Hello all. I’ve decided to revive an old ministry project called
Project Ezra. The group, which was started by evangelist and street
missionary Tony Miano back in 2009, and then run by the two of us for a
number of years, was an encouragement to many, and provided the
motivation many people needed to step out in faith and share their faith
in public for the first time. The memory of that group, and the impact
it had (by the grace of God) has been on my mind a lot lately. After
discussing it briefly with Tony recently, and at the encouragement of
some of our past regular participants, I’ve decided to jump back in and
see what God does. Please pray He will use the group powerfully, as He
has done in the past.
So what is Project Ezra about? The idea is simple. We suggest a
passage of scripture, along with some ideas on how you can use that
passage to transition into the message of the gospel. You can choose to
use that passage, or pick your own. Then you invite your friends and
church family to join you, while others around the country (and often
other countries) do the same. Then you pick a spot in a public area with
good foot traffic, climb up onto a bench, box, ladder or stool, and
read the passage aloud. If there are several in your group, you can
split the passage up and each read a section. If you have people on your
team with experience in sharing the gospel, they can do so, either
one-on-one with those who stop to listen, or aloud from the box. And
most of all, pray that God’s Spirit will fill you and empower you as you
share, and that He will convict and change the hearts of those
listening.
Mission Good Friday, 2009, was the first Project Ezra event. Tony
Miano invited others to join him in reading Matthew 26 through 28 on
Good Friday. He posted the idea as an event on Facebook, and hundreds of
people responded, going to the streets to share the good news of the
death and resurrection of Christ. Several other events followed, and
then, for a number of years, Project Ezra was a weekly event, with a
different suggested passage each week, along with ideas for using the
passage to springboard into a Gospel presentation. After a while
interest waned, and life and church commitments made it difficult for us
to write weekly. So, the project ended up at the back of the ministry
shelf, and I wondered if God would choose to use it again. I have hoped
He would.
A lot has changed since then. When the last post went up, I was still
working in the secular workplace, and simply did not have the bandwidth
to continue posting weekly. Now, I’m in the process of transitioning
into full time ministry, and although life is still busy, God seems to
keep bringing public scripture reading back to mind more frequently. So,
starting in a couple days, I’ll be starting our weekly postings again.
Some will be re-posts of past outlines, some will be new outlines as God
brings conviction on specific passages, and I hope to post special
outlines, as we did previously, connected with public holidays or times
of year that are particularly conducive to sharing the Gospel. I may
even ask regular participants to contribute from time to time. I hope
you will consider joining us, either in prayer or by stepping up onto
the box yourself.
If you are interested, you can follow the Project Ezra Facebook group at www.facebook.com/groups/projectezra/.
I will be using my personal blog to post the readings (at least until
I can get the old site working). You can follow my blog at www.yoursoulmatters.org.
Finally, you can access all the old outlines at projectezra.blogspot.com.
Even though we’re not posting there currently, there is several years
of weekly material available. I hope it will be an encouragement.
Hope to hear from many of you. God bless!
Dan
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