week of Soul-winning in Cakovec

Dear Praying Friends,

Our week of soul-winning as come to an end for this year. God was good to us as we stood up in the town and park sharing the Gospel to as many people as would listen to us. In Cakovec for the week we gave out the Gospel 105 times, and there were 35 professions of faith in Christ. 

God did so many wonderful things during the week, that we can truly say God was working and moving in lives and in our city. One event that sticks out in my mind to illustrate this point is a story of a young man that was an Agnostic. He met Brother Sam Ward in the park and Sam tried to witness to him. The young man told him he was an Agnostic and Sam said in his normal sarcastic way, "you've got to be kidding!" Sam then began to preach to him that creation declares the glory of God as well as a few other things. Before the young man left Sam he said to him, "good speech", and then left. The next day Sam and I were in the park and this 18 year old came up to me and said, "I've decided to believe", I was shocked because this does not happen everyday. Sam quickly told me the story and said the young man needs to hear the Gospel. I went through God's wonderful plan of salvation and he bowed his head and received Christ as his personal Savior! Thank you all for praying God truly showed up this week in Croatia.

We ended the week with Friend Day, and God blessed that as well. We had many visitors and four first time visitors. There was a great spirit in the church as God's people fellowshipped together. The visitors stuck around as well.

Again I want to thank all of you who prayed. I believe your prayers made a big difference here in this dark place. If you would please continue to pray as we try and follow up on these contacts.

Because of Jesus,

Brother Johnny

Mormon soul-winner!

I thought I have seen everything, but tonight I saw something new! A Mormon soul-winner! Last week we had a man drop in on our services. After the service I presented the Gospel to him, and when I ask him if he wanted to receive Christ, he said he's already done that at the Mormon church. It was then I realized he was a Mormon. We began to debate awhile and he finally left.

Tonight he showed up again, but this time he brought someone with him. After the service, I and some other men in the church led the Mormon's friend to the Lord! Amen! I later learned that the Mormon came back to try and debate with me more. Boy was he surprised as his friend got gloriously saved, and he again heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ! So I guess God can even use Mormon's to bring people to Jesus!

We had a great day today. There was a total of 4 saved! Praise Almighty God!

I'm saved, I'm saved!

Yesterday I had a great blessing out Soul-winning. First let me say it was not easy to go. My soul-winning partner called and could not make it, so that left me and my boys to stand alone in the streets of Varazdin to witness for our Lord. After fighting the devil a little I made my self go. My boys and I made our way to town and began passing out tracts. The more I passed out the more boldness I started to get. It's amazing how it works out that way! When we go God seems to give us what we need. After about 45 minutes a man passed by and took a tract. He stopped and looked at it and then said to me, "If I'm good enough I'll go to heaven". I begin to tell him that no one is good enough and that we all needed God's Savior! Then he kind of shocked me, because he quoted John 3:16. That's very unsuall for a Catholic man to quote any scripture.

He then began to tell me that he saw an american preacher on television and he asked his congregation, "ARE YOU SAVED?" they shouted back, "WE ARE SAVED, WE ARE SAVED". The man then asked me how he could know that he's saved? I then opened the tract up and begin to show him how to be saved! When I read him the scriptures about God's free gift he began to say, very loudly and remember we are in the midle of the town there are people all around us, "I'M SAVED, I'M SAVED!" He said I believe that Jesus is my Savior so I'm saved!

To think I had trouble going soul-winning! Sometimes we must make ourselves go and God can do great things through us. Please pray for Horvje, I was so excited that I forgot to get his phone number. I did explain to him where our church is, and he said he would try to come. He goes to the Catholic church faithfully. Please pray that God would tear down the tradition that holds him there!

Wikipedia vs. The Book of Life

Anonymous said...

Well, I believe bringing the Bible to others and teaching them about Jesus is a good thing. But according to Wikipedia, a census in Croatia in the year 2001 has shown that about 93 % of the population are Christians. So the Word of the Lord has already been spread to them. How come you still use the term "needy country", talking about Croatia as a "dark place" when the light of Jesus already shines there? Then what about Saudi-Arabia, China or Turkey, where there are less then 1 % Christians who even are persecuted?
Blessings to you and your family

Johnny said...

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for commenting on my blog. The Word Christian today is used very lightly. Croatia claims to be 91% Roman Catholic. However, being a Roman Catholic does not make anyone a Christian. I have lived in this country for 9 years and I have asked 1000's of people if they would go to heaven when they die. Overwhelmingly the answer has been I don't know. Many of them wanted to go to heaven, but had no clue how to get there. After talking to them further they would tell me, "I'm trying to be good or I'm a good Cathoilic so maybe I'll go."

