Should you bring your kids to see santa? Sure..To share the Gospel of course!

We chose a few years ago to tell our (now 4 y/o) daughter that Santa isn't real. We did so to make sure we focused on the right things at Christmas, but we are sure to constantly remind her that other children do think he is real and it is important to not ruin that for them. Besides, we should spend our time telling people the Gospel of Jesus Christ...not debunking some story of a velvet wearing home invader. :P

Anyway, this morning I was shocked when my daughter asked if we could go down to a local store to see Santa. She actually prefaced the entire question by saying, "I know it's not really Santa, it's a guy dressed up like Santa". I was thinking of this as a great parenting opportunity, but my wife had a great idea and rightly said it would be a great witnessing opportunity. We decided that what we would do is ask our daughter if she wanted to bring a million dollar bill along and share the Gospel with the man dressed like Santa. She said "Yes". Praise the Lord!

There are a few lessons that I've (re)learned through this experience.

1. Everything we do should be about spreading the Gospel. Believe me, I think of this all the time...but somehow I got lossed in "Being a good parent" & trying to teach my daughter something. All the while I neglected to teach her the most important lesson of all. That we must share the Gospel to all people.
   
2. My wife is fantastic, and I am so blessed to have such a Christ focused woman as my bride.
3. You can preach the Gospel everywhere, anytime. And we need to think harder about this when we plan our day.

Matt 28:19-20 (NASB)
19"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

-W.S. (Mike)

I Fished With Trish - And Saw God's Hand @ Work

I have a lot to debrief on from my trip last week, but I will post on this topic first b/c Trish released the video last night:
(I'm the one with the beanie & goat tee in the video)



Some background:
I had to be in Fort Worth first thing Monday AM for work last week, so I had to travel on Sunday. I dropped Trish (from FishWithTrish.com) an email to find out the details on her church (more on that in another post) and see if I could "phone fish" with her for her "Wretched Radio" (formally "Way of the Master Radio") segment.

Our schedules worked out and I (and my buddy Chris) met her at a local Ft. Worth area shopping mall to spread the Word. What an amazing experience, the Lord brought two people into our path that He had been working on for quite a while.

Sierra was first, she was such a sweet young lady who was still struggling with the loss of her father several years ago. Did Ray (Comfort) use that pain as a lever to deliver the Gospel and try to convert her? Nope. He used the 10 Commandments to show Sierra that she had violated God's law and explained how without her repentance and trust in Jesus Christ she would be punished by a Just and Perfect God. Sierra will never be the same again, all Praise and Glory to God!

Then there was James. I had actually seen James sitting in the car right next to us for a few minutes and he was listening to his music and bobbing his head up and down. I even made eye contact at one point and thought to myself, "He isn't going to be open to the Gospel...so don't even try to walk up to him." Boy was I wrong, and what a lesson that taught me. (Todd even spoke along the same lines on the show about how we can get in the Lord's way when it comes to "who" we choose to share the Gospel with)

Good thing Trish didn't feel the same way. Trish walked right up to the car and asked him to roll down the window, and he was very willing to hear what she had to say. It turns out that he often thinks about the Lord, and really wanted to know what we had to say. When he was done with the radio segment, James was clearly moved and you could see the spirit working on him right in front of our eyes. He kept saying, "This is crazy, this is so crazy" and not in the bad way, but I believe it was the only way he could articulate the feelings he had as the Spirit was working him over.

Sierra & James, you were such a blessing to me. I pray that you will become a new creature in Christ through repentance and trust. I will never forget either of you, I look forward to when our paths cross again.
-W.S. (Mike)