Magnolia, Texas First Baptist

 

 

Rob at Magnolia's First
Rob at Magnolia's First


Sunday school class
Sunday school class
My folks’ church in Texas had us speak to their congregation at the beginning of last month.  You can watch the advertisement they played for their Sunday school classes here.  We spoke in one of those Sunday school classes, but it wasn’t recorded.  (There was great interaction there!)  You can watch the brief interviews advertising our evening seminar near the beginning of both the classic and contemporary morning services on June 3rd here.  You can also watch the whole 2-hour seminar here

 

The evening seminar was well-attended with probably around 100 people.  There was also a lot of good interaction from people both during the question/answer session and after the seminar.


Dr. Ed Seay, Rob, Craig, and Tara
Dr. Ed Seay, Rob, Craig, and Tara
However, the most interesting thing happened at the end of the second morning service.  A Mormon guy named Craig came up to meet me and told me that he used to live in West Jordan about 18 years ago!  His friends, Cliff and Grace, who go to Magnolia’s First, have been asking him for quite a while to come and visit their church.  The night before the service, Craig just happened to called Cliff and Grace and told them he wanted to go check their church out and start seeing other expressions of God.  Craig has had recent heart issues, and senses that God is trying to get his attention.  Tara shared with him about how different she found Christian churches when she came out of Mormonism. The former isn't worried about a check list and were simply focused on worshiping Jesus.  Craig allowed me to pray for him, and he took my card, the Jesus Christ/Joseph Smith DVD, a Temple Opening paper, and a Temple Square paper.  I told him that he would be on my prayer list.  Please pray for him too!  He said that he loved the service and felt spiritually uplifted.  We were both moved to tears, and all of us were amazed at God's timing!  Unfortunately, he couldn't make the seminar that night.


Later, we received a very nice recommendation letter from the pastor, Dr. Ed Seay.  You may read that here.     

 

MeetTheExMormons.Org

 

Shane Roe shared his testimony of coming out of Mormonism and finding Jesus. You can watch that and see the pictures at our www.MeetTheExMormons.org.

 

Manti Pageant

 

Great time this year at the annual Manti Pageant!  For me, it began when I lectured on the chapter in our new book, “Website Advertising: The Sign Approach,” at the morning training/prayer session at Ephraim Church of the Bible.  (Ephraim is the next town north of Manti.)  You can watch that lecture here.  I also preached on the streets at night right before the pageant started.  Here’s an example of that.

 
What was particularly great about this year is all the openness from LDS to talk and really consider what we were trying to convey to them.  Through an ex-Mormon friend of mine, I know of one person that prayed to receive Christ, but I kept hearing great stories of people’s interest in our message.


I was involved in many good conversations, but here are just a few that come to mind.  My folks and their friends were up from the Houston, TX area the first week of the pageant.  We all went out one day after the morning training/prayer session in Ephraim.  A gal named Andrea, who was working at the local restaurant, found out that my folks and their friends were from the South and she told us that she was Rob, Andrea, and Rich
Rob, Andrea, and Rich
from Louisiana.  She got off the clock and pulled up a chair next to our table and began talking with us.  We ended up witnessing to her for probably around an hour and even got to pray for her.  She converted to Mormonism from a Christian background just 4 years ago.  Later that afternoon she came with her little girls to the Manti Park to meet us again.  Then later that night, she and her girls got to see me with my lighted JosephLied.com sign as they were leaving the pageant. 

    
My folks’ friend, Richard, and I also started this conversation with this super nice and open LDS guy named Mike.  Then I invited former LDS James K. Walker of Watchman Fellowship into the conversation.  Mike was honest enough to admit he didn't know how to respond to many of the problems we raised.  We talked 2 hours (one of the longer conversations I’ve ever had with a Mormon), and then I prayed for Mike and his 2 daughters and another LDS guy who later came into the conversation.

