Of course, God's Word is the primary resource I use, and the only authority we can hold fast to. Men make mistakes, but God's Word will never fail.Many of these titles are available at church libraries, and some even at public libraries, depending on your locality. We also belong to Paperback Swap.com, look into their online book swapping site for many of these titles.
"Tortured for Christ" by Richard Wurmbrand is the true story of a pastor that was jailed for preaching the Gospel. This man helped found Voice of the Martyrs, a ministry dedicated to serving persecuted Christians worldwide. Sara just finished this book, and it was eye opening and convicting. We found this at the local public library in Ottawa, Kansas! It was available free as a PDF from E-sword recently, as I recall.
"Heavenly man" by Paul Hattaway is a true story that chronicles the life of a young Christian in China. Brother Yun, nicknamed "the heavenly man" by some of his captors, shares his story of living for Christ in China. There were great consequences for this brother's public proclamation of the Gospel including beatings, imprisonment, and a host of other persecution. This book was a wake up call to me.
"Living Water" by Paul Hattaway is the follow up book to "Heavenly man". When Brother Yun escaped communist China, he ended up in the United States, and writes his recommendations(and admonition) to the North American church. This book is written from a heart of love and desire to have Christians see some of the things that have crept into churches that displease the Lord. This book was a tough chastisement at times, and a comforting encouragement at other times. You can read excerpts free at Google Books, including chapters such as "Chocolate soldiers" and "The wet blanket brigade"
"Way of the Master" is a ministry that many have heard of the past few years. With a complete school of evangelism, training videos, and step by step "ice breaker" challenges, this was one of the first evangelism courses I took, and still use their resources often. Ray Comfort's messages are available on MP3, and I highly recommend his insight concerning the use of the Law, the "10 commandments" and their approach to witnessing. Ray does not claim to have invented some new method, but rather scours God's Word for examples, often quoting great preachers of the past such as George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, and Billy Sunday. Specifically suggested are these audio messages that have stirred my heart: "Hell's best kept secret", "True and false conversion", "Militant evangelism", and "Why the lack of power within the church?"These are some of my favorites. All are available through WOTM or www.oneplace.com last I checked.
Mark Cahill is another person that I appreciate. Many of his messages are available for free at his website. Mark has a series concerning Roman Catholicism (Mark grew up in the Catholic church) that is quite helpful in understanding their doctrines. Mark uses God's Word to show their many doctrinal errors. Of Mark Cahill, Ray Comfort (a fireball preacher of the Gospel) says, "Mark Cahill is the only person I know that makes me feel lukewarm", in fact Mark has a message entitled "lukewarm no more" that I recommend.
J.B.Nicholson has many wonderful messages concerning evangelism, and has worked with Uplook ministries to put together a series of affordable CDs with Gospel messages on them to give out. These messages such as"The uniqueness of Christianity" and "Hope in the storms of life" are available for free listening online. You can find many other Gospel resources at the "Good News Granary" online. Jabe Nicholson, among many others, was one that was instrumental in Good News on the Move, a team that we have been blessed to work with a few times in the past 2 years. Jabe is passionate about God's Word, of its truth, and has some messages that are hard to take, but SO profitable. His messages are presented with love and wisdom, and we enjoy his messages immensely. Look for titles such as "Stuff" at http://www.buckitweek.org/audio and many other messages are available at http://www.voicesforchrist.org
As most of you know, we as a family, consider ourselves to be ministers to the body of Christ, not any denominational group. We belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, as His laborers. Paul's letter to the church in Corinth, chapter 1 speaks to my mindset on the subject of division among Christians. We work for God, in the name of Christ, and no denomination has ever offered to die for me. That being said, we have been blessed to work in many local churches of "all flavors" and believe these resources to be profitable to all who call themselves by the name of Christ. We hope that these resources are available to you, let us know if you have difficulty finding them. Being without internet service right now, I can't check right now, but would make time to search out specific sources if the need arises.
Thank you for taking the time to learn more about the necessity and blessed privilege of boldly proclaiming the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. It is the most important message you could ever hope to hear. It is sadly also one of the most obvious areas of disobedience to God's Word that we see in this country. How can we who are called by His name not speak His message? Are we worthy to be called His children if we want to keep this gift to ourselves, in blatant disregard for His simple command. If you won the lottery, you would tell the world, how much more so should we tell the world of eternal life in Christ?
Many have taken the step of obedience to not just worship in church meetings, but truly worship the Lord by serving Him by stepping out from the world to be counted with those who are willing to be ridiculed, persecuted, or worse for the cause of Christ. A brother once said, "Worship without evangelism is like a plane with one wing" , and I believe he is right. Others have said that true worship cannot exist without obedience, that if we revere God, we would obey Him. I don't say these things to offend, but to spur others on to see the beauty of Christ, to step out and let the Holy Spirit give you the strength that none of us have in the flesh. I thank you all for your time and hope that these resources are a help to you. I thank the Lord for faithful men who committed to teach these things to me, and count it a privilege now to teach others also.
Mark
