A few words from the Executive Committee:
Dear colleagues,
What a great day to be in service to one who came to seek
and save that which is lost! As you will read in this newsletter
we are living in exciting times. God is at work! What a
privilege to walk with Him as he reaches lost people. I am more
convinced than I have ever been that our calling is to be faithful
in every area of our lives. Be faithful in your time with
Him, your family, your finances, your study and so on. If we will
do that He supplies everything else in His perfect timing including
results and opportunities. God is the great evangelist!
I was recently in India where we saw incredible responses to the
Good News. I
felt like we were riding on His coat-tails across a sea of hungry
hearts. What a privilege!
Many of you are aware that we are working to see more collaborative
evangelism events over the next few years. You will be able
to read about some of them in the articles that follow. Take
note and ask the Lord of the Harvest where, what and when
He might have you connect with fellow evangelists to reach a community
or region.
PEN Executive Committee decided to not pursue a PEN led eSchool
this year, but to come along side of our partners who are
already training evangelists and to support and promote their
sessions. Watch for more details in the months to come. NGA will
be sponsoring a time of significant training this fall that we
will let you know about. If you know of training sessions that
we can link with let us know.
May the Lord show Himself powerful in your midst these critical
days.
Dallas Anderson
Director of Proclamation Ministries, Billy Graham Center
Celebration of Hope
To a city still inundated with economic and political uncertainties
six months after Hurricane Katrina, Billy Graham and Franklin
Graham brought messages of spiritual hope and renewal at the New
Orleans Arena on March 11, and 12, 2006.
On Saturday evening, Franklin Graham recalled the stirring images
of thousands of desperate victims being saved from the surging
flood waters of Katrina. "No one will ever forget the scenes
of these people standing on roof tops, waiting to be rescued,"
he said. "When God sent His Son to earth, it was a rescue
mission to save us from our sins. God loves New Orleans, He loves
Louisiana and Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. He has not abandoned
you. Tonight we all can have the hope of heaven if we put our
faith and trust in Jesus Christ."
Dr. David Crosby of First Baptist Church of New Orleans, said
the weekend's meetings laid the foundation for new beginnings
in the community. Crosby lauded the Celebration for uniting churches
in New Orleans and surrounding parishes. "We don't want to
lose the unity," he said. "We're bringing down the walls
between races and denominations.
This is like the opening of a blossom that will continue to grow."
(Courtesy: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, www.bgea.org.
For more information on Celebration of Hope, please visit this
link
or refer to this article.
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Springfield Festival with Keith Cook
On The Go Festivals with Keith Cook and Friends, a ministry of
the Keith Cook Evangelistic Association, is having a party that
will never end! Area churches, companies, clubs, and individuals
are joining together to throw one fantastic festival on the Courthouse
House Square in downtown Springfield, Tennessee.
The Springfield On The Go Festival will be a fun filled day packed
with events for all ages. Children will enjoy the GoKids Club
with games, inflatables, clowns, children's performers, a special
concert with Chris and Jamie Kearney, and much more. Youth will
have a wild time at Go-Extreme that features Extreme Skate and
Bike Demonstrations, Climbing Towers, Bungee Jumps, a Battle of
the Bands featuring local bands, a showcase with emerging artist
Amy Stroup, and much more. Everyone will want to be at the festivals
Main Event featuring Folk/ Bluegrass singers Keith and Megan Cook,
Michael English, Jaci Velasquez, and International Evangelist
Keith Cook. Powerful Gospel messages will be presented by Keith,
throughout the day and each message will extend an invitation
for the lost to come to Christ. Please pray for On The Go and
Keith Cook as they share the Gospel in Springfield, Tennessee
for Jesus.
(Courtesy: Keith Cook, Keith Cook Evangelistic Association, On
the Go Ministries. For more information on the Springfield Festival,
please visit the On The Go website
or contact Keith at springfieldfestival@onthego.org.)
