Project North Africa

The second lesson is:

For some reason I found myself holding back. Instead of trusting God for the finances, for the manpower, for the wisdom, for the strength, etc I hold back and don’t start things that I know will lead to greater productivity and more souls saved. I guess this is partly from my fiscally conservative personality and partly from my fear of “getting kicked out”. The truth is, I would rather be kicked out for accomplishing something for Christ (or at least attempting to accomplish something) than to stay and waste years plodding along. I have asked myself this question, “I could accomplish X in Y (unknown amount of years) by going all out. Or I could go cautiously and slow down Y by three times, still accomplish X except in Yx3. Which one makes most sense with just one short life in view?”

There are a couple things that I keep rolling over in my mind but don’t just step out and do. Here’s another Pastor Austin quote: “If I were here, I would go for broke.” I guess that’s what Paul, Peter, and all the rest did after Christ ascended.

This last week we saw our first Sat. TV program that we had developed aired in North Africa and the Middle East. It was pretty awesome to watch that happen. I am sitting in my living room right now watching some Arab Christian programing for kids that’s just great. Hopefully we can produce some more and better programs that will be a blessing to the Christians and Muslims of North Africa.

From the outside of the church it seems like someone isn’t REALLY a Christian until they are baptized. The Bible doesn’t have any examples of people who waited months or years between faith and baptism. It would have been much easier for those in the first century to determine their “day of salvation” since it wasn’t any different from the day of their baptism. At any rate, we have managed to lay a firm, biblical foundation of what salvation, the new birth is and how it comes about in a person born from above by faith. Again, our wise God makes salvation very clear in his Word so no man can confuse the blood of Christ with the water of baptism.