Turning potatoes into porcupines
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facilitates mission in Georgia.
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A man tithes 100
cows in Tanzania,
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and the sights
and sounds of Chicago
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coming up next.
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Hello and
welcome to Mission 360,
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I'm Gary Krause.
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Today's program is coming to you
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from the city of
Chicago in the United States.
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Back in the
1800's Dr. David Paulsen
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and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg
moved into the heart of Chicago
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to start the
Chicago Medical Mission,
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an urban center of influence
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administered to the
poor and needy of that city.
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But at the turn of the century
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Dr. David Paulsen
got a vision to start
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a sanatorium out
in the countryside.
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And I am now standing
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in what was
once the countryside,
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Hinsdale, now a
suburb of Chicago.
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Behind me you can see
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the Hinsdale Adventist Hospital,
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and this is the
location of the sanatorium
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that was
established by Dr. Paulsen.
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People from all
over the world came here
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to the Hinsdale Sanatorium
for health and healing.
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Well, on today's program
we'll be looking at mission
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all around the
world but first up,
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let's travel to
the country of Georgia
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to see an urban center
of influence in action.
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How do you turn a
potato into a porcupine?
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That's exactly what children
in the country of Georgia
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are learning today
in their English class.
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This is their second lesson
about fruits and vegetables.
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They're learning the
names of common vegetables
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as they
transform them into animals
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and modes of transportation.
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Ginta, their teacher,
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uses
interactive teaching methods
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to keep them engaged.
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And even includes
their parents in the action.
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They're studying
a variety of topics
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ranging from numbers to colors.
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We just enjoy,
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even if somebody
don't know something,
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we just show the
color and remind them
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how to pronounce it
correctly and we just enjoy it.
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Originally from
Latvia, Ginta came to Georgia
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to spend a year volunteering
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at this Global Mission
Urban Center of Influence.
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She started a hand on
English class for children
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and she's very proud of
her student's creations.
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Maybe I can show something.
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Like, yeah, you see
from one of the lessons
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when we learned about animals,
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we made butterflies
like this on previous lesson.
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Pause up.
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And previous lesson
when we learned something
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like fruits and vegetables.
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We made just stamps for
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lemon and pepper, like this.
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But living in a
different culture
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can bring certain
challenges and adjustments.
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It's really hard
for me, you know,
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you are from other
country and they don't know you.
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They, in
beginning start watching
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what I'm doing, how I'm doing,
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but now they start to
be like friends for me
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and today even a few
said, teacher, we love you.
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It's very nice and the parent's,
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it's the same for them.
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In the beginning they,
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it was very like,
distant, distance,
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and afterwards they start to,
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yeah, I guess
they're starting to trust.
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Ginta has gotten to know
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these students
through these programs.
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And finds it easier to
share a hopeful message
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when a relationship
has been established.
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Not just be a teacher,
but be like friends for them.
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And I really hope will be
a possibility to tell them
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more about Jesus
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and somebody
who very loves them.
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Fifteen year old
Simon has been coming
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to Ginta's English classes
over the last few months.
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After many
questions and conversations,
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Simon is eager
to study the Bible
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and the Adventist message.
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I'm interested in
Christ's second coming.
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I'm going
through the Bible lessons
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in preparation for baptism.
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My life has changed.
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Through these programs,
about 15-20 people in this town
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started Bible
studies with Gotcha,
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a global mission pioneer,
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and a small group
meets each Sabbath.
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Ginta is encouraged to
share the love of Jesus
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with the community
through English classes,
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despite the challenges.
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Please pray for Ginta
as she develops friendships
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with students and
parents in Georgia.
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Thank you for
your continued support
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of Global Mission
Projects like these.
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I'm here in the
suburbs of Chicago in Illinois
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and with me is
Pastor Andres Flores
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who is the senior pastor
of the Epic Church in Chicago,
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but also the pastor of
this church plant here.
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Describe what we're
standing in here, Pastor?
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Well, we're
standing at Yorktown Mall.
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This is a mall right
in the center of the city
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of Lombard into DuPage County
here in the state of Illinois.
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We're about 25 to 30
minutes from the city of Chicago
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and this is a
church plant that was born
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out of the original church,
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Epic Church in
the city of Chicago.
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So you planted a
church in Chicago,
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but you weren't content
with just growing that church.
