The Praise Report

Fall 2006
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Grace World Mission
 
After preaching at Oikos Church at USC we visited the founding plaque denoting the university’s establishment in 1879 for “the glory of God... and the preservation of the republic.”
For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
(1 Cor. 4:20)

Ministry Update
As we’ve been ministering the Spirit of God has been moving in great power. God has been filling, healing, renewing and empowering as we’ve had the blessing to minister in various places, including Mexico, San Diego and Los Angeles.

We experienced the Lord moving greatly at Set Free in San Diego while ministering there recently. Set Free ministers to a lot of bikers, gang members, addicts and homeless people.

While preaching at one of their church services as well as at the women’s rehab we experienced the power of God moving greatly. Many came to the Lord as well as many others who rededicated themselves to Him. There was also a surprisingly powerful move of the Holy Spirit where many were filled and touched.

We received powerful testimonies back from those who we were ministering to. We were told at the rehab that much of the message we gave was exactly the same as what the Lord had given them that morning and it was clear the Lord was confirming an important point for them. Many were encouraged and blessed as the Spirit of God filled and deeply touched them when we ministered and prayed for them.

While ministering at a service there were quite a number who came forward to receive as well as rededicate their lives to the Lord, followed by a powerful ministry time. In fact, long even after the service was over there the Holy Spirit continued to move amongst a group of women who were inundated by His presence and who had to be helped up from the floor to leave because they were closing the building. Intense weeping, holy laughter, and other manifestations took place as the power of God filled and refreshed many of those who are ministers/laborers there too.

This move of God is especially significant because Set Free isn’t a charismatic group but has become more and more open to the work of the Holy Spirit and indeed God is moving upon that openness and bringing a fresh wind of His Spirit. It’s exciting to see and be part of the hand of God moving in such a fresh way, bringing powerful renewal amongst those in such need.

We’ve also experienced God moving in power while ministering in different places like Baja Mexico, The Inland Empire, Orange County, and in Los Angeles with Oikos Church, which meets in different areas like South Central LA right in the heart of the Pueblo Bloods gang territory and at the University of Southern California (USC) seeking to reach the students with the Gospel there.
Ministering from left to right: Set Free San Diego; Tijuana, Mexico; and Oikos Church at the University of Southern California (USC). God’s grace and power is being poured out continually as we have been ministering.
It is exciting to see God moving among such a broad and diverse mix of ethnic groups, including Vietnamese, Korean, Latino, African-American and Caucasian. The Holy Spirit continues to move in power, saving, filling and empowering with the same power that Jesus promised in Acts 1:8. In Mexico we’ve been seeing the young people especially impacted with God’s presence. The book of Revelation tells us that in the end in heaven there shall be before the throne of God every tribe, tongue, people and nation worshipping the Lamb of God who was slain for man’s sins. It is a blessing to be able to participate in seeing this vision in Revelation 5:9 fulfilled. The Scriptures tells us God wants all men to be saved (1 Tim. 4:2), and furthermore he desires those who are His people to be filled with His power through the Spirit to all the fullness of God (Eph.3:16-19). We are thus continually endeavoring to extend the saving, healing and empowering Love of Christ and the power of His Spirit in all we do.

New Videos


We’ve also recently completed some new videos, one of which is on “The Great Awakening” a revival that took place in early American history. It is really interesting because one of the clear aspects was the fact that Jonathan Edwards notes that the beginning of the revival took place during a sermon series on "Justification through faith by grace alone" that he began to do. Edwards noticed that people in the Colonies were becoming spiritually self-sufficient and not looking to nor depending on God, while others were becoming cold, and he was led by the Spirit back to the heart of the Gospel, and thus began this series. He describes how, during the sermon series on God's grace there came a "great acceleration of the Spirit's presence" among them which led into what later became known as the Great Awakening, one of the biggest revivals in American history and as historian Latourette says, gave America its very foundations.

Another video we’ve done is on the essential understanding of “A Righteousness from God.” We must not forget Paul’s words that, “What Israel sought so earnestly they did not receive because they sought it by their own works and efforts. They sought to establish their own righteousness rather than relying on the righteousness that comes from God.”
NOW ONLINE!
Check out Bryan’s Testimony on video, with surfing and other footage,
just click here.
http://www.graceworldmission.org/surf_bio.htm
We’ve been doing our teaching programs on the radio, regional television, our website and now also podcasting them through iTunes. We have also recently released a video of Bryan’s testimony that can be downloaded to your computer or video iPod. We are currently putting our series on the Reformation on iTunes and you can listen or watch any of these for free..

Check out http://www.graceworldmission.org
or iTunes (our podcast name is Grace Alone) to see our video or audio programs.
Check out a miraculous story from our ministry in Jane Rumph’s book,
Signs and Wonders in America Today by clicking here.
http://www.graceworldmission.org/bkexc_signswonders.html

Upcoming European Ministry

We’ll be doing a mission trip to Europe soon. We’ll be ministering in France at an evangelistic training and outreach seminar as well as in other places. The situation in Europe remains very dire spiritually. Updated statistics show that only 3% of the continent count themselves as Christians (US Center for World Mission); this is amongst those that may not even understand the difference between occasionally attending a church and a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. This is a very small minority indeed especially when you consider the fact that at minimum 97% of the population needs the Gospel.

There has been misleