Archive for the ‘Good News’ Category

Family Planning: Protest Your Local Abortion Mill!

Sunday, May 12th, 2013

My class, “Abortion is About God: Reframing a Moral Issue” starts on June 6, 2013, from 7-8:30pm at Hope Chapel, Hermosa Beach. Perhaps you will want to sign up here, have your eyes opened and want to do something to help bring awareness to the pro-life cause.

Before this class I did nothing.

After teaching it, I now go down to a local abortion clinic to bring awareness to the fact that inside an innocuous looking building, thousands of babies are murdered. My family also joined me last week.

How heartless is the abortion industry?

Watch this euphemism-laced conversation between a death-clinic worker and a “customer.” Then read some good news below on how pro-life is making slow, steady strides.

GOOD NEWS FROM LIFENEWS.NET

  • Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 2-7, find 58 percent of Americans want either all or almost all abortions illegal — with 20% saying it should be illegal in all circumstances and 38% favoring it in only in a few circumstances. Read about it here.
  • Pro-life group Life Dynamics has launched an ambitious campaign to educate all of the nation’s personal injury attorneys of an enormous opportunity to file civil lawsuits on behalf of child sex abuse victims and their families against abortion clinics that did not report the crime. Read about it here.
  • According to NBCNEWS.com, former Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell has been found guilty on three of four counts of first-degree murder involving the deaths of four babies. He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the overdose death of former patient Karnamaya Mongar.

 I hope to post good news from the Pro-life front every week.

Reinstated at the College: Back to School!

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

After a very friendly and cordial conversation with the director of El Camino College’s Office of Student Development, the Hope Chapel evangelism team has been approved to share our faith on campus. (Read what happened here.)

The complaints, apparently, stemmed from some of the team members being a little too aggressive in their approach. I explained to the Director that that was probably true since a lot of the people who join us are just learning how to evangelize for the first time. I assured her that I will develop a policy to ensure that we, as ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will indeed act like ambassadors of Christ.

“For we are taking pains to do what is right,
not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men.”
(2 Cor. 8:21)

I will publish our rules of engagement here soon.

Chick Fil-A Supporters Turn Out in Droves

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

EDIT at 7:20pm: While I am currently in my office studying for a sermon to give at four services this weekend, my wife and two daughters went to the Chick Fil-A by the Lakewood Mall. This is what my 13-year-old D.D. reported: “We didn’t appreciate them that much to wait in a line that had over 300 people! The drive-thru was wrapped around the mall. We had to order a Papa John’s pizza.”

An excerpt from YAHOO! news:

For those like John Mohler, 50, of Thornton, Colo., eating at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday was about defending free speech. Mohler said he doesn’t share Cathy’s belief–only his rights to air them.

“I’m not sure I agree with his position on gay marriage,” said Mohler, who drove to Englewood from downtown Denver on his lunch break. “But I applaud the owner for speaking his mind, and that’s why I’m here.” Read the rest here.

Check out this outrageous aerial photo from a Chick-fil-A near Ocala, Fla. Blog photo from my friend, Ryan Floyd.

Collateral Blessings at the DMV

Sunday, February 12th, 2012

Here’s an encouraging report from our DMV preacher, “Righteous Richard” Chavarria.

This past Wednesday, as my friend and I were leaving the Hawthorne DMV after preaching the Gospel as we do twice a week, we were handing out Gospel tracts to folks that may not have received one. As we handed one to a gentleman named Alex, he said that he attended Hope Chapel. I told him that I attended Hope, too.

At the weekend’s service at Hope Chapel, a man came up to me and said, “Hi, my name is Alex and I met you at the Hawthorne DMV.” He went on to say that while he was in line he made a call to his wife and said, “There’s a guy preaching at the DMV.” Alex said that what we were doing was “gnarly” and he could never do such a thing.  He wanted to tell me that while he was in line there were about 15 different spiritual conversations going on all around him after I preached. Some folks said, “I don’t believe in God.” Others asked incredulously, “Do you believe what they’re saying?” Still others declared, “I believe in heaven and hell.” These where some of the conversations that Alex overheard.

I thanked Alex for sharing with me. I told him we never know what God is doing and that I was happy he took the time to share what was taking place and that it was encouraging. I know God was opening up the curtain and letting us know what he’s doing when the Gospel is preached.

Read about another collateral blessing from Charles Spurgeon by clicking here.

Good News: Bible Study Ruled…Legal!

