writes:

    Nancy> This Sunday, after church, I will be having over
    Nancy> Br. Wolfgang who helps run the ACTS ministry in our church.

    Nancy> After over two years of very hard work, Br. Wolfgang has
    Nancy> seen just one soul saved through the ministry.  Those of
    Nancy> you with an encouraging word, please email me with the
    Nancy> subject line "ACTS" and he will see your emails Sunday.  He
    Nancy> and his wife are frequent visitors to my house on Sunday,
    Nancy> and we are hoping to open up lines of communication via the
    Nancy> internet with other ACTS people.  I will create a folder
    Nancy> for him on the PSU server to hold his mail if he finds that
    Nancy> this is a tool for him.

    Nancy> Though not a worker, the ACTS program is a real burden on
    Nancy> my heart.  If there is special need or soul that you need
    Nancy> prayer for, please feel free to email me.

I am presently involved with the ACTS ministry associated with
Bro. Jack Yonts' church in Schaumbugh Illinois USA.  He was the
previous director of Home Missions for the UPC.  He is now starting a
home missions church here.  The ACTS ministry is just one more way to
reach out to people.  

The kind of people that come to ACTS are typically assigned to some
sort of rehabilitation program by the courts because of DUI or drug
related offenses.  Many of these people are hard-core drunks and
druggies.  "And such were some of *ME*!"  We have some actual homeless
street people and bag ladies in our program.  These people are so far
out of the mainstream of society that they initially distrust any
efforts to help them as being driven by some hidden agenda.  It takes
quite a while just to win their confidence.  In some cases it takes a
lot of working with them just to get them sober enough to comprehend
what you are trying to tell them.

My wife and I worked *SEVERAL YEARS* with the town drunk back where we
used to live in Kentucky.  He was ultimatly charged with a serious
offense and put in jail with bond much too high for him to ever meet
it.  Six months later, he was aquited and set free.  But during that
six months, we visited him every time the jail was open to visitors.
He spent Thanksgiving and Christmas in jail.  We took him his holiday
dinners both days.  

He had six months with no alchohol and lots of time to read the Bible.
Shortly before Christmas, he began to come under deep conviction.  He
wrote several beautiful poems about how he had wrecked his life and
ignored the pleadings of God.  One week after being set free from
jail, he was set free from sin by receiving the Holy Ghost with the
initial evidence of speaking in tongues!

It is 5 or 6 years later now, and he is married with several sweet
children.  He is living in Little Rock Arkansas USA.  He called me on
the phone last month to ask why I did not make it to Youth Conference.
He saw and spoke with Bro. Tiller, my former assistant pastor, and the
youth from Kentucky.  I hear from him every month or so.  He is still
on fire for God.  He is now an ACTS instructor himself.

So you say your friend has won one soul after two years of hard work?
That's excellent!  It would be excellent if it took ten years of hard
work.  It doesn't matter how long it takes.  Jesus took 33 years of
hard work to do what it took to save me, and that is not even counting
the 10 months my first pastor spent on me, nor the many years he and
other ministers devoted to me afterwards.

How many years would you be willing to work to save your own soul, now
that you know what it is worth?  It is worth more than you have
available to pay.  Only Jesus could pay that price.  He payed it with
33 years of life on earth.  He payed it with an afternoon on a cross.
He payed it with 3 nights in hell.  He payed it with the 6000 years
>from the garden of Eden to the day you were born again, for everything
had to be pre-arranged so it would all be in the right place at the
right time.  He had to cause a star to go nova (as documented by
Chineese astronomers) hundreds or thousands of years (you astronomers
out there fill in the blanks for me) before a baby was born in a
manger in Bethlehem the first Christmas night so that its light would
reach our planet at just the right time to guide the three wise men to
the birthplace.  We are not talking about time when we talk of leading
a person to salvation; we are talking of eternity.

-- 
--"Hear now my reasoning, and harken to the pleadings of my lips." [Jb 13:6]--
Robert J. Brown  (Bob/Rj)   rj@eli.wariat.org  1 708 705-0370 (vmail/fax/data)
Elijah Laboratories Inc;  759 Independence Drive;  Suite 5;  Palatine IL 60074
-----  M o d e l i n g   t h e   M e t h o d s   o f   t h e   M i n d  ------