Give away the gospel during Lunar New Year!

Chinese New Year decorations

(This post is part of our “Give away the gospel” series.)

Lunar New Year is coming! Chinese, Vietnamese and Koreans in Australia, Canada, the US, Europe and, of course, in every corner of Asia, are getting ready to celebrate this major festival on the Lunar calendar.

If you were to visit a Chinese home during this season, you might find greetings and wishes in red and gold adorning the house, while pots of New Year plants and lanterns grace the entrances. Mandarin oranges would be carefully arranged in baskets alongside jars and trays of New Year goodies. The air would be filled with the aroma of pots of delicacies gently cooking in the kitchen. Occasionally, you might hear the booms and clangs of drums and cymbals of a passing lion dance troupe or the tunes of New Year music coming from a music player.

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This “John 3:16” makes no sense to me…

John 3:16 in the Bible

(This post is part of our “Give away the gospel” series.)

A GoodSeed staff member tells us of a Thai friend who was trying to understand what the Bible was all about. He writes:

My Thai friend Aroon* told me that he used to have a manager who was a Christian. This manager had spent several months trying to explain the good news of the Bible to him. He used John 3:16 as his starting point. He told Aroon, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only begotten son…”

Aroon halted his manager right there and articulated several problems he had with that verse. First of all, God to him was not a person. God was a universal force, the kind of force that holds the universe together, like gravity. Aroon couldn’t understand how a force could love him. Secondly, what was love anyway? Was love just a warm feeling in the heart? And this universal force had a son? How could that be? If God had a son, did he also have a wife?

The problem was that Aroon had absolutely no background about God and the Bible. Those very precious words had a different meaning for him because he lacked the biblical perspective.

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I gave a book. Did it have impact?

I gave a book. Did it have impact?

(This post is part of our “Give away the gospel” series.)

We’ve talked about “Personal Distribution Points” and “Be Ready Boxes” and living a lifestyle of just giving away gospel tools. But does it have impact? Here are several testimonies from people who received a GoodSeed tool.

My colleague of 20 years
Tony* had witnessed to his colleague at work for 20 years, but to no avail. He then decided to give him a copy of “The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus.” To Tony’s surprise, his colleague read it twice! Tony said his colleague could explain the Gospel back to him very clearly, from A to Z. Because they were at work with many people present, they decided to get together at a later date. When they met, the man again explained to Tony the whole Gospel very clearly. Tony said, “I’ll pray for you.” He replied, “Why?” Tony said, “Because now that you have the information, you need to make a decision” to which the man replied, “But it’s black and white, and I’m in the white! You can pray for my wife and children so that they too will understand.”

She said “Wow” every five minutes
“I just want to thank you for your prayers for Irina*. The Lord is doing something incredible in her heart! The book you gave her for Christmas—‘The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus’—she has read it in one weekend. She kept turning the pages and saying ‘wow’ every five minutes… This book totally changed her perception of the Bible… She can see how the Bible answers all the questions that we might have. Now she recommends the book to everyone, saying it should be a bestseller and that all her friends in Russia should read it. Moreover, she started reading the Bible as soon as she was through with this book!”

A brand new believer brings another
“As you know, our church has ordered almost 1000 copies of ‘The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus.’ People use them for witness and follow-up. Very helpful!  Recently a believer from our church led a young woman with cancer to the Lord. He then gave her a copy of ‘The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus’ for follow-up. She read it and passed it on to a visiting unsaved friend who read it all in one day and got saved. PTL! She said, ‘I never thought I could get my sins forgiven.’  She is planning to come out to our church soon.”

Passing it on and impacting lives
“I met you at your sister’s funeral as I knew your [other] sister. At that sad time for you and your family, you gave me a book ‘By This Name’ by John Cross. It was such a great book in that it was so easy to understand and the history of the Bible and its correlation to other related events was fantastic. I enjoyed the book so much that I passed it on to my nephew’s wife; she passed it on to her sister and [the passing on of it] is on going. I wanted to tell you this because it has such an impact on the people who passed it on. So thank you.”

