Last Updated: 
01/27/12
Allison Reid is currently a second year student in the S.O.W.E.R.S. Program
Each One, Win One
The Apostle Paul was, and continues to be an excellent example of what it takes to get people back to God. His ministry was one of the largest movements of God's Word to date. In His Word, God tells us that over a period of two years and three months, “all they which dwelt in Asia [Minor] heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.” (Acts 19:10)
This was a time in the Church when the news of Jesus Christ's resurrection was still new information, so many people were willing and open to hear the Word. Tradition also hadn't gone so far as to call Jesus Christ “God” or make many of the other private interpretations of the Word that we live with today. Paul knew the rightly divided Word of God and took on the responsibility of being a witness unto Jesus Christ “both in Jerusalem and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8b). Paul acted on his calling of being a witness of Jesus Christ and as a result, the Word of God spread like wildfire.
Acts 19:20
“So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”
The Young Adult Advance has always been an amazing opportunity to spend time with our family of like-minded believers and to get deep into the accuracy of God's wonderful, matchless word. This year will be no different. Thanks to Rev. Walter Cummins and Jan Parker, as well as the W.O.W.'s who have been out on the field living the book of Acts, we can gain a better understanding of what “Each One, Win One” really means. With that being the theme of the advance this year, our focus will be on our ministry of reconciliation and what it means to be a true witness of our Lord Jesus Christ and God's perfect Word.
The ministry of reconciliation, my fantastic brothers and sisters, is exactly what we have been called to do. Because of the changes in language and culture over time and the adversary's sneaky hands, it may seem like we have it pretty hard, but those difficulties pale in comparison to the power we have in us; the Word is still the Word whether people believe it or not. Our job is not to defend the truth, but to be a witness to the greatness of it.
I am looking forward to seeing all of you at the S.O.W.E.R.S. Clubhouse this year so that we can fellowship, learn, grow and witness together as the great Body of Christ that we have all been called to be.
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Michael Behm is currently the coorinator of the S.O.W.E.R.S.® training program.
Since many of you know of my peculiar affinity for Scrooge as characterized in “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, some of you may be a bit startled that yours truly, without coercion, deception, or other forms of nefarious trickery, but rather of my own volition, would write the newsletter preceding Christmas. It is my promise to you that my blood sugar is just fine.
Christmas, besides its Biblical inconsistencies of minor details (the date) and added characters (a large, chimney sliding gift giver, a drummer boy and his metronomic cattle), is a fantastic holiday. Recognition of the birth of the promised Messiah is not something to take lightly. When we look to the scriptures to see who this Jesus was, and what he accomplished, in comparison to the depraved state mankind has crawled into, we can see as clear as day our inability to grasp the enormity of our Father's love for us.
When we were enemies with God, He sent His own son to die to take away the enmity from between Himself and us. Then, God raised him up from the dead and ascended him into heaven to give us the opportunity to believe to become born again of His spirit, and be His children. From enemies to family, from death unto eternal life, God has made us to gain more in this man Jesus, our Lord and Christ, than we lost in Adam. And further yet He has entrusted us with the ministry of reconciliation. This is almost as crazy to us as going to a prison to get a babysitter.
I don't know about you but this is big stuff. I may not even be able to pretend to comprehend or apprehend to the full end of why He would send His son for me but I know it would be my reasonable response to give the rest of my life for his service.
Among the traditions we have in our culture and in our homes for this Christmas season it is absolutely appropriate to stop and take the time to remember the effect of the birth of our Lord and Christ, the man, Jesus of Nazareth.
Merry Christmas to y'all
Michael Behm
Cassie Smith is a graduate of the S.O.W.E.R.S. program and is currently living in Memphis, TN as a W.O.W. Ambassador.
I don’t know exactly what I expected from L.E.A.D. when I realized it was upon us; I was kind of numb, actually- almost apathetic. I didn’t comprehend what we were about to do because I hadn’t done anything like it before, so when people talked about their experiences at L.E.A.D., their stories had no effect on my imagination- no excitement, no fear- there was only the occasional moment of curiosity in the back of my mind as I tried to anticipate what I was going to get out of this. As conceited as that sounds, it really isn’t. I was already content with my walk, but I knew in the very least that L.E.A.D. was about the individual, overall, and that there was much to be learned about myself.
