Bezeugen BLOG

Several years ago we introduced the 21 Day Challenge tract. You can read the story of the tract on the Bezeugen Tract Club site. Since most people’s new year resolutions don’t make it to February, we asked for a 21 day commitment to read the Gospel of John. Of course this can be done any time of year, but we’ve taken to doing it every January. We have an added feature now. By sending an email to 21@AfterLifeCatalog.com you can receive a reminder every day to complete the challenge right in your inbox! The 21 Day Challenge tracts will be included in the January mailing of the Bezeugen Tract Club. As you hand them out point folks to the website on the back of the card and encourage them to subscribe to the daily emails which will include information on how to read the chapter on the device (when the device has YouVersion installed), read on the web, listen, or watch the Gospel of John.

As 2020 comes to a close, let’s continue to pray for our Nation, Leaders, and Revival. The first Thursday of the month is December 3rd. Carl is starting a new group in Denison, Texas this month. The schedule for our locations is:

Each month we provide verses to recommend for use the A.C.T.S. (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) model for prayer. Each group is free to use these verses, or their own format. The important thing is that we pray. There are so many things to be in prayer about including the certification of the election, the upcoming electoral college vote, a peaceful transition of power, the Senate run off races in Georgia, etc. Pray that people will be open to the Gospel and that many will come to know Christ.

The Gospel of John is a great place to start reading the Bible. The Twenty-One Day Challenge provides a suggested way to read the Gospel of John a chapter a day. You can subscribe by email to have a reminder sent to you every day. The Gospel of John contains a narrative of the life of Jesus and is easily understood. But perhaps the best reason is as the book itself states:

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)

As you get started, you may like to have an overview of the book. The Bible Project offers a nice two part video overview. The total running time is roughly 19 minutes.

Skip Heitzig offers a summary of the Gospel of John in his sermon series The Bible from 30,000 feet. You can watch that here:

This Thursday, November 5th, is the First Thursday of the month. Prayer will take place at noon in Carrollton at City Hall, and in Dallas at HOBI International. On Sunday, November 1st, prayer will take place at 7PM at Rockwall Bible Church. This is an important week in the history of our nation with the national election taking place on Tuesday, November 3rd.

This weekend my wife and I had the chance to visit the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you ever are in the area, be sure to check it out. The exhibits are very interesting to learn about the greatest evangelist of our time. They also provided some materials, one of which is particularly relevant to this group a guide on how to pray for our leaders.

Recently a friend referred me to a book on prayer called Praying the Bible by Don Whitney. After reading the book, I found a five part video series on YouTube as well as a summary video. The book at these videos lead me to write a six part BLOG on a website I am working on with a friend of mine. I encourage you to check out that post Semikkah7. Do you ever find yourself “praying the same old things about the same old things?” Well, in that case this book is for you. It’s a quick read with the audio book coming in around two hours. The six videos are less than 25 minutes.

Even when using the A.C.T.S. (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) model of prayer it can be easy to fall into the habit of praying the “same old things about the same old things” if we simply go to pray about each item in the list. But, if we were to pray the scripture, or even expand the scripture listed to the whole chapter we would have so much more to pray.

With all of that in mind here are some suggested verses for the A.C.T.S. model of prayer for this month!

COVID-19 has really thrown a wrench into 2020. But, thankfully, we are now starting to return to normal including getting back out to sharing the Gospel weekly at the Dallas West End transit center.

There is just over a month until the general election. The November mailing will include the popular Jesus is King Gospel tract. Look for it in the mail. We are hosting our First Thursday prayer on October 1st as a time to pray for our nation, leaders and revival. If you can’t make it to one of our planned events, please pray at home, office, or city hall. If you’d like to be included in our list of locations please let us know.

Some people have found they are overstocked on tracts. In this BLOG post we provide some information on how to use up your extra tracts. In addition, you might like to renew your membership for bi-monthly or quarterly mailings. See renew dot tract dot club for more information.

The Bezeugen Ministries is a 501c3 non-profit. All donations are greatly appreciated and are used to share the Gospel and provide the tracts for the Bezeugen Tract Club. Please prayerfully consider a one time or recurring donation. More information on supporting Bezeugen Ministries can be found at http://donate.bezeugen.org/. Requests for additional tracts, bookmarks, door hangers and million dollar bills tracts can also be made through that page.

If you had to describe 2020 in a word what word would you use? Abnormal? Unprecedented? Chaotic? Strange? Unusual? I think the answer is yes, yes, and yes. All of these apply.

When it comes to witnessing, the COVID-19 pandemic really interrupted our normal witnessing schedule. Back in March we didn’t know much about COVID-19. People were hesitant to go out in public. Government mandates prevented gathering. Etc. You know. You lived it to.

Here in North Texas, our favorite local “fishing hole” is the West End Transit center in Dallas. This is a location where the train intersects with the bus routes. So it is usually a hustling bustling place of people coming and going. For more than ten years we have been going there to share the Gospel during our lunch hour a couple of times a week. But, back in March, we stopped going due to COVID-19, social distancing, etc.