 
I also got to share the Lord with this former LDS guy named Jerry at the food court for about an hour, and then he let me pray for him and hug him.  He was having trust issues not just from the LDS Church turning out to be false, but from a bad family background.  I later got good news from a friend of mine, Jamie Thompson, that Jerry had visited the Solid Rock Café (a Christian coffee house) down there in Ephraim, and Jamie got to talk a little more with him.

 

Rob, LDS Mike, Rich, and James Walker
Rob, LDS Mike, Rich, and James Walker
Jehovah’s Witness Convention

 

My dad and I went to advertise my site JWinfo.org at the Jehovah’s Witnesses convention in Ogden, UT.  There were about 5,000 in attendance.  The theme for the convention was “Be Courageous,” so I’d yell, “Be courageous; check the site out” when cars drove by with their windows down.  The results were good!  There were over 150 that visited my site the next day.

 

We Need Your Partnership!

 

We not only need your prayers, but we need your financial partnership as well. Keep in mind that your investment is not simply for us, but for the lives of others we reach with the gospel. The standard way to financially invest is by writing a check to Courageous Christians United (CCU). For more information on various ways to invest in this ministry, including online giving, please see our “Invest” page on any of our sites. Please keep in mind we have no financial guarantees each month. Ministry partners come and go. If you’re not a partner and are blessed by these monthly updates, please consider joining our team and let us know soon. We’d love to be your missionaries here in Utah. Many thanks to those of you who hold us up in prayer and in your financial giving!

 

We expect God to provide for our needs through you. Why? Because the Bible is clear: “the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:14).

 

You can help us raise funds on your Facebook pages. For more information, see here.  Please give it a try! If everyone did this on Facebook, we would have no trouble with our monthly finances!

 

Rob and Jerry
Rob and Jerry
If you sign up to become a monthly partner of our ministry, I will gladly send you a signed copy of our new book Sharing the Good News With Mormons at no cost. If you simply want to buy it, I will sell a signed copy for $18 (includes shipping and handling within the United States).  Amazon lists it for $15.99 without shipping and tax.  All proceeds go to support CCU, which is a 501c3 non-profit organization.

 

Be strong and courageous (Joshua 1:6)!

 

Rob Sivulka
President, Courageous Christians United
(801) 738-0539 (leave message)
MormonInfo.org
MeetTheExMormons.org
JWinfo.org
MuhammadLied.Info

****MAILBAG****

 

Thanks for this email series.
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Got our copy last week from Christianbook.com.  We read your portion, and will soon read the rest. Good job, Rob! You wrote like you speak! Love,
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I read the recent Sharing the Good News with Mormons book about his JosephLied.com signs and was wondering if there was a JosephLied.com bumper sticker available, but I couldn’t find anything on the site. However, today I was listening to the recent MRM broadcast wherein Rob was speaking about his Website Advertising approach and I heard him specifically mention a sticker on his own van that he takes off in certain situations. That of course, got me curious again.

 

Lighting the Way
Lighting the Way
Being in Southern California I’m within striking distance of three LDS temples, but I’m also don’t know any Mormons personally and I’m terrible at striking up conversations with complete strangers (honestly, I’m not even very good at striking up conversations with people I know). I was wondering if there’s a way I can get a JosephLied.com sticker for my own truck so I can at least help get the word out about what you’re doing and help in my own way. I don’t mind buying one – I’m not looking for a handout – but I just need to know where to look.

 

Thanks for your time.

 

[I replied:] Scroll down here.  Just send any donation in and let me know how many you want and I'll get them out to you ASAP.  Thanks for helping getting the word out!
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Great testimony. God bless you Sivulka's, Shane and everyone there.
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Rob at JW convention
Rob at JW convention
Amen. another smashing testimony!
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Thank you brother, God bless you Rob and your family and all that your doing for Christ, praying for your every success for the Lord


Add Comment
Brenda Gifford says... (Reply)
"Rob I just want to tell you again how much I appreciate your faithfulness against all odds. You are a blessing and I wish we lived closer....hugs to Tara and the girls.
Blessings
Brenda" (7/7/18)