Jesus said that no one will go to heaven unless they are born again! (John 3,3)He also said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14,6)To be a Christian one must except God's free gift of Salvation! (Romans 6,23 and Ephesians 2, 8-9) You must receive Jesus plus nothing and minus nothing. The Croatian people for the most part believe that Jesus existed, but they do not believe for the most part that He is the only Savior! They take Jesus plus Mary or Jesus plus their good works! Jesus said I am the only way!

I'm sure that at Wikipedia the Croatian people are considered Christian. However, on Judgment Day God is not going to open the book of Wikipedia, but rather He is going to open the book of life and if their names are not found there they will be cast into the lake of fire!

My question to you is: Is your name written in the book of life?

"And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20, 14-15)

If you are not sure if your name is there, why don't you right now fall on your knees and ask Jesus to be your Savior! He loves you and wants to save you!

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3,16)

Tools are needed!

Tools are used to help accomplish tasks. A builder would have a hard time building without tools. A mechanic would have a hard time repairing a car without tools. Most every profession requires some kind of tool to accomplish the job. I believe that God has given us a task to accomplish. All around us there are souls perishing. God wants us in the business of soul-winning! As I prepare for our soul-winning marathon, I've been thinking about the tools that we will be needing to accomplish the task God has given us.

Tool #1 is God's power. I know that maybe it's difficult to think of God's power as a tool. However, we need to remember that a tool helps us to accomplish a task. I've learned that without God's power we can do nothing. Without this tool we will be ineffective soul-winners. I've been soul-winning too many times without this tool. My witnessing was dry and ineffective. Then there were other times that I went with God's power. The words seemed to flow out of my mouth directly into the heart of the one listening. This week I will be emphasizing this to all who go out with us. We must go with God's power!

Tool #2 is our New Testament. I know this seems elementary, but it is definitely the Word of God that does the working. It is not all of our polished illustrations and humor. It is God's Word that gets right into the heart of the one listening to us.

Tool #3 is a soul-winning partner. I know you can win someone to Christ by yourself. However, I believe there was a reason our Lord sent His followers out two by two. I can win souls by myself, but when someone is with me I have more boldness than I do alone. Soul-winning partners can strengthen one another.

Tool #4 is something practical that I made up this year. I remember Dr. Carl Hatch used to carry a soul-winning card in his pocket. This year I decided to make one for all of our soul-winners. On one side it contains the plan of salvation, on the other side it contains verses about Christian growth. I hope this can be used to help our soul-winners get more people into church and baptized.

Tool # 5 is also practical; a pen and convert slips. They may seem insignificant but they are very important. Winning people is only the first part of our task. We need to do our best to follow up on our converts and get them into the water and on to the pew! We have done a poor job of this in the past, but we are working on it!

I am sure there are many more tools that can be used to help us in our God given task. Maybe you know of few tools that are not listed here. Feel free to add them to the comment list. The tools you add may help us all to accomplish our God given task of winning the lost!

A little success!

I guess there are many ways to judge success. Today I got a little taste of success and it was so nice! The day has been a little difficult. I've got a 1,500 rent payment do on the church plant in Varazdin. I thought I still had a month or so, but I was badly mistaken. This must be paid by Monday, and because of these burdens I was a little down, and found myself walling in self pity. By the way that's a bad place to be.

Being Tuesday it is soul-winning night for brother Rich and brother Alen. I go on Thursday's and Saturday's with brother Alen. This week brother Rich is on vacation and I'm watching both works. About 3:30 I get a call from brother Alen asking if I'm going soul-winning with him. Now I wasn't planning on it, and to be honest I didn't feel like doing much of anything. But now here I am with Brother Alen on the line, who by the way I trained to be a soul-winner, pleading with me to go soul-winning. How could I say no? I couldn't say no, so I went.

There was a time I had to encourage him to go, and now he was encouraging me to go! This was my taste of success! When your converts have grown to this level then you know that you have succeeded somewhat in the ministry. On my way home I just praised the Lord about it! For He is good! By the way I still don't know how we're going to pay the rent, but the depression was gone! Amen! And Hallelujah!

Full time Soul-winner!

In Europe most towns have a square where people go to shop or drink coffee. Our town is no different, and the square has been a great place to pass out tracts and witness to anyone who will listen. In the town, close to the square, you will find big display cases on the side of the buildings. It has been my desire for sometime to use one of these for our Church. Well praise the Lord God opened a door so we could use one of these display cases.

This case will be a full time soul-winner! Yesterday my wife prepared a beautiful graphic, and we had it printed at a local photo shop. It looks great! The graphic says, God's gift for you and then it goes into God's wonderful plan of Salvation!

The location of our soul-winner is equally impressive. It's one building down from the main Catholic Church, and it's on the path directly to the big Catholic book store. It almost looks like God knew what He was doing.

Next to our full time soul-winner we are going to put a nice graphic with information about our Church. It will be great advertisement. People will see every time they walk by that there is another church in town!

God is so good! All I can do is praise Him for opening this door for us.