Greetings Family of God, hope all is Glorious.
I usually start these reports off with “Happy Thursday” but today is a bit of a somber Thursday. Yes, there are many reasons to rejoice, but I am also feeling a little touch of the grief that I felt 1 year ago today when our brother Charlie Kirk was killed.
This tribute video was put out today by the White House and it’s hard not to get emotional when I watch it.
I heard someone say today that it’s hard to believe that it has ONLY been one year, because it really feels like it’s been much longer than that. I feel the same way.
I know much good has come from our loss, but I still miss him. A lot.
Yesterday, as I was reflecting on the incident, I was remembering how the Lord in His sovereignty had allowed me (weeks ahead of time) to be scheduled to speak at The Front on the day after Charlie was killed. It was kind of crazy to be one of the first ones in our area to be able to release a message about this tragic event and to speak prophetically about it.
For whatever reason, God ordained it that way.
Here’s the recording of that message. As you’d expect, before I got to the message, I spent the first several minutes leading everyone in prayer for Charlie to be resurrected.
In addition to reflecting on this, I was also reflecting on an interview I did with my friend Josh Eisbrenner a few weeks later, where we talked about the assassination, Charlie’s legacy, and how the Church should respond.
Here’s that recording:
One last thing that grabbed my remembrance was how Natalie and I showed up to the local Charlie Kirk memorial and ended up being the only attendees featured in the local newspaper article about the event.
Remembering all of this reminded me of how important it is that we all continue to step up to do our part to continue to advance the Kingdom of God, in our brothers’ absence.
On that note, I’m excited that next week I will begin a new layer of my personal ministry, which will be in the form of “political activism”. I will be speaking at the upcoming school board meeting, and I encourage you to come, even if it is just to show support for the conservatives that speak.
Minus an edit or two, this will be my speech to the school board:
“In the book of 1st Chronicles chapter 16 verse 8, we read
“Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples.”
Throughout history, the Lord God Almighty has done many things worthy of our praise. He created the universe out of nothing, He purchased our forgiveness through His death on the cross, and He has transformed countless billions of lives, including mine.
Today though, I want to publicly acknowledge Him for something that He did through our forefathers, which opened the door for all of us to be here today- creating the public school system in America.
Our nations earliest settlers held tightly to the commands of scripture, such as Deuteronomy 6:7, which says: that they were to diligently teach the scriptures to their children. Because of this, they established public schools to accomplish this goal.
In fact, the first official bill directing the building of public schools was passed in Massachusetts in the 1640’s, and it was called… “The Old Deluder Satan Act”
Here are some excerpts:
“It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the scriptures…it is therefore…ordered that where any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families…they shall set up a grammar school…”
On that note, in my hand is a reprint of the very first public-school textbook ever used in America- it is called the New England Primer, and it has dozens of Biblical lessons built into its pages.
This was the primary textbook used to educate children for over 150 years, and it gives us a clear glimpse into the foundation that our schools were built on.
I have a free copy for each of you, and I have extra copies for anyone else who would like one. I look forward to being with you all at future meetings as I attempt to be a voice calling to conserve the beautiful foundation that our Christian forefathers gave us.
God bless you all.“
I will have about 25 copies of the book to give away, which will hopefully open the eyes of some of the angry liberals that show up.
On to the weekend…
On Friday, we had a good amount of foot traffic and a good number of laborers. Many people were open and took tracts and received prayer too.
I was also so moved by my amazing wife testifying about how God comforted her when we lost Azalea. I started recording late but here’s one short clip:
Speaking of her, here is what Azalea’s memorial stone will look like. The thing on the left is a vase.
On Saturday, we had such a fruitful time at Riverwalk, it was amazing.
It seemed like we were all busy talking and praying with people nearly the entire night. Here’s a few pics:
It was also cool to see a little crowd form as brother Ken was ministering:
And to see a high school girl whom we had ministered to a few weeks ago, come back for prayer and counsel:
We were also joined by a new laborer named Grant, who is the DJ who does Christian Skate Night at the local skating rink. It was cool to see this man come and listen to Grant preach as he did open air evangelism for the first time:
It was also super encouraging to talk to these two teens. They said they had been coming to the park every Saturday for about a month so they could hear us. They also said that a few weeks ago they were even inspired to go around and evangelize as we were ministering. They thanked us for what we are doing and said that it REALLY encouraged them to do more of the same.
They also said that they were already sensing that the Lord was going to send them on mission trips, and they were already at the point where they were willing to go to the 10-40 window to preach the Gospel.
Wild how what we do imparts such boldness into those who aren’t even part of our team.
Here they are- Isaiah and Jeremiah
Such a powerful night.
On Sunday, we had clear skies and a MASSIVE crowd. Being that it was Labor Day weekend, it took a long time to park, so we didn’t start until almost 7. Despite that, it was still a powerful night.
Many people came for prayer and took tracts, and many people hung around and listened to the worship and the preaching, including some people from the drum circle.
Here’s a few pics. The girl being prayed for on the left had a major deliverance and got filled with the Holy Spirit too.
It was also kind of wild that the day after I met two young men at Riverwalk named Isaiah and Jeremiah, I met these two brothers also named Isaiah and Jeremiah. They are both on fire for God too.
It was also a huge encouragement to be joined by these 3 evangelist teens, including one who evangelized for the first time:
Then at the end, we had a Divine appointment with a young woman named Laura who lives 45 minutes away. She was really struggling.
She got prayer and counsel though and later texted this to Susan:
On Monday, I joined my friend Rob at Holmes Beach, and we ministered there for a few hours.
Many people got touched, but the outreach almost didn’t happen. It was raining on and off all morning, and when I got there, Rob and his team were about ready to leave. The weather report said that another storm system was coming, but I encouraged them to stay as long as we could.
Then…God parted the storm system and allowed Holmes Beach to stay dry!
It was AMAZING.
And I was so grateful because it was the first time I ever ministered there, even though that was the beach where I had an encounter with God 20 years ago that led to my salvation.
I’ll never forget how He moved so I could finally preach the Gospel on that beach!
Here’s a clip of me testifying about how God shifted the weather:
Never a dull moment when serving Jesus!
One last thing I’ll share with you is a link to a documentary film that was released recently, which is all about evangelism. It’s really well done and I think it will spark a fire in some people to join the Salvation Army.
Check it out here:
https://thinqmedia.com/jesusmission
Hope to see you again soon!
For His Glory…
CV