As it turns out, I did learn quite a bit. Hitchhiking was an interesting surprise, mostly because it wasn’t the anxious mess that it could have been. On the way to Roswell, Michael, Tiffany, and I simply listened to God and followed instructions; but, on the way back, hitchhiking really began to mean something to me. On the second day of our return trip, we received a ride from a man named Joe Williams who took us from the east side of Dallas all the way to Monroe, Louisiana. During the ride, the four of us started talking, and we discovered that Joe knew quite a bit about the rightly divided Word. When we were dropped off, our group stood on the side of an on-ramp for three hours during constant traffic, and not one person stopped. While that time wasn’t as long a wait as other groups experienced, it was the longest our group had waited in all of our travels. Also, in the midst of a climate change from the mountains to Louisiana in May, and the addition of the mosquitoes with ruthless tendencies of draining my blood while causing itching welts the size of Motza balls, you can imagine how miserable it felt to be by that highway with no results. After a while, we realized something had gone wrong; in retrospect, I now see that we had gotten comfortable just talking about the Word we knew. Being comfortable, though we were in agreement and excited about the Word, didn’t mean we were in fellowship. It also didn’t mean we were being alert and diligent concerning what God had to say. As a result, we missed our instructions. God got us home after a night in a hotel room and a stint of food poisoning, but I certainly noticed the difference in our walk from the day before Joe Williams and the day after. I had been told hitchhiking was more that just sticking out my thumb, but I didn’t believe it was God and only God who got us through that experience until I saw that we were doing something wrong. It wasn’t me, or Tiffany’s cuteness, or even our clean appearances that got us through, no- only God.
“I can of mine own self do nothing.”
While on the rocks, as I’ve said before, I was content with being, well, content. During some of the climbs, I had no desire to climb any higher. It’s not as if I wanted to go down-I just wanted to stay right where I was. Jan Parker, the coordinator of the W.O.W. program, calls this “mediocrity,” and I realized I was the epitome of this word at that moment. Not all the time, mind you, I do have some sense of self-betterment, although sometimes it may not look as if I do. Still, I enjoy getting used to something because then, over time, I become good at it. My job, my city, my school- I was content with these. They all fit me because I had been exposed to them long enough to master all the ins and outs and could therefore excel. Stepping out of Port Orange and moving to Mississippi was a bit ambitious, I suppose, but I already knew a little bit about S.O.W.E.R.S. and felt it would be safe. Now, jumping out of a crack in a cliff to climb a big, unstable rock wasn’t exactly the contentment I was looking for, but, it had to be done, and -Ta-Da!- I survived. Even though I didn’t see what was to be gained by getting out of the crack at the time, it was profitable and I can understand that. . . now.
Another nerve-wracking experience I had at L.E.A.D. was during my solo; however, instead of explaining what I remembered happened, I am going to include my journal entry about the first night:
Wed, 27th of April:
“It’s Wed, I think…. We packed up camp at Goshen yesterday morning and came to our solo spots… I found a fallen tree on a large rock and thought it would be a good spot for a hooch… ended up being very windy and chilly this morning so not really… I was angry that the wind was blowing so hard and loud and still is… scared that I was alone… there were spiders in the tree by me so I could see them when I was in my bed…. I thought there might be snakes around so I was scared about that… So I got into bed before dark and was thinking about when Paul was bitten by that snake but shook it off. So I started reading Acts and about Paul… if God can do that for Paul He could do that for me. Eventually it got dark and I didn’t want to use my flashlight because while I was reading I saw that the spiders nearby were daddy long legs, while indeed a comfort, I noticed while building our own house, daddy longs legs were attracted to light. So, no flash light. SO then I snuggled into my ( Dylan’s) sleeping bag and tightened every hole that I could on the bag and set to sleep in safety. Course, I couldn’t sleep cause I was scared. No wait, I slept for a bit…. But woke up just in great fear about animals and snakes and such. So I cried for a bit. Then a thought occurred to me: when I was on the mountain on climb 2 on the second day’s morning, I was safe in the crack, well sort of. But once I stepped out of the “safety”, I was able to figure out what to do and then get to the top. So I opened up a little hole in the head of the sleeping bad and looked out. Then I cried some more, but for a different reason: when Daniel was in the lion’s den, God shut the mouths of those lions, He’d do it for me too if I believed. Sometimes when you step out of your comfort zone, you see stars.”
I had been thinking about what I was going to do this next year, and this adventure sort of challenged me to go W.O.W. because it was the most “uncomfortable” option that I could choose: L.E.A.D. still means a lot to me, and although I can’t explain everything that occurred during those three weeks, I pray I never forget it.