Mike Peek’s Blog: The Nurse Theologian

Dever, Mark. The Gospel and Personal Evangelism. Wheaton: Crossway, 2007 Biographical Sketch of the Author“Mark has served as the senior pastor of CHBC since 1994 and as president of 9 Marks (a ministry to churches and church leaders) since its founding in 1998. He’s married to Connie and they have two adult children, both married, and one grandchild. Mark has authored a number of books, including 9 Marks of a Healthy Church.”1 Summary of Contents The main topic of this book is the gospel and personal evangelism. This is explained by answering seven questions: Why don’t we evangelize? What is the gospel? Who should we evangelize? How should we evangelize? What isn’t evangelism? What should we do after we evangelize? Why should we evangelize? Why don’t we evangelize? The answer is that we justify excuses in our minds. The author says that there are five basic excuses. The first he admits is the most legitimate; “I don’t not know their language.” Language barriers are difficult, but th…

A book that I recently enjoyed reading was “Reaching and Teaching by David Sills.” Dr. Sills is Missiology professor at Southern Seminary. Dr. Sills defined an intercultural missionary in this way: “One whom God has called and sent as an ambassador of Christ with the message of reconciliation to make disciples, baptize, and teach to obey all that He has commanded, and who intentionally crosses cultural boundaries to do so.”1 Evangelism and discipleship to prison inmates, urban immigrants, people with different religious backgrounds, and people from sectarian cults are all different cultures than my own. Therefore, I think that evangelizing to these, all though within the boarders of America should be defined as missions. This morning I read and essay by David Wheeler called “Hanging Out with a Purpose.” The purpose is sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the essay he gave four practical principles for hanging out with the purpose of sharing the gospel: 1.Be fully present as you walk …

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Gn.1:1;26-27) You were created in the image of God. Jesus said, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt.5:48) However, you are not perfect. You have sinned. You fall short of God’s glorious standard. When you lie you make God out to be a liar. When you steal you make God out to be a thief. When you are unfaithful; whether it be physical unfaithfulness (adultery), mental unfaithfulness (lust) or unfaithfulness with you heart you make God out to be unfaithful.  What you have earned for marring the image of God is death. However, the Lord God is compa…

Please, Please, Please open your mouth and preach the gospel! Recently I was asked to do two things: 1) Think back to my own experience of how I was evangelized and describe the experience. 2) If I could go back and give advice to the person or people who ministered to me what would it be?  I began running as a young child. At the age of 5, I ran my first mile with my dad. At the age of 10, I wanted a pair of running shoes like the big runner’s wear. My dad challenged me, if I could run 5 consecutive miles at less than 8 minutes per mile he would by me a pair of running shoes. I met the challenge and he bought me the shoes. While at the runner’s store there was a flyer for an upcoming 10k race. My dad signed us both up for the race. The next year my dad was too busy with work to run with me, but we had new neighbors across the street. I noticed that this man would come home every evening and go for a run. I began running with him, at the time he was pursuing a doctorate at D. T. S., …

Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” (Ex 34:6-7) For the past four weeks I have been working in the Cardiac Rehab department. The American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of aerobic excercise a week. Heart surgery, a heart attack or diagnosis of heart failure it is often an eye opening experience for some but for others it is not. During my time in this depart of the hospital I have seen lives changed. People severely weakened by a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits and some sort of event involving their heart grow in strength and habits change. I saw on social media yesterday where a friend o…