Category: Jesus

Gospel Encounters: Sharing our Journey of Faith to Jesus

evangelism, God, Holy Spirit, identity, Jesus, struggles

Today in our adult Sunday School class, continuing our focus on both historical and contemporary “Gospel Encounters” with Jesus, I shared my personal testimony as well as a framework for “Sharing our Journey of Faith to Jesus.” This is based on a four part framework explained on our church‘s new website, “7 Core Practices,” detailed in the post from August 2018, “Going Deeper Into Your Story.” Here are the slides I used during today’s lesson.

I referenced a video about part of my testimony which I recorded and posted to YouTube in September 2011, titled “God Answered My Prayer in Pilot Training.”

I initially wrote about this on my professional blog in August 2006, before I created this separate space as my “Christian blog.” It was initially named “Eyes Right,” before I changed it to “Pocket Share Jesus” to align with the “Digital Witness for Jesus Christ” book and evangelism empowerment project.

This was the first time I shared parts of “my story” publicly which followed the events described in the above video. Those experiences from my life in February 1994 are likely things I will never put online and share digitally, but I am glad to have an opportunity to share them in person with others with the hope and prayer they will serve as an encouragement which points others to Jesus Christ.

I hope and pray today’s lesson highlighted the ways God has and continues to be active in my life and the life of our family. I also hope it was an encouragement to us all to share our own Gospel story with others. Check out 7corepractices.com for more inspiration and practical suggestions about ways we can serve and share Jesus Christ in our homes, workplaces, and communities. Also check out www.dw4jc.com for suggestions and strategies for how we can share scripture, our stories, and our witness of God’s Holy Spirit being active in our lives using digital media.

* Added 27 October 2018: I shared a modified version of these slides, with a few photos from pilot training which I dug out of our garage, in a presentation for our Friday Morning Men’s group on October 26, 2018.

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Salt and Light: Jesus’ Teachings in Matthew 5:13-16

discipleship, God, Jesus

This week in our “Gospel Encounters” adult Sunday School class we will continue our study and discussion of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 5. Following verses 1-12, which we call “The Beatitudes” and we discussed last week, Jesus explains to his followers how we are called to act as both salt and light in our world. The Message presents these teachings in clear language:

‘“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.’

Here are the slides we will use during class to discuss and explore these verses.

Starting at the 1:16 timestamp, we will also view this depiction of these teachings by Jesus.

In the interest of time, I will likely just reference but not play the following videos, which include some of the cultural references to “a city on a hill” for me. These include President Ronald Reagan in his farewell address from the White House.

Another reference these verses bring to mind is the lighting of the warning beacons of Gondor in J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings.” This is the depiction in Peter Jackson’s third movie in the series, “The Return of the King.”

Last of all, the well known children’s song, “This Little Light of Mine,” has a very important second verse, which proclaims, “Jesus is the Light.” We will discuss tomorrow how this is a vital distinction. Unlike ancient and modern gnostics, as reformed and evangelical Christians we believe Jesus is the light of the world, and it is only through his grace and power that we can come to know our Father in Heaven and receive forgiveness for our sins. We are not the light, but we do seek to share and reflect the light of Jesus in our lives to a dark world hungering for truth, righteousness, love and all the fruits of God’s spirit.

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The Beatitudes: Jesus’ Teaching of The Sermon on the Mount

Jesus, technology

These are resources for our adult “Gospel Encounters” Sunday School lesson on September 16, 2018, at First Presbyterian Church in Edmond, Oklahoma.

After Joys and Concerns, I’m sharing the free Life Church / YouVersion iPhone app, “Bible Lens.”

This app makes it super-easy to take your own smartphone photos and create Bible verse “infopics” with them.

Learn more about creating Bible verse infopics in that chapter of the “Pocket Share Jesus.”

Here are the slides for our lesson on The Beatitudes of Jesus, shared in Matthew 5:1-11.

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Podcast12: Unleash Your Digital Creativity for Jesus (May 2018)

evangelism, Jesus, podcasts, sketchnotes, technology

This is an audio recording of Wesley Fryer’s workshop at the May 5, 2018, MoRanch Men’s Conference near Hunt, Texas. The title of the session was, “Pocket Share Jesus: Be a Digital Witness for Christ.”

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The session description was:

This workshop will empower you as a Christian to share the transforming reality and love of God with others around the world through multimedia and social media. By creating and sharing Bible verse “infopics,” creating sketchnotes and narrated sketchnotes and recording “quick edit” video interviews on mission trips, we can digitally amplify and share God’s Word and work with others.

Slides for this session, which include live hyperlinks, are embedded below and also available on wfryer.me/mo2018. This presentation is also linked on the main project site for “Pocket Share: Be a Digital Witness for Jesus Christ” www.dw4jc.com. Videos shared and referenced in this presentation are also embedded below. Refer to the podcast shownotes for links to many referenced resources from this session.

