I send my love and gratitude for the participation you have in this ministry, whether financially or in prayer! This letter will hopefully provide a brief insight into what we have been doing throughout the month of February! For additional and more detailed updates, you can visit my blog website to view pictures and entries further exploring some of my experiences and engagement. The website can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/ivanpenrose-ncp/home.
CSUF
We’ve seen great results from our whiteboard-initiated dialogues this month! We’ve asked a variety of questions for students to engage with this month, such as, “Is Religion Safe?”, “Religion or Spirituality?”, “Prayer or Mindfulness?”, and “Forgiving or Severing Difficult Relationships?”. There are so many nonbelievers that we’ve been able to share the gospel with, and we pray that God would continue stirring their hearts to explore deeper the authenticity and reliability of Jesus and His teachings! Please pray that God would continue to send us those he desires to reach through our conversations, and please pray that we would be aware of the Spirit’s guidance in each unique situation we receive! We have seen an influx of Christian students and good external ministries at CSUF this month, which is very exciting! We are blessed to engage with these people and hope to have opportunities to equip Christian students in evangelism and partner with good Christian ministries on campus! There are several students who have shown great interest in reading and dialoguing with us through the gospel of Mark, and we pray that God would give them a holy discomfort and hunger that causes the word to take root in their hearts and grow into a fruit-producing tree! The cult groups are still at work on campus, recruiting and indoctrinating students with perverted understandings of God’s word, and we pray that God would confuse their actions and repel students from them. It is often the unsatisfied and young Christian who falls prey to their invitation and, in their noble pursuit of God, is led away into a different gospel and different Jesus by these false teachings. We had the opportunity to engage with some cult members this month and disclose the false doctrines and practices of their group. Most of these students are unaware of the truth concerning these groups and truly want to love and serve God with everything they have. We want to see these people freed to do so in the truth and freedom that Christ intended his Church to operate in.
– Some photos we have to share from our times ministering at CSUF –
City Lights
God is certainly at work in City Lights! This month, there have been many changes within the City Lights management that have caused a variety of issues for the residents and the social worker who organizes and helps the residents. These changes affected people’s rent, making it unaffordable for many, and limited the social worker’s freedom to host events within the building for residents. We prayed that God would resolve these issues at City Lights, and this week, we found out that the management that was causing the issues was changed and replaced with a friend of the City Lights social worker! We were told that this is unheard of and is truly miraculous! What a testimony to this unbelieving social worker! God is certainly at work in her heart, and she has been increasingly opening up to Christianity as she asks us to pray before distributing food and pray with residents! Praise God for the work he is doing at City Lights and in this wonderful social worker’s heart! Please pray for God to raise up and strengthen Christian residents to become daily ministers to those living with them at City Lights!
Bible Dialogues
This month, we’ve had several Bible dialogues! We dialogued with *Anthony, who we met at CSUF while prayer-walking, and explored his first steps as a new disciple of Jesus as we began reading and discussing the gospel of Mark. We met and dialogued with a Christian young lady who has recently left a cult and has great questions about the Bible. We’ve also dialogued with *Titus, who Nick met back before I arrived in SoCal. *Titus has said that he loves the Jesus we share with him, but he is not sure how to know which presentation of Jesus is correct. This next week, we will begin a Bible dialogue through the gospel of Mark to discover what the earliest manuscripts about the teachings, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus actually say. Please pray for all of these people as we continue to meet them where they are in their relationship with Jesus and show them what it means to be a disciple of Jesus!
DMCs
We are currently engaged in two DMCs that are working their way through the Sermon on the Mount. In these groups, we read and dialogue through the text, working to understand what Jesus was teaching so that we can correctly apply it to our lives. Along with reading and dialoguing, we also agree to weekly challenges that help us practice what we read and become better disciples of Jesus.
Teaching Opportunities
The engagement of the 60+ boys we taught at Friends Rose Drive Middle School was amazing, and we were invited back Monday the 3rd to continue our conversation with them about resisting temptation. Please pray that our future times with them will be fruitful for their discipleship with Jesus! On March 2nd, Nick and I shared at Friends Church Fullerton about the practice of evangelism/ witnessing- Please pray that what was shared will produce fruitful challenges for our church as we work to disciple under Jesus in every way! We will travel March 6-8 to assist in an Evangelism Seminar in Kansas where we will teach about sharing the gospel; we will also teach at my home church, Hutchinson Friends Church, on March 9- Please pray that what we share would be edifying and challenging for both of these groups! It also sounds like, near the middle and end of March, we will be teaching about the Mission of God at another local Friends Church in California. Please pray that we will be aware and sensitive to how we should engage with each unique group we will be sharing with in the month of March!
Thank you for your prayer and support of the ministry we are engaged in out here in SoCal! May God bless the ministry you are involved in where you are!
Thank you so much for both the prayer and financial support that you are investing in this ministry and training! I am currently 79% financially funded and have 163 prayer partners! As I continue support raising, I ask that you join me in prayer as I look for those God wants to have join me in financial and support. If you, or someone you know, would like to partner with me, you can sign up here to become a prayer partner and sign up as a financial partner through the options below!
With love and peace,
Ivan Penrose
There are four ways to partner with me:
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