Experiencing God through a sex talk?!
For speaker/teacher/Bible-geeks-who-do-online-ministry, it’s rare to receive emails like the one I received yesterday via Facebook…but when you do, it totally makes your day!
Here’s what I opened my inbox to find:
Hey, James-Michael!
I’m M. I’m 21 years old and I live in Charlotte.
You may ask yourself why a random girl is messaging you, and I have answers!
I started going to CharlotteOne this last season and I went last night and I realized something. Dave Hickman was spouting out statistics about a survey they took, and it struck a chord with me. One thing he said is that some percentage of us (I don’t remember the number but it was high) had experienced God through CharlotteOne.
I’m the type of person I like to give credit where credit is due, and although you don’t know me, I owe you credit.
I didn’t get to be there in person, but I listened to the podcast of your sermon on the first installment of the Song of Songs series. That is the sermon where I experienced God through CharlotteOne sitting in my living room.
I wanted to send you an email letting you know that that sermon changed me. It really hit home with me, and I appreciate it. I also listened to one of the sermons on your website on the same topic and that was amazing as well. It was refreshing hearing someone who was single talk about sex and not be ashamed about it.
The effect your sermon had on my life is amazing. It made me realize I was living life in the wrong way, but to not get down on myself about it, but to ask for forgiveness and HE will be there with his overwhelming love and mercy to catch me.
Due to your sermons, I have decided to no longer have sex until I find the person God has for me. Your sermons helped me realize that although my flowerbed has been trampled through, God can replace my flowers and give me a fresh start. I appreciate in your sermons how you talked about how if you’ve had sex you’re not a bad person, but how you can change yourself into the person God wants you to be.
I like to thank people when they do nice things for me, so thank you for what you did for me. Its cool how God answers questions you don’t know you have and don’t know how to ask and that’s exactly what He did through you!
Thanks again,
M.
Letters like this are incredibly encouraging…especially during seasons in ministry when discouragement seems to be the norm! Thank you, M., for taking the time to share this with me and for allowing me to share it with others here in the Dojo! I hope that more and more people end up experiencing God through ministries such as CharlotteONE (of which I’m so proud to be connected to!).
I wanted to share it with Dojo readers for a number of reasons…one of them being to show just how much of a blessing you can be to those in ministry when you simply let them know!
For those who are curious, here is the talk M. is referring to from CharlotteONE’s “Song of Songs” series:
And here is the other talk she mentioned listening to afterwards, which was a message given at Good Shepherd a few years ago when I was on staff there:
Categories: Biblical Theology, Blog, Hebrew Bible, Ministry, New Testament, Relationships, Teaching Products, Theological issues
Haha, thanks man. I don’t mind being compared to Rob when it comes to giving a message…no matter what people may think about his theology, that boy can preach! 🙂
by jm on Apr 29, 2011 at 12:53 am
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