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Steve Wingfield Leads Relief Effort
Steve Wingfield continues to serve as the Chairman of The Valley
Responds, a local (Harrisonburg - Rockingham County, Virginia)
organization formed to assist the adopted community of Long Beach,
Mississippi to recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane
Katrina. Under Steve's leadership, the long term relief effort
has received about $200,000 in cash donations and has, in turn,
distributed funds to a variety of organizations and agencies in
the affected area.
Steve helped negotiate the donation of modular homes to the stricken
community. In addition, "in-kind" donations of other
items such as vehicles, building materials, toys, school supplies,
kitchen and homemaking essentials, large quantities of food, and
much more have been made. The SWEA tent was set up in Long Beach
last September to serve as
a gymnasium, mess hall, and more as needed.
(Courtesy: Greg Culbertson, Steve
Wingfield Evangelistic Association. More information on the
ministry's events can be accessed on the ministry website at www.thevalleyresponds.com
or you can contact the ministry at 1-800-729-2239.
My Hope India
A different kind of Christmas celebration spread across the nation
of India as hundreds of thousands of Christians invited friends
and neighbors to watch broadcasts that were part of BGEA's My
Hope television project.
Throughout India Dec. 21-26, in houses large and small,
people accepted the invitation of Christian friends to come and
watch programs that would tell about Jesus. Over and over, God
used the My Hope broadcasts, and the prayers and testimonies of
caring friends, to draw people to Himself.
My Hope India stands by far as the most extensive training ever
imparted to equip the Church in India to witness for Jesus Christ,
and it used the context of the warmth of a family and modern technology.
Hundreds of thousands have been equipped to share the Gospel,
and millions have heard it. It is our prayer that the Holy Spirit
of God will continue to use these individuals and families as
effective witnesses for Christ.
(Courtesy: Billy
Graham Evangelistic Association. For more information on My
Hope India, please visit this link.)
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Hope For the Home
Dr. Jerry Drace will be facilitating "Hope for the Home,"
a weekend conference designed to help the pastor in his ongoing
challenge of ministering to the most important unit of society
- the Family. Since 1975 Jerry Drace has served as an evangelist
to churches throughout the United States and numerous international
countries. He and his team have served pastors in mega churches
and mission churches. Dr. Drace has listened to these men of God
and concluded that their greatest need is meeting the needs of
those individuals who comprise - the Family.
Dr. Drace is offering an official invitation to each of the evangelists
in the PEN Network to attend one of the Hope For The Home seminars.
There will also be an evangelistic message presented on Sunday
morning and evening.
(Courtesy: Jerry Drace, Jerry Drace Evangelistic Association.
Email Jerry
Drace.For more information, or an updated schedule of seminar
events, visit Hope for the Home Schedule
of events or the website)
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Evangelists Needed on the Field
Wesley Paul has been invited to Kenya to conduct three festivals
this year in Africa. In August the festival cities are Sabasaba
and Webuye, Kenya, and the teams will be ministering between August
21st to September 5th. In December the focus city will be
Kisumu, and the date is set for November 24 to December 11th.
Evangelists are needed to conduct festivals in surrounding cities.
The costs is $4500 which includes air travel, food, lodging and
2 festivals. Wesley has been conducting festivals in 23 countries,
most of them in Africa, India, Philippines and South America.
(Courtesy: Wesley Paul, Wesley Paul International Ministries.
For more information on participating in the African Festivals,
please email Wesley
or call 1-859-260-8800.)
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A Passion for Souls-Evangelists Networking Together
How can we reach the ends of the earth in our generation? By
working in unity to reach one village at a time! Over 20 years
ago, God began opening a door for such an effort by using Dr.
Bill Thomas to lead a young man named Muthu to Christ at a Crusade
meeting. Muthu, inspired by the means that reached him, invited
NGA evangelists to come to India to do Festivals Evangelism. NGA
is able to not only help local believers like Muthu, but also
to use collaborative multi-city missions to encourage and equip
an emerging generation of evangelists.
