Articles, news and testimonies
(Editor’s note: We never know what God can do when we are faithfully looking for opportunities to give away the good news.)
After church service one Sunday morning, Kevin* met a young Chinese lady who had just arrived in the U.S. to attend university. They chatted for a few minutes and Kevin found out she was taking a course on environmental issues.
“I just happen to have a book on environmental issues that I think you’ll enjoy,” he said. “I’ll pass it to you next week.”
(Editor’s note: Many retired people have time on their hands. How can they use their time to be effective ambassadors for Christ? Here is Kevin and Seana’s story.)
We met an elderly couple who had recently ordered two cases of The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus. Kevin and Seana* were retired, but they were putting their time to good use by getting involved in a ministry that helped new international students settle into their city. Kevin and Seana helped the students find accommodation and get furniture. They showed the students around town, and even helped them find supermarkets that stocked familiar foods.
Here is a story from our archives. It’s from June* who works in a pregnancy resource centre.
We are a small Pregnancy Resource Centre and we’ve spent nearly a year praying for the right tool to use as a consistent, easy-to-understand, starting point in sharing the Bible with our clients. We have gospel bracelets that serve their purpose in the counselling rooms, but wanted something that would enable us to spend time with our clients and give us opportunity to build relationships.
To make a long (but interesting!) story short, the Lord led us to The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus about one and a half years ago. We’ve incorporated it into our “Points Program” by giving each client a book and workbook (and Bible if they don’t have one). We run group Bible study classes at our centre where we watch The Stranger DVD and discuss questions and answers in the workbook for two hours each week. We do this over a nine-week period. Typically, we run two Bible study sessions a day!
So again I say thank you. “The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus” has been an answer to our prayers!
As June discovered, we designed our tools so that any believer can use them to share the gospel. We are happy that June and her team were able to make good use of the book, workbook and the videobook.
(*Name changed as per GoodSeed policy.)
(Editor’s note: Here is a rather quirky story from our archives.)
In 2000, we were getting The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus translated into French. Lillie,* one of people helping on that project, told us that her husband’s copy of the book was stolen from his office!
Several months later, Lillie and her husband traveled to attend their son’s wedding. They brought along with them three copies of L’Homme sur le chemin d’Emmaüs. During the time they were with their family, their car was broken into and all three copies of the books were stolen too!
Lillie managed to laugh it off and said that if she ever hears of a criminal coming to know the Lord after reading The Stranger, she’ll know where he or she got the copy. When she related these two incidents to her Bible study group, they thought that the book must be really special if people were willing to steal it! They asked to study the book together.
We never know what happens when a book explaining the gospel gets into another person’s hands. Whether he (or she) received it as a gift or he stole it, our prayer is that he will read it, understand it and believe.
(* All names changed as per GoodSeed policy.)
Photo credit: Jon Collier on flickr
We’re excited to announce that a local Chinese publisher is now printing and selling the Simplified Chinese edition of The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus… in China! (And with a new cover too.)
In our continued effort to make our tools available to anyone anywhere in the world, we’re glad to see that people in China are now be able to order the book from a local bookstore called Heavenly Stairways.
If you have friends in China, let them know the The Stranger is now available to them in the stores and online: The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus in Simplified Chinese.
(Editor’s note: In a world of ever-increasing biblical illiteracy, people presume they know what the Bible is all about just because they attend church regularly or they do “Christian” things. As Brandon’s story illustrates, a person can live his life acting like a Christian without actually being one. But it isn’t hard to get a good foundation of the Bible if one reads a book that explains its message clearly.)
We received a long, hand-written letter from Brandon.* In over four pages of beautiful penmanship, he described his mistaken ideas about what he thought it meant to be a Christian. He writes:
Out of the blue, we received a phone call last week. It was from a gentleman named Manuel* who lives in the US. He said he was prompted by God to share his story with us.
Manuel related that he became a believer 30 years ago but his life took a dramatic turn when he attended one of our TERM Seminars in Idaho. He was brought through The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus and he said he really “bumped into the meaning of God.” He fell in love with the book and sought to use it to explain the gospel to others.
His first two students were his mum and dad. They were impacted by the message. His dad said the gospel “smashed into my heart” and made him realize how much of a sinner he was.
Let me take a moment of your time to tell you my story–the true story of a Christian who became a Christian. No, that was not a typo! Let me explain…
I grew up in the Bible Belt surrounded by churches. The local school was called a Christian school; and most folks were called Christians. My parents also subscribed to this way of thinking. We went to church Sunday after Sunday, read our Bibles and prayed regularly. In fact, we made a good number of short-term mission trips together.
So it happened one day that the local evangelical church we attended had a joint Sunday School meeting. All the kids were gathered together to watch a film. I can’t remember what it was about but I do remember an adult stepping forward after the film and saying that if we wanted to go to heaven that we needed to invite Jesus into our hearts. So around the age of five I did just that–without telling a single soul–not even my own mother.
Question:
Dear GoodSeed,
After seeing the book The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus recommended by DA Carson in his book, “The God Who is There,” I quickly began to look for it. I found your website recently and have been looking into it. I bought both the Rethink Worldview Curriculum Box and The Stranger VideoBook. I am one of several pastors at a fairly large church and am always looking for material to teach the basics of Christianity. Most of our new visitors have very little religious background (most have never opened a Bible at all) and are somewhat skeptical of Christianity. A couple of questions about material:
Continue reading “How can I use the Stranger VideoBook with Worldview Rethink?”
One of the most common reasons that believers don’t share the gospel message is that they don’t know what to say. Even if they had a friend or neighbour willing to learn the message of the Bible, these believers are nervous because they don’t know where to begin. We can understand that sentiment. The Bible is a big book!