Show Notes:

  1. Presentation Slides on Google Slides
  2. MoRanch Men’s Conference
  3. Contact Wes Fryer
  4. Wes Fryer’s Christian Twitter channel: @pocketshare
  5. Wes Fryer’s professional Twitter channel: @wfryer
  6. Wes’ Bible Verse InfoPics on iCloud: wfryer.me/bible
  7. Photos on Instagram tagged #dw4jc
  8. Wes’ Flickr album of Bible Verse InfoPics
  9. YouVersion Bible App
  10. InfoPics Chapter of Pocket Share Jesus
  11. Recommended website source for royalty free/remixable photos: unsplash.com
  12. Adobe Spark Post (online version)
  13. Adobe Spark Post: Poster Maker for iOS
  14. 7 minute [VIDEO] tutorial – App Smash: Bible Verse Infopics
  15. Sketchnotes Chapter of Pocket Share Jesus
  16. Flick album of Sketchnotes by Wes Fryer (includes sermon sketchnotes)
  17. 63 second [VIDEO] tutorial: Tips for Sketchnoting
  18. The Noun Project (great source for icons)
  19. Best TEDx Talk Ever: “Drawing in Class” by Rachel Smith (@ninmah)
  20. John 15: Bearing Fruit for Jesus (Narrated sermon sketch note)
  21. Narrated Sketchnotes Chapter of Pocket Share Jesus

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God Empowers Us to Serve Others Through Trials

God, Jesus, questions, struggles

Yesterday’s Sunday School lesson, as well as sermon, both focused on why we have pain and suffering in our world. These are tough topics for anyone to address. I was and am thankful to for the opportunity to facilitate this lesson at church for several reasons, however. This has been a topic on my mind and heart more frequently than usual in the past few months. It’s also, according to Barna research, the most common question asked by people about God everywhere. “Why does God allow pain and suffering in our world?”

One idea which emerged during our class discussion yesterday is this: While we often (or always) “come up short” understanding the grand plans of God and how individual cases of pain or suffering fit into them, as Christians we often DO experience situations where God empowers us to serve others through our trials and through the trials of others. As one of the speakers in the longer video we watched yesterday explained, often our best response when someone comes to us in pain and suffering is to embrace them and cry with them. We may not have “the answers,” but do have the capacity to love and support each other. We can embrace others and embrace God through faith, and have confidence that God is the one opening the door for us to love each other through our struggles and our dark valleys.

This is also one of the most important ideas which emerged for me yesterday during our lesson: God invites us to call upon him and use the name of Jesus to bring strength, peace, healing, and love into our darkest and most painful moments. I have experienced times like these in my own life, when I have literally cried out to God for help and assistance to bring me back from the abyss of despair. It’s a bad place to be, and an especially bad place to be ALONE. But that’s exactly one of the key messages of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: We go nowhere alone. God goes with us, and he promises to never abandon us or forsake us. What good news this is to everyone facing the suffering and trials of this life! We may be uncertain about the timetable of God’s cosmic plans and how our lives fit into them, but we can be certain about His reality and His provision in our times of need.

The name of Jesus is powerful! Do not hesitate to call upon the Lord when you are feeling isolated or alone, when you are suffering and full of despair. Call upon the name of Jesus to fill you with God’s Holy Spirit in all circumstances, whether they are filled with light or darkness. This is the Good News of the Gospel, that Jesus came to save us from our sins and the destructive power it has in our world. God wins. And we’re on God’s side. This is good news.

A couple more items from yesterday’s lesson.

Here’s the short video I shared with our class, as I gave a brief summary and enthusiastic recommendation of The Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. Sarah and I were able to spend about 4 hours there last week during our visit to the area, and it was fantastic!

Here is a 44 second time lapse version of my sermon sketchnote yesterday, on Eric Laverentz’s (@ericlav) message, “The Problem of Sin.” I drew this and exported this video with the ProCreate app for iPad. Learn more about creating sermon sketchnotes in this chapter of “Pocket Share Jesus: Be a Digital Witness for Christ.” I added quite a bit more to this chapter over the weekend, but still need to add more to the chapter on “Narrated Sketchnotes.”

It worked well to use the website mentimeter.com yesterday to get members of our class to respond to a question using their smartphones. I used this as an opening question on the screen when class members came into class, “What is your favorite encouraging Bible verse?” This was a good way to start a relatively “heavy” lesson on pain and suffering.

May God bless you richly this week as you seek Him and strive to better understand His call upon your life. Make no mistake, God will open doors for you to not only draw closer to him in relationship, but also serve others with whom you have contact today and this week as you ask Him to.

Praise God for His love and the revelation of His truth through His Holy Word. Have a great week!

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App Smash: Creating Bible Info Pics

evangelism, focus, Jesus, technology

Today I’m sharing a chapel talk at school for upper division, middle division, and lower division students. The talk is repeated, so I’ll simplify it in several ways for the younger elementary students. The title of the talk is, “Pocket Share Jesus with Bible Verse InfoPics.” These are my slides, which include a sped-up video (4X) showing the steps for using these apps. iPhone apps demonstrated include the YouVersion Bible, Safari with the website PhotosForClass.com, Adobe Spark Post, Instagram and EchoFon.