The latest trip to the District of Madurai in southern India
was outstanding! Outreaches were conducted in 18 locations with
people bused in from hundreds of villages. Over 110,934 people
heard the message of Christ firsthand with over 20,000 Indians
responding publicly, giving their lives to Jesus. Eleven NGA Evangelists
who had never proclaimed Christ in India were given their first
opportunity. God also opened the door for social ministries to
host medical and dental outreaches, youth sports, and music exhibition.
Praise God for the many open doors He gave our Festival
Team and for the lives that have been eternally changed.
(Courtesy: Brad Butcher, Luis Palau Evangelistic Association.
For more information, or to receive a detailed PDF account of
Passion For Souls, please email Brad)
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Need Ideas for Reaching Seekers and Skeptics?
Here's an article from Rusty Wright's website to help equip believers
in
evangelism:
A Campus Atheist Finds What He Wants. A campus atheist
enjoyed arguing with believers and mocking their faith. His friend's
loving response plus some divine intervention prompted him to
reconsider his skepticism. His exciting story holds important
lessons for gently nudging your friends toward faith.
(Courtesy: Rusty Wright, For more information, visit the website
or check the following article.
Website resources available free of charge. Please email Rusty
for eprint permissions.)
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PULSE-Student Led Initiative
Over 800 area collegians have come together for what looks to
be one of the largest student led initiatives in the history of
the Upper Midwest. PULSE is a student led initiative headed up
by young evangelist Nick Hall, 23, member of the Luis Palau Next
Generation Alliance and recent graduate of Billy Graham's Institute
for Emerging Evangelists.
Nick had a vision for reaching secular campuses two years ago
while working as the youth speaker for Luis Palau's Twin Cities
Festival. PULSE is now in it's final phase with four affinity
outreach events targeting Business/Communications, Medical, Architecture/Interior
Design, and Construction/Engineering. These will lead towards
the main event on Friday, March 24th, at the Bison Sports Arena
in Fargo, ND.
(Courtesy: Nick Hall, Nick Hall Evangelistic Ministries. For
more information on Pulse, visit the the Pulse Campus website
or Nick Hall Evangelistic Ministries website.)
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Kaduna-Behold the Glory of God
Wesley Paul led evangelical festivals in Kaduna, Nigeria this
past November. For a city that had witnessed Muslim-Christian
riots in 2002, this festival was a bold strategy for Christian
Witness. During the riots hundreds of Christians were killed and
several churches were destroyed. Like Nehemiah, I simply wept
when I saw the ruins and destruction. One church elder pointed
me to the ruins of his church, once attended by 500 people. Pointing
to rough wooden planks on cement blocks, he lamented with much
agony, "Now only ten people attend." Oh, how the enemy
comes to steal, kill and destroy.
The word "Kaduna" in the local language Hausa, means
"Crocodiles". In every sense of the word, for many Christians,
it feels like they are living with crocodiles. The region is equally
divided between Muslims and Christians. Though there have been
no riots in the last three years, the people live in constant
fear and tension. In midst of such a volatile region, the local
churches rallied together to host a city-wide festival. God honored
their commitment and hard work. 20,00 individuals attended the
four-day festival, and more than 1500 people made decisions for
Christ. This was the first time ECWA (Evangelical Church of West
Africa) churches rallied together to conduct a large city-wide
event. On the final day, the deputy governor the state of Kaduna
State addressed the gathering.
(Courtesy: Wesley Paul, Wesley Paul International Ministries.
For more
information, please email Wesley
or call 1-859-260-8800.)
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Live From Seattle
Recently celebrating it's one year anniversary, the late night
radio show, HOGG WILD, with Scottish host, Bill Hogg, has attracted
some attention for its unconventional spreading of the gospel
through raw discussion of hot topics.
(Courtesy: Rachel Corns, rpc1686@comcast.net.
For more information on how you can get involved with this extraordinary
outreach, please visit our website.)
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FUTURE PEN ARTICLES
We will be correlating the data for the next PEN Newsletter.