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You had a vision for
planting other spaces
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and this is the first one,
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and this is
Chicago suburbs, right?
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Correct. Correct.
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Yeah. So, how
did you start here?
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Well, we started with a
vision to multiply churches
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that are
disciple making churches.
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So we started
with the developing
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core group of people
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that were passionate
about planting other churches
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in the Chicago land area.
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And God provided a
very strong group to start
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with a new church plant
and incubate a new core group.
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And this is exactly
what is happening right now.
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Wonderful.
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So, but let's
just walk through here
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and you can
describe what we're seeing,
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this is quite a
nice space here you got.
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How many people are coming
on Sabbath afternoons now?
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You know, we may have
an average of 45-55 people
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in the incubation process,
and we're going to launch
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the church publicly
in the month of October.
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Fantastic.
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But the thing that
really intrigues me
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is as we walk
outside of this space,
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we come into
something which is very unusual.
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Describe what this is here?
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Well, we are right now, in,
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again as I said we
are in a storefront,
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we are renting,
God provided storefront
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here in the Yorktown Mall.
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So our vision was not
only to do church for us,
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we wanted to have an
outreach, a very strong outreach
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and international
presence in the community.
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So basically
using the terminology
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that I understand, this
is a center of influence,
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because you are connecting
the church to the community.
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Exactly, so
this is an interface,
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it's a relational environment
that serves as an interface
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for us to connect with
people in the community
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through art, and
music, and creativity.
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It is a space
where people can belong
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and then as they belong
they come to believe as well.
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Fantastic.
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So rather than expecting
people to walk into a church,
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and that's gonna be very
difficult for many people,
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you actually have an opportunity
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here where you can put
Christ's method into practice.
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You can mingle
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and you can connect with people.
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Exactly, exactly.
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And the point of this
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is that as we invite
people to create art,
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they feel safe, they
come with their families
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and here we are ready
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to start
conversations with them.
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I mean once we mingle with them,
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once we start
conversations with them,
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many of them start
building a relationship with us.
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We initiate a
relationship with them
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and we show them
the hope that we have,
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the faith that we have
and they feel safe to do that
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in the context of this
relational environment.
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Fantastic.
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So what are the activities
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that take place
here in the art space?
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We do a lot of activities that,
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all of them have to do
either with art, even music,
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and relationships
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but we have a
really strong ministry
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through our with
pottery, painting,
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all sorts of creative activities
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here for the entire community,
crafts, and so on and so forth.
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It's really
beautiful. Wonderful.
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So this is not only
open here on Sabbath,
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but it's also open at
various times during the week?
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It is. It is.
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So we open, we
open the Arts Space
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throughout the week
for different people
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to come here, connect.
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We invite different
groups from the community,
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we like to partner
with different schools,
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with different places,
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different groups
that are really interested
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in bringing their children here,
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but what that does is that
it allows us to build bridges
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with people in the community.
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We are one more
presence in the community,
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we are not coming
in as an outsider.
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Now we have built credibility
and what I really like
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about this concept is that
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it's not short term credibility,
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it's longer term credibility
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that allows us to
really be here without them
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feeling that we're trying
to gain something for them.
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Instead we are trying
to give them something
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that they can be blessed with.
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Fantastic.
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That's so important that
00:10:03.33\00:10:04.67
you're not seen as
an outsider coming in,
00:10:04.70\00:10:06.63
but you're actually
someone in the community,
00:10:06.67\00:10:09.14
caring for the community.
00:10:09.17\00:10:10.51
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
00:10:10.54\00:10:12.17
Now, before you were telling me
00:10:12.21\00:10:14.14
the story of a family
from another religion.
00:10:14.18\00:10:17.68
Can you just briefly
tell that story again
00:10:17.71\00:10:20.25
of how this little
boy's life has been touched?
00:10:20.28\00:10:22.58
Yes, absolutely.
00:10:22.62\00:10:23.95
This is a family just from
00:10:23.99\00:10:25.32
a different
religious background.
00:10:25.35\00:10:26.69
And the little boy,
he's a beautiful boy,
00:10:26.72\00:10:28.89
he's autistic and
again they do not belong
00:10:28.92\00:10:31.79
to our denomination
or to our Christian faith
00:10:31.83\00:10:34.06
but the beauty of it is that
00:10:34.10\00:10:35.43
through the
relational environment,
00:10:35.46\00:10:37.57
this boy, he's
blind and he got curious
00:10:37.60\00:10:41.17
because of the music that
the praise team was practicing.
