Evan, your former pastor had his own spiritual gifts and calling from God. He also had his own way to relate to people.
I'm not so sure that his way of doing things need to be your way of doing things. I'm just trying to maybe open your mind to that line of thought. You cannot be him.
You can be you...and God can use YOU.
I'm not certain how one would initiate conversations with a WoF pastor and get them to listen OTHER THAN getting them to read the Bible.
One thing I hear consistently from testimony is that Godly men and women will ask questions that drive cult members to the Bible.
Remember, WoF people BARELY hear Biblical sermons....the "sermons" they hear are always about the preacher and his life experiences.... in other words, WoF people hear a "sermon" that really doesn't talk about the Work and Person of Christ.
I said all that to say this: perhaps the best way to evangelize WoF members is to give them what they DON'T get: Bible time. If they are engaged with questions that cause them to open the Word, God will talk to them.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot, shall we? Say you receive a call from this woman, and she starts asking questions that obviously indicate she thinks you're wrong, and there's every indication she's going to try to correct your "error."
I would welcome it for it would be a time to minister to them, just as long as they do no attack me personally but go after my arguments. There are plenty of books in apologetics and plenty of scriptures that encourage engagement in polemics.
Actually he encouraged us all to do what he does and model his example. Maybe you need to read various books that encourage engagement in apologetics and polemics. I am not him as he was a better apologist than me, and he was not a street preacher nor street evangelist.
I made attempts to reason from the scriptures with the lady but she misread & misinterpreted lots of verses. No I was not going to recommend any book because I know she would not read it. All the books do is help me understand the Bible and make better arguments. I trust in God's election and that its not about me but about Him. God opened the eyes of a Christian scientist I witnessed to a month or two ago and He can open the eyes of a pastor, however often they are very blinded and set in their ways.
Your name, personal info, and even pictures of your wedding are all
over the internet and takes about 3 and 1/2 seconds to find.
I am guessing just about everything about your wife is out there as well, since this is not the only forum you complain about your wife on.
You have issues that you need to seek professional help for.
Seriously?
Hackers?
Invasion of privacy?
Cell phones?
You use the same forum name, EVERYWHERE?
Using Google is not hacking.
You link your YouTube channel in your forum signature.
It has personal, identifiable information including cities lived in, name, etc.
With a one word Google search your entire history is shared with the planet from wedding photos to hobbies and preferred TV show watched.
No hacking required.
Digital camera and tape based camcorder?
You post said digital pictures on publicly accessible websites without using the security settings.
For the love of all things good and decent, please be a troll.
I won't post any personally identifiable information, but a Google search of your user brought up pages of things.
6' 0".
Did a weight watchers challenge in 2011.
Wear glasses and have (had?) a little black and brown dog.
Posted on: kingjamesbiblebelievers, trekbbs, bibleforums, frogforum, twitter/financialblogr, reptilesmagazine, thecalvinistcafe, mac-forums, iPhoneforums
You use a Mac, which overheated when you ran Outlook.
You had issues with iChat in 2004.
You discovered a "Major Bug" in iOS 7 in 2011 on your iPhone.
All this just from typing your user into Google. It's not hacking.
Brother, I'm not going to use your real name, you gave us a link to your facebook page years ago (or else you gave us your real name - I don't remember which).
But I do remember looking at your facebook page years ago.
I happen to remember that since you've married since then that you might have a picture of your wife and I just now looked at it again.
You and your wife's name and picture and hometown are there as well as a link to her facebook page.
By-the-by, she is very pretty and I'm glad to see that you have maintained the weight loss.
The picture of the two of you on HER page is really and good one.
You need to frame that one.
As someone has said earlier - you use the same two user names all over the internet (and I do mean ALL over).
There's no hacking here.
No stalking.
Just a man who has posted on forums over the past decade
of all kinds from health, to computers, to dating, to religious topics, and more and has used the same two user names (one of which contains your real first initial and last name).
It literally takes seconds to find you on google.
Remember, once it's on the internet - it IS public - it's there forever and it takes literally seconds to find.
I regret things I've said on the internet (overheated discussions, dumb statements, and more) but it's there forever!! *LE SIGH!!*
We aren't freaks here who want to harass you, but you might want to be careful what information you dole out from now on.
Maybe even changing your user names if you start in any new sites.
Your life is an open book.
So is everyone else's who puts too much info under the same name all over the internet.
I am requesting this thread to be closed. I have my FB set to private so that no one but friends can see my public info. How others can see this is beyond me, and FB is not known for their privacy genius.