Many of GoodSeed’s tools are designed for just “giving away” or passing on. They explain the message of the Bible clearly and simply in an objective manner. The three key books that you may find useful to have on hand to give away at a moment’s notice are:

(* All names changed as per GoodSeed policy.)

Are you ready to give the Good News?

t's so easy to share the Good News. Just give it away!

(This post is part of our “Give away the gospel” series.)

All believers are given the biblical mandate to live a lifelong lifestyle of being ready to share the Gospel at a moment’s notice. This sharing doesn’t happen by accident. It starts with us cultivating a deliberate lifestyle of being ready so that when God puts into our lives the opportunity to share, we won’t miss it!

Over the years, the GoodSeed staff members have found that giving a person a book, audiobook or DVD is the simplest way to give someone the Gospel. In under a minute, we can give someone a well-developed tool that will explain the Gospel, step-by-step, story-by-story, to a person with absolutely no understanding or knowledge of the Bible. Through giving away, we have seen so many people come to put their trust in Jesus Christ for their salvation. Being ready to give away a gospel tool requires some very simple planning: 1) Identifying your Personal Distribution Points and 2) Preparing a “Be Ready Box.”

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Can I shine your shoes?

Photo Credit: Alex Barth on flickr

Davi* met a 13-year-old boy when he was getting the tire of his car fixed. Thiago walked up and asked if he could shine Davi’s shoes. Davi agreed, and struck up a conversation with the boy as he worked. He asked if Thiago had ever drank living water. Thiago had no idea what Davi was talking about but was curious. Davi shared that 34 years ago, he had learnt about the living waters and when he understood what it was, he drank it and found new life and everything he had ever longed for in his heart. Davi offered to lead the boy through a study and at the end of it, he would understand what living water was and how to drink it, just as clearly as he understood how to shine shoes.

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The Stranger in the Thrift Store

Photo Credit: Hans Dinkelberg on FlickrAn elderly gentleman called our office the other day. He was full of enthusiasm and was talking a mile a minute. What he wanted to share was that he was a regular visitor of the local thrift store in his town. He goes there once a week to check out the clothes and the books. Just a while ago, he had come across a book entitled, The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus. Intrigued, he bought it for $3 and went home to read it. He could not put it down.

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One Pastor’s Vision

Worldview Rethink Course

We introduced our Worldview Rethink curriculum during our Open House in August last year. One of our guests was a pastor from a small town in Alberta, Canada. He caught a vision of how the Worldview Rethink curriculum could help his congregation be grounded in the Gospel. He gathered several sets of curriculum and called together a group of men from his church to form a Bible study group. Then he personally taught them through the curriculum.

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Captivating the children and adults. A story from Luxembourg

“Luxembourg Neumünster und Johanneskirche” by Wolfgang Staudt on Flickr

A story from our staff member in Luxembourg. He had the opportunity to speak with two pastors, both of whom had taken to using the Luxembourgish translation of The Lamb in their churches. Pastor Pol* and Pastor Pier* had taken to distributing copies of “D’Lämmchen” to their congregations and had received very positive feedback from them. In all, over the Christmas season, 11 boxes of D’Lämmchen were distributed! Pastor Pier is now considering following up by guiding his congregation through a study of the German version of “The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus”.

Pastor Pier shared the following story:

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Bless your Chinese friends this Chinese New Year

The Stranger on The Road to Emmaus and red packets

Chinese New Year begins on February 10. It’s less than a month away! Chinese in Australia, Canada, the US, Europe and of course, in every corner of Asia are getting ready to celebrate this major festival on the Lunar calendar. Even people in Vietnam and Korea are preparing for their Lunar New Year. One of our Chinese staff members shares the following idea of using this occasion to share the gospel:

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