00:10:41.20\00:10:44.44
He came into the art
space, into the worship center
00:10:44.47\00:10:47.54
and he asked one
of the praise leaders
00:10:47.58\00:10:49.24
if he could sing with
them and she said, yes.
00:10:49.28\00:10:52.38
Now the beautiful thing about
00:10:52.41\00:10:53.78
this is that in
the middle of the song,
00:10:53.82\00:10:55.58
he asked the
question, who is God?
00:10:55.62\00:10:58.59
Tell me about this God of yours?
00:10:58.62\00:11:00.46
And she started to
unpack the beauty of God
00:11:00.49\00:11:03.76
and who is He and
then the following week,
00:11:03.79\00:11:05.99
even his family came
into the worship space as well
00:11:06.03\00:11:08.56
and we have a
really strong relationship
00:11:08.60\00:11:10.13
with them right now.
00:11:10.17\00:11:11.57
So this little boy,
he's blind, he's autistic,
00:11:11.60\00:11:14.50
he was in the Arts
Space, he was drawn to the music
00:11:14.54\00:11:17.27
and he asked whether
he could join the singers.
00:11:17.31\00:11:20.08
And then during the
singing, he asked, "Who is God?"
00:11:20.11\00:11:22.68
Exactly. That is
a beautiful story.
00:11:22.71\00:11:25.21
Now the other dimension of that,
00:11:25.25\00:11:26.85
that I really, really
like is that the person
00:11:26.88\00:11:30.39
he asked was not yet a
baptized Seventh-day Adventist,
00:11:30.42\00:11:33.62
she's participating
and she was the one
00:11:33.66\00:11:35.99
who told him about God.
00:11:36.02\00:11:37.83
That's correct. That's correct.
It's beautiful, beautiful.
00:11:37.86\00:11:39.59
And they have
developed a relationship,
00:11:39.63\00:11:41.53
to stay in a
relationship with that family
00:11:41.56\00:11:44.33
and I think that
would have never happened
00:11:44.37\00:11:46.84
in a traditional
evangelistic setting.
00:11:46.87\00:11:49.80
That took place in an
open relational setting
00:11:49.84\00:11:53.21
such as the Arts Space.
00:11:53.24\00:11:55.34
So, as you said earlier,
you're providing a context
00:11:55.38\00:11:58.71
where they can start to
feel as if they're home,
00:11:58.75\00:12:01.12
as if they're belonging
and that then provides a space
00:12:01.15\00:12:04.12
for them to start believing?
00:12:04.15\00:12:05.99
Exactly. Wonderful.
00:12:06.02\00:12:09.09
Well, you know, viewers at home,
00:12:09.12\00:12:11.73
what a terrific
idea this is, right?
00:12:11.76\00:12:14.63
In the heart of a shopping mall,
00:12:14.66\00:12:16.03
I mean if this
was a church plant
00:12:16.06\00:12:18.00
just out on the
street somewhere,
00:12:18.03\00:12:19.53
you would not have
many people coming past,
00:12:19.57\00:12:21.50
particularly
here in the suburbs.
00:12:21.54\00:12:23.37
But here you
have a shopping mall,
00:12:23.41\00:12:25.77
you have a busy
children's playground right here
00:12:25.81\00:12:29.64
and a space
where people can come
00:12:29.68\00:12:31.91
where they can find community.
00:12:31.95\00:12:34.52
It's an opportunity
for Adventist believers
00:12:34.55\00:12:36.65
to mingle with
people in the public
00:12:36.69\00:12:38.59
and we're starting to see
how lives are being touched.
00:12:38.62\00:12:41.36
Pastor Andres, thank you so much
00:12:41.39\00:12:42.72
for sharing with us today.
00:12:42.76\00:12:44.09
Thank you.
00:12:44.13\00:12:45.46
And please pray for Epic,
00:12:45.49\00:12:46.83
the Church that's now
operating in downtown, Chicago.
00:12:46.86\00:12:50.83
The plant here
in the suburbs that
00:12:50.87\00:12:52.93
God will continue to bless
00:12:52.97\00:12:54.80
and grow this
wonderful ministry.
00:12:54.84\00:12:57.14
We'll be right
back after this break.
00:12:57.17\00:12:58.77