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

Several weeks ago I posted an article about a couple whose home Bible study was shut down by the city of San Juan Capistrano over First Amendment issues. Here’s the rest of the story….

A California court case that drew national attention was settled late last week. The city of San Juan Capistrano agreed to pay back the $300 it had fined a couple hosting a popular Bible study in their home and amend a city ordinance requiring them to get a permit. Click here to read the rest of this great news!

Hasta la Vista, Preachin’ Peter

Monday, January 17th, 2011

It’s with great sadness and joy that I will be saying goodbye to this young man, at least for a few years, anyway…

Peter Johnson had the distinction of  graduating at the top of my evangelism class with the exact same score as his fraternal twin, then becoming the youngest Academy Awards street preacher at the tender age of 16 .

After becoming a leader on our Hope Chapel evangelism team, he encouraged students at El Camino College in The Way of the Master, witnessed to members of the Gay/Straight Alliance Club, helped me with Free Speech permits on campus, and debuted the “Are You Ready?” cross on the library lawn where we shared our faith weekly. (He also had great fun carrying his cross here and here.) Peter cut his teeth in videography by filming and editing the majority of my evangelism videos over the last two years as well; his most popular one by far being this video.

Now, alas, he’s heading off to greener pastures: The Master’s College, a place for serious students of God’s Word, where he hopes to continue spreading the gospel with like-minded peers.

Good luck, Peter! We’ll miss you!

And the winner is…

Friday, May 21st, 2010

The winner of the “Greek to Me” T-shirt contest that was posted on Tuesday is Laura, who answered first! Though not a Greek scholar she rightly surmised that the foreign language evangelistic question (at least its English transliteration) was: “If you died today, would you go to Heaven or Hell?”

A close second goes to atheist Azou, who thought it read:

“One Ring to rule them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them”

And, Paul Latour, our Canadian evangelist who never gets to read many shirts because people are usually wearing parkas in the frozen north, guessed that it said: “Eat at Joe’s.”

Honorable mentions to all those who literally rendered the phrase, too.

How the Gospel Has Spread

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

What difference can one person make in preaching the Gospel?

This 90 second presentation shows the spread of the Gospel as compared to the spread of other religions (and their wars). This map gives a brief history of the world’s most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds?

From Maps of War

Ray Comfort’s New Hair-Brained Ideas

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

A devious overt plan…

26,000 copies of On the Origin of Species were given out at universities in Australia and New Zealand on March 9th, without a hitch. This was to pre-empt meetings by Richard Dawkins (the world’s pre-eminent atheist) that were to be held in five major cities. Watch a clip from national TV in New Zealand by clicking here.

Here are the preliminary reports from the down under give away:

AUSTRALIA: “AWESOME!!!!! People were gathering around to get their copy. One of the groups at Melbourne Uni. got through about 2,500 books in just over 1 hour. . . What a great day it was. One guy tried to grab a whole box and make off with it, he wasn’t very successful.”

NEW ZEALAND : “It took from 11am until almost 2pm to hand out their 4000! They had a little resistance–some crazy atheists who were yelling “Jesus hates evolution” behind them–until some of the students who were getting books and engaging in conversations with the team yelled back at the atheists to shut up, as they couldn’t hear what our guys were saying. The atheists then went away. What a wonderful day we have all had speaking up for the LORD!!!”

Then Ray Comfort made a jacket for Richard Dawkins! A real jacket! Will the pope of atheism take it? Watch the video below:

Campus Comfort…or Con?

Friday, November 20th, 2009

On November 18th, 17 people entered the hallowed halls of USC to hand out a book written by an amazing fiction writer, Charles Darwin.

“The Origin of Species” is the work that first perpetrated the myth of evolution that is now taught as fact at schools and universities around the world.

Ray Comfort wrote a 50 page introduction explaining the Creationist’s perspective, Intelligent Design, and the Law and Gospel. Along the way he wrote a few truthful tidbits about Darwin’s misogyny, and the influence Darwinian thought had on Hitler’s Final Solution. (Click here to read the background.)

Atheists hated it.

Joey wrote (on Facebook):  They’re handing them out right outside the building I’m in as we speak… EVERYONE has one. It’s like an infection of lies and false knowledge.”

They also despised the fact that we arrived a day earlier on campus than expected. The original date to hand out nearly 170,000 of these books on 100 universities around the country was November 19.  After learning of organized atheist opposition, Ray Comfort changed the date to a day earlier, November 18—and didn’t tell anyone else, except for those on the book distribution teams.

Did I mention that atheists hated it?

