Thursday - Equipping and Serving

Our day started out back at Gospel Grace Church with the 3rd part of our study in 2 Peter 1, "Work God's Plan."  The conclusion of our session was "Christians are to diligently add to their faith and purposefully advance God's agenda in this world.  A mature Christian is developing a whole-heart for God and is displaying a sacrificial love for others that seeks to share the gospel with the lost, and to disciple other believers to add to their faith."  We then split into small groups and had a great conversations on how to put this into action in our lives.

Today's equipping session today was "Sharing Jesus with the Religious".  Aaron Boyce taught this session and first helped us remember that apart from Christ we are no different than the religious.  He discussed the importance of defining the similar words that are used by Mormons and Christians, so that we can recognize what we are believing is a different gospel.  He gave us six tactics to reaching our Mormon friends:

1.  Reach them through the power of the Word

2.  Reach them by letting the law do its work

3.  Reach them by lifting up Christ

4.  Reach them by truly being a friend

5.  Reach them by carefully asking hard questions and answering their

6.  Reach them by persistently loving on and praying for them

We then spent some time in prayer, in small groups, focusing on our own church and its leaders.  Then we headed to lunch to refuel before starting our afternoon of service projects.

Our afternoon was spent serving the community through a free car wash, helping prepare for the kids carnival in the park on Saturday morning, and various projects around the church.  During the free car wash many we able to get into conversations with the owners of the cars as they were waiting.

This evening was spent in Mill Creek Canyon where we had dinner with all the other Plant Campers and Gospel Grace staff.  We had a worship and testimony time followed by s'mores.  It was encouraging to here from the students as they shared about the work God has been doing in them this week.  It was a sweet time as we all came together, as our time here is quickly winding down.  Enjoy some more pics . . . 

-STMI Team