Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Project Ezra - Mission Good Friday and Our One-year Anniversary!

Project Ezra
Mission Good Friday
Matthew 26-28


Just under a year ago, the message below was sent out by Tony Miano, and the groundwork was laid for what has become Project Ezra.

The mission is simple and can be accomplished anywhere.

This is a call to all Christians everywhere, whether or not you are a street evangelist.

Find a public place--preferably a place where people gather (the size of the crowd matters not). Climb atop a box. Open your Bible. And read Matthew 26-28 (that's right: all of it) aloud, using the voice the Good Lord gave you.

If you have never open-air preached, and you don't think you are ready to do so, then simply read the text with love in your heart--love for God and love for lost people. The Scriptures can speak for themselves. The Word of God is true, powerful, and entirely sufficient.

Open-air preachers: Read Matthew 26-28 as your springboard for heralding the Law and the Gospel.

Join me in bringing Good Friday to the people who likely will not darken the door of your church.

Think of it. Men and women around the world, in large cities and small towns, reading the Gospel to the lost.

Who's with me?!

We are now approaching the one-year anniversary of Project Ezra, and the challenge is the same. The book of Hebrews says:

Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

So let’s go out, and let the living and active word of God pierce the hearts of those in our community this Good Friday. If you are an active member of Project Ezra, or even if you are not, and challenge you not only to participate in our anniversary reading, but to invite others to participate with you. We will be reading three chapters, and it is easy to divide them up so multiple people can read. Also, please post this on your social networking profiles and email it to friends and family, and let’s let more believers know about Project Ezra. More and more, people are falling away from the Church. Inviting people to church is fine, but what if they won’t come? Then we need to go to them! The book of Romans says:

Romans 10:14 - How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

It is possible that through the reading of God’s word, and through public evangelism, you or I may have the amazing privilege of being the instrument God uses to bring the gospel to someone for the very first time, or be the encouragement he uses to draw someone to repentance and faith. Why would you not want to be part of that? What could be more joyous?

So start praying and preparing now. I will have the event up on the Project Ezra Facebook page a little later today and will be making up a Google map for the event, so be sure to sign up for the event and post your location on the event wall. I will also be taking down the current Mapping Project page soon. I will try to repost all the pictures to the main page first. Try to post all your pictures to the main page photo album in the future. Following the event I will change the Mission Good Friday event into the 2010 Mapping event so you don’t have to enter your information into both to show you are still participating. Let’s see how many people we can get to participate in our anniversary event and start into our second year strong. Thanks so much to all of you for being part of Project Ezra, and please pray that the group will continue to make an impact for the glory of God and the edification of his saints.

All for His glory!

Dan

2 comments:

  1. Got a jumpstart on this today pre-service. We are a storefront church with our very own downtown street corner to call home. We are excited about Friday :) Here is a link to the post about today's preview reading. To God be the Glory.

    http://thecyberspring.com/mobile/?p=923

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  2. Since I don’t have Facebook, I am not sure how to report my Mission Good Friday Reading, so I thought I would try here :)

    Matthew 26 – 28 was read on the quad at Illinois State University in Normal, IL.

    Here is the location that the reading took place from (look for the blue marker)…
    http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=40.509578,-88.990577&spn=0.001966,0.004823&t=h&z=18&msid=106743620531202085877.000483bc74bbc1717bc35

    Here is a video slideshow of the reading along with an audio download link…
    http://www.ftfe.org/2010/04/02/good-friday-reading-at-isu/

    During the reading we were able to distribute around 200 Gospel tracts. Before the reading, God provided us with several one to one witnessing opportunities. The audio of one of those can be found here…
    http://www.ftfe.org/2010/04/02/witnessing-to-two-christians-at-isu/

    It was a great time of evangelism! I am definitely in for next year, God willing with a larger team!!

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