Mountaintop Musings: A Great Opportunity

Starting on May 4th residents of Lincoln have a great opportunity to attend a free 6-hour course that has been developed and implemented in hundreds of towns and dozens of countries. It is not a get-rich quick scheme, a pyramid marketing program, nor does it come with a high-pressure sales pitch. The course is called “The Christian Life and Witness Course”, or CLWC. Now before you tune me out, invest a few minutes and finish reading this. The CLWC is a teaching outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). The instructors are from the BGEA. This course is something that will help all Christians better understand what they believe and give them confidence in sharing and living out their beliefs. For those who are not yet Christians it will be an informational, low pressure opportunity to discover what the Christian faith is all about.

As pastor of Community Bible Church, I heard about the Celebrations that Will Graham, grandson of Billy Graham, is having this coming fall in Helena and Great Falls. I was very excited to think that such a historic and international group would invest their resources in Montana! After contacting the BGEA people, I told them I would try to arrange for Lincoln to host a course. So, I contacted Scott from the Lincoln Baptist Church, shared the vision and Scott said yes let’s work together to get something set-up. So, I attended several meetings, and the people of Community Bible and Lincoln Baptist got behind the idea and, we have a world-class organization coming to Lincoln May 4th, 11th and 18th. . The course will be at the Lincoln Baptist Church from 10 am to noon. There is no cost for this.

The five components of the course are: 1. The Effective Christian Life; 2. The Victorious Christian Life; 3. The Christian’s Witness; 4. Follow-up and Care of New Christians; and 5. How to Lead Small Group Bible Studies. So, if you are a believer who is in a rut this course may very well give you a jump-start. If you have a wild and crazy friend or family member who is a believer, and you are not, it will help you better understand what they mean when they say they are a “Christian”.

When this opportunity to host this course presented itself the Baptist Church was without a pastor, and since we have partnered the past few summers hosting a missions team from Arkansas, and had a combined Christmas service this past year, and at heart I am an area missionary who desires to help churches work together, it was a natural thing for me to try and get the ball rolling. Since Marshall has arrived as pastor of the Baptist church, and their facility is being used it was right to pass him the baton in working with the BGEA.

It has been my prayer and desire to see folks from the Christian churches in Lincoln come together to support and learn from the BGEA instructor and each other how to better live a genuine, authentic life for Jesus. Hope to see you this coming Saturday!

(Dave & Lisa Carroll are area missionaries with InFaith, America’s oldest Christian home mission agency. You can contact Dave at 406.459.8935 or [email protected])