I created a 7 minute narrated screencast demonstrating these steps as well, which I published to YouTube.

These resources are now included on the InfoPics page of the “Digital Witness for Jesus Christ” website, as well as the “Pocket Share Jesus” page where I’m sharing presentation slides on the topics of this project.

This is a work in progress! Please send feedback / suggestions to @wfryer on Twitter or via webform.

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Narrated Sermon Sketchnotes on Acts 19:1-7 by Eric Laverentz

identity, Jesus, sketchnotes, worship

This is my sketchnote and narrated sermon sketchnotes for Eric Laverentz’ sermon at First Presbyterian Church of Edmond, Oklahoma, on July 29, 2016. Eric was nominated by our Pastor Nominating Committee to serve as our new “lead pastor,” and this was his sermon on Acts 19:1-7, right before our congregational meeting in which we voted to approve that nomination! The title of his sermon was, “The Christian’s Guide to Starting a Riot.” Eric encouraged us in the sermon to become a “Lampstand Church,” which supports members as we take meaningful stands in our culture for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericlav. Eric is the author of the book, “Is Caesar Our Savior?” 

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Sermon Sketchnote on Psalms 78:1-8

discipleship, evangelism, God, Jesus, struggles

This is my narrated sermon sketchnote and sketchnote for today’s sermon by Jen Howat on Psalms 78:1-8 at First Presbyterian Church of Edmond, Oklahoma. Key points were:

  1. Don’t hide God’s good news about Jesus Christ!
  2. Remember God calls us to SHARE with others
  3. As disciples we should be reproducing: Helping GROW other disciples!
  4. People can’t follow Jesus if they haven’t heard about him from someone
  5. Remember those who POURED their lives into you as a believer, and resolve to “pour yourself” in a mentor/apprentice relationship into others
  6. It’s good for God to create TENSION in our hearts: Encouraging us to SHARE JESUS with others!

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Learning & Sharing at MoRanch Men’s Conference 2016

God, Jesus

This weekend I was greatly blessed to again attend and participate in the 2016 MoRanch Men’s Conference. This is the largest annual gathering of Presbyterian men in the United States, and was the 65th year of the conference. Looking back on my blog posts, I confirmed that this was about my 7th or 8th time to attend the conference. My first year was 2007, when I wrote the post “Compatibility between science and faith” following the keynote presentations of Dr. Dan Foster. That post reveals I took 22 pages of handwritten notes at the conference! Yikes! I certainly haven’t done that in awhile. I also recorded a 30 minute audio podcast reflection on what I learned at the conference using the web service and app gcast.com. Unfortunately, that web 2.0 service is now offline, and I never copied/backed up that audio recording, so apparently those recorded digital thoughts are lost to history. Thankfully I don’t think that represents a great historical loss, but it’s still a bit of a bummer and a reminder to me of the importance of locally saving and preserving digital audio files recorded on third-party servers.

The wifi connectivity at MoRanch this year was better than ever, and both of the sessions I presented as well as attended were in the “Trull classrooms” below the main registration building. They are equipped with built-in ceiling mounted projectors as well as wifi connectivity, so I was able to tweet my learning at the conference as I’m now in the habit of doing at educational technology conferences. This afternoon on our 8 hour car trek home to Oklahoma City, I created a Storify archive of my tweets and retweets, which I mostly shared from my Christian twitter channel @eyesrightblog. I also shared a few tweets during the weekend from my primary @wfryer Twitter channel.

Before embedding that Storify archive, I’ll note that a big highlight of this weekend was getting to know Steve Bickley better. Steve works for the amazing Museum of the Bible. It will open in Washington DC in November 2017 just blocks away from the US Capitol and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, but has its headquarters in Oklahoma City. Steve is in our Sunday School Class, and shared several sessions at MoRanch this year about the museum.

I shared a session at MoRanch this year I titled, “Pocket Share Jesus.” The slides and an audio recording of my second session yesterday in the afternoon are available on my “Digital Witness for Jesus Christ” book project website.

I’m very thankful that I was elected again to the MoRanch Men’s Conference Council for another 3 years as well. We have a fall planning session each year at the ranch, and I look forward to continuing to participate in that and bring Shelly down with me as well.

Praise God for another great weekend of worship and fellowship at MoRanch!

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Palm Sunday Narrated Sermon Sketchnote

Jesus, sketchnotes

This morning our sermon was on Matthew 21:1-11, when Jesus gave instructions to his disciples to make preparations for his entry into Jeruselem before Passover. Jen Howat shared the sermon and challenged us to be alert and watchful for the ways Jesus is prodding us to take action and follow him. This is a short narrated sermon sketchnote I created with Procreate and iMovie on my iPad.

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