Neal Strobl wrote (on Facebook): “It shows you that, in a free market of ideas, religion will always fail. Thus the religious must tip the scales in their favor to even stand a chance.”

Our orders from Command Central? Distribute 2,600 books to the students—and don’t get into any fights.  We obeyed.

In 2 1/2 hours we were done. All 2,600 books were gone. Wait. Make that 2,599 books. One was left in the van. They went like hotcakes free books!

The amazing thing was that there was virtually no opposition.

Bobby wrote (on Facebook): “Kirk and Ray and all these morons that are helping him in this futile cause are completely out of their minds….”

The Trojan Knights, a male Rah! Rah! group, were delighted to get a free Darwin book with a special introduction by Ray Comfort.

They even lead a cheer against UCLA—for us! Great sports, these guys. I’m sure the atheists would’ve hated it.

Brett wrote (on Facebook):  “Maybe we should start some organization to pass out copies of “The Dark Side of Christianity” on campuses. some sort of counter-balance.”

Three professors were delighted to get a freebie! One was a prof of politics, the others, of education. After reading the special forward, they might actually learn a thing or two.

Ryan wrote (on Facebook): “This is borderline sociopathic.”

I even got an on-camera interview with an evolutionary biology professor who was livid that we were doing this.  “I thought you guys were to be out here tomorrow,” he said before we filmed him. But, after thinking about the strategy of arriving a day earlier than the atheists expected he conceded, “That was pretty smart.”

One student asked, “Is this the book with the preface by the Nutcase?”

“Yes,” I replied.

I couldn’t lie. I’d be breaking the 9th Commandment.

Weemaryanne wrote (from my blog): “Tactical moves are for battlefields. We’re talking college campuses. You don’t educate by lying. And when you learned there was opposition, why you should have rejoiced! – teach the controversy, let the students hear both sides, remember? You people don’t even believe your own words. Nobody else should, either.”

***************

I was interviewed in the first half hour on Ambassadors’ Alliance Radio along with many others who participated in this outreach. You can listen here.

We also started posting our success stories on the atheist opposition page. Read their comments, and our comments here.

And here’s the link on Facebook for Origin in Schools. It details all the newspaper articles and reports from this momentous day.

Of course, the atheists hate all this.

***Read my post on Articulate Atheism here.***

Newsflash! “Origins” Giveaway in L.A. Examiner!

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

I just got a report on Facebook that our “Origin of Species” giveaway made it to the Examiner.com! (I better get my report online soon!)

2,600 Darwin Dogmas in 2 1/2 Hours!

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

2,600 “Origin of Species” books with a special introduction by Ray Comfort were given away in 2 1/2 hours at the University of Southern California by our faithful team of seventeen. (Read the background of this project here.) It was a tough job trying to educate the Darwinian masses that there is a God, but someone had to do it. The rest of the story will be published soon!


The Reason Why This Blog Exists

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

I received this very encouraging message on Facebook this morning from Dan Stokely:

I have been hitting the streets with my close friend Vernon Costolo for about 6 months now. He has been able to teach me how to [share] one on one and hand tracts, etc. I had not done any open air or street light evangelism until yesterday. I have to admit that I was to chicken to do so; I don’t have any problem talking to someone one on one, or handing tracts. 

Steve, this is where my story hits the main point: I watched your little girl last week get on the box and was very impressed. When I saw your little one get up there and do it, I simply had to lay down all my excuses, and do it!

Yesterday I used Vernon’s amplification and knocked it out. Shaking like a  leaf, I went ahead and proclaimed the Gospel!  I just wanted to let you know that you all are an inspiration to me. Thanks for all you do. Feel free to let your daughter know about this story.

If this blog encourages you to take a next step you can always email me at  pastorsteveathope@yahoo.com or reach me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/StevePSanchez.

See my daughter preach in the open air at Pink’s Hot Dogs by clicking here.

Open Air Opportunity: Baskin Robbins 31 Cent Scoop Night

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

The smart evangelist will know what to do this evening…

Baskin-Robbins, known for its “31 flavors,” is dropping per-scoop prices to 31 cents tonight in honor of future and current firefighters.

The scoop discount runs today only from 5 to 10 p.m. at select stores and proceeds from the 31 Cent Scoop Night sales will go toward a $100,000 donation to the National Volunteer Fire Council‘s National Junior Firefighter Program.

The Junior Firefighter Program pairs youths with firefighters, rescue workers and emergency medical service workers to teach them about the various professions. Some Baskin-Robbins locations also will accept donations to local firehouses.

The longstanding ice cream vendor is even rolling out some new-media and social-media efforts to bring in customers for 31 Cent Scoop Night.

Baskin-Robbins is on Twitter (@baskinrobbins) and Facebook, and the company has set up an automated service that will send you a text message reminding you of 31 Cent Scoop Night if you send “scoop” in a text message to 31310. —From the L.A. Times

Seven for Heaven

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

We started with 13 and ended up with seven. That’s the unfortunate truth when teaching a class on evangelism: a nearly 50% drop out rate. But I am incredibly hopeful that God will use these people mightily, because they serve a mighty God. Congratulations you all!

See the original class here.

Featured Blog: The Word Street Journal

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Canadian Paul Latour, a fervent evangelist in the frozen north and frequent witty commentator on this site, has started his own evangelistic blog called, “The Word Street Journal.”

Here’s his mission statement:

The goal of this blog is to encourage fellow believers and followers of Jesus to rely on the power of God to boldly, but “with gentleness and respect”, proclaim the gospel to a needy world in which ever way they feel led to. Not everyone is called or expected to stand on a box at a street corner and preach the gospel. But we are all called to “do something” as Charles Spurgeon once said.

[There will be] stories, articles, commentary, informative tidbits, good news, bad news, serious things, humorous things, interviews, photos, videos, audios, etc., focusing in on the realm of Christian related topics that point to the absolute necessity of our being obedient to the Lord’s call to us in bringing the Good News of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. They are not breaking down the doors to get into our churches to hear the gospel, so we are called to head out to where they are and bring it to them.

I am always thankful when a Biblical Christian rises up, is obedient to Christ, preaches the Word “in season and out of season”… then shares his experiences with the world, further encouraging others to do the same.

I’m truly thankful that Paul is one of the ”Frozen Chosen.” Check out his site by clicking here.

Read about Paul’s experience when he preached at a Canadian Gay Pride Parade last summer by clicking here.

New Blog: The Word Street Journal

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Canadian Paul Latour, a fervent evangelist in the frozen north and frequent witty commentator on this site, has started his own evangelistic blog called, “The Word Street Journal.”

Here’s his mission statement:

The goal of this blog is to encourage fellow believers and followers of Jesus to rely on the power of God to boldly, but “with gentleness and respect”, proclaim the gospel to a needy world in which ever way they feel led to. Not everyone is called or expected to stand on a box at a street corner and preach the gospel. But we are all called to “do something” as Charles Spurgeon once said.

[There will be] stories, articles, commentary, informative tidbits, good news, bad news, serious things, humorous things, interviews, photos, videos, audios, etc., focusing in on the realm of Christian related topics that point to the absolute necessity of our being obedient to the Lord’s call to us in bringing the Good News of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. They are not breaking down the doors to get into our churches to hear the gospel, so we are called to head out to where they are and bring it to them.

I am always thankful when a Biblical Christian rises up, is obedient to Christ, preaches the Word “in season and out of season”… then shares his experiences with the world, further encouraging others to do the same.

I’m truly thankful that Paul is one of the ”Frozen Chosen.” Check out his site by clicking here.

Read about Paul’s experience when he preached at a Canadian Gay Pride Parade last summer by clicking here.

HE IS RISEN!

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!
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How do you answer a skeptic who declares that Jesus didn’t rise? Click here.

Read about how I couldn’t pray in the name of Jesus as I gave a City Council invocation… and why I broke the law.

…and then there were twelve.

Friday, February 27th, 2009

The graduates of our first evangelism class of 2009 numbered twelve out of a starting class of twenty; unfortunately, a 50% drop out rate is the norm. Still, Jesus started with twelve and they turned the world upside down! The top score was earned by John Webber, who discovered how simple and effective biblical evangelism can be. Great job, folks! Let’s go fishin’!

Our next 6 week class starts March 19 and is free with pre-registration, $15.00 at the door. Also, if you would like my teaching and student notes from this class, they are free. All you have to pay is the postage. Leave me a comment if you would like them for your church.

Happy Birthday, Tony Miano!

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

You’re not getting older, you’re getting better. Wait a minute… let me think about that.

Tony is the leader of The Way of the Master’s Ambassadors’ Alliance, an evangelistic training ministry for those who want to fulfill Christ’s command to “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation,” effectively! He is now entering the Grampa-ish 46th year (which makes him 45).

Read a nice profile of Tony here.

Read about the trials and tribulations of the very first Ambassadors’ Academy here.