In order for events and articles to be included in the upcoming
PEN Newsletter, we have set Wednesday, June 14th at 12:00
noon central time as the deadline. We will try to run as many
articles as possible, but we can not guarantee that your article
will be included in the upcoming PEN Newsletter as there are over
300 ministries participating in the PEN Network. In order for
your ministry event to be included in the next PEN Newsletter,
we will need to receive the following from you by the deadline.
1) Subject or Title Heading
2) Brief Description of Event, Article, or Training Opportunity
3) WebLink to an article or webpage describing full detail of
ministry event, article, or training opportunity
Below you will find a list of qualifications for data that will
be included in the PEN Newsletter.
1) The PEN Newsletter will not include any information regarding
Fund Raising for your ministry. This is not the role of this newsletter.
2) We will attempt to include brief articles from as many ministries
as possible. Articles must be Evangelistic in nature. Most Evangelistic
Projects, Training Opportunities, and Conferences will be listed
in our upcoming events section of each newsletter.
3) All other information will be included only upon a space availability
basis. We will rank importance according to PEN guidelines.
4) All correspondence must be done through emails. Please try
not to call our office or fax your articles to us, as it will
be more time consuming to retype information in for each of the
newsletters.
5) The PEN Network and On The Go Ministries / Keith Cook Evangelistic
Association are not responsible for mistakes or miscommunications.
6) All articles received must have Subject/Title line, Brief
Description of Article, Information, Evangelistic Event, or Training
Opportunity, and Weblink to your ministry event or webpage that
contains actual information you want communicated. Full articles
that will be included in the PEN Newsletter will only be that
of official PEN related articles.
We look forward to working with you so that others may know how
they can be more actively involved in your ministry. Again, please
remember that we can not promise to enter an article on every
ministry that submits information, but we will make an attempt
to include as much information as we possibly can, yet keep the
newsletter concise and informative as well. In order to list an
Upcoming Evangelistic Article, Project, or Training Opportunity,
please send your articles with your Subject or Title line, Brief
Description, and Weblink to the following address: Laurie@onthego.org.
While On The Go Ministries / Keith Cook Evangelistic Association
serve as editors and producers of this electronic newsletter and
materials, the PEN Network maintains all rights and responsibilities
for the PEN Newsletter.
PEN Newsletter Editor - Keith Cook, keithcook@onthego.org
PEN Newsletter Assistant Editor - Laurie Wilkerson McTier, laurie@onthego.org
UPCOMING NOTABLE PROCLAMATION EVANGELISM EVENTS
(April - June 2006)
April 1
Angola Festival with Franklin Graham
Angola Prison Rodeo Arena
Angola, Louisiana
www.grahamfestival.org/angola/
April 1-2
Orlando Festival with Luis Palau
Citrus Bowl Grounds
Orlando, Florida
www.orlandofestival.org
April 7-9
Impact India Crusade with Sujo John
Ranchi, India
www.sujojohn.com
April 7-9
Leadership Transformational Conference with Sujo John
Ranchi, India
www.sujojohn.com
April 21-23
Gulf Coast Festival with Franklin Graham
Mobile Civic Center
Mobile, Alabama
www.grahamfestival.org/mobile/
April 19-30
Impact Sweden with Sujo John
Evangelism campaigns in 10 cities of Sweden
www.sujojohn.com
May 10-14
Steve Wingfield Festival
Jennersville, Pennsylvania
www.stevewingfield.org
May 13
Springfield Festival with Keith Cook
Springfield, Tennessee
www.onthego.org
May 12-13
Youth Crusade with Sujo John
Helsinki, Finland
www.sujojohn.com
June 3
Jubilee Festival 2006 "Your Family, Your Festival"
Balloon Fiesta Park
Albuquerque, New Mexico
www.jf06.org
June 21-25
Encounter Festival with Steve Wingfield
Northern Bedford High School
Martinsburg, Pennsylvania
www.stevewingfield.org
June 24-July 2
Keith Cook Crusade and Festival
Uganda
www.onthego.org
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