We kept monitoring the situation and talking about when to go back to the West End. Finally last month we decided to give it a try. We wondered if people would be out on public transportation. Would they take a tract? Would they want to talk to us? We realized we’d never know until we tried. So Craig and I went, and the reception was good! For the last month we have been going back to our regular schedule and now there are four of us going Monday and Thursday when we are able. We’ve been able to distribute hundreds of tracts, and engage with many people in conversations about eternity!

A friend lives in the greater Cincinnati Area and has told me they have been getting back out to street preaching and he has sent me pictures and video.

So, what about your area? Where can you go to share the Gospel? It seems like the opportunities are arising again. Exercise caution. Social distance. But share the Gospel! Comment below with your experience!

Regardless if there are events or local venues for mass distribution of tracts and lots of conversations, please keep in mind the goal is to share the Gospel “As You Go”. Thank your waitress or cashier and hand them a tract!

Thursday, October 1st 2020, is the last First Thursday before the US election. Please join us in Carrollton, Dallas, or Rockwall for prayer. If you can’t make it to one of these locations, take time to pray at home or your office. If you’d like to host a regular meeting and be listed as a local contact on our monthly emails please contact us.

We like to use the ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) model of prayer. The following verses are suggested to help guide your time of prayer.

The COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic made it’s way to the United States and Canada in early 2020. We had to make some adjustments to our process of packing the envelopes for the Bezeugen Tract Club. But, despite the pandemic, the tract club mailings have gone out every month. We are extremely thankful for our volunteers who have packed these envelopes so that we can send them out each month. We are back to meeting in person now to pack the envelopes as a group. That is a real blessing as we love the fellowship of the group meeting together to do God’s work!

While we have been able to keep sending the tracts, we also realize that some of our members lives have been literally turned upside down and are not getting out as much as they had been previously. Therefore, some of our members have become overstocked on tracts. If that’s your case, here are some ideas for you:

First, it is now possible to receive the Bezeugen Tract Club monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly. If you select bi-monthly then you’ll receive tracts in January, March, May, July, September, and November. If you select quarterly then you’ll receive the January, April, July, and October mailings. To select bi-weekly or quarterly mailing please renew your membership online and select the frequency you’d like to receive the tracts. Simply go to renew dot tract dot club, that’s http://renew.tract.club/.

Second, you could mail tracts to family and friends. Write a letter to a family member and share a tract with them. If they are not yet a Christian, then simply say something like “I received this card and it made me think of you. Would you read it and let me know your thoughts of it?” If they are a believer, send them 3-5 tracts and ask them to hand them out. Let them know that if they’d like to receive 30 FREE Gospel tracts per month they can enroll online at enroll dot tract dot club – that’s http://enroll.tract.club/.

Third, you can mail them in business reply envelopes. Do you get those credit card applications in the mail? Put a tract in the business reply envelope and send it back.

Finally, share them with others are your church. Most churches have a table in the fellowship hall or near the sanctuary. Ask you pastor if you could put tracts there and encourage people to take them and hand them out.

Welcome to May! Please check out this video introducing the May mailin gof the Bezeugen Tract Club.

 Did you receive your government stimulus check? Did you need it? While we understand that many are in need due to lost jobs, for others the check is an unexpected blessing. If you are working and have all your needs met, then purhaps like some tract club members have done you’d like to pass the blessing along. We have been blown away recently by the generosity of some who have donated a portion of their stimulus check to Bezeugen Ministries.  The Gospel is the answer for all of the worlds problems. So money donated helps to further the Gospel. Please read the rest of this article on the BLOG .

The June mailing of the Bezeugen Tract Club went to the post office today. We’ve had to make some adjustments to our process to account for social distancing. But please thank God in your prayers for all those who helped with the work to get these envelopes packed so they could go in the mail. We are again packing the July envelopes using our modified process of sending the tracts out to individual homes. We hope and pray that our group can meet together again by July so that we can have fellowship together while we complete this task.

Finally, we’d like to invite you to pray. Pray for our nation, leaders and revival. Pray for an end to the pandemic. Pray that during this time people would seek God. Pray that all tracts mailed in the Bezeugen Tract Club will be distributed. Prayer that people will repent and trust in Jesus alone for salvation. Each month on the first Thursday of the month we host prayer meetings. This month it’s virtual. While you shelter in place why not take time to pray. Suggested verses for the ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgivings and Supplication) model of prayer can be found here .

The Bezeugen Ministries is a 501c3 non-profit. All donations are greatly appreciated and are used to share the Gospel and provide the tracts for the Bezeugen Tract Club. Please prayerfully consider a one time or recurring donation. More information on supporting Bezeugen Ministries can be found at http://donate.bezeugen.org/. Requests for additional tracts, bookmarks, door hangers and million dollar bills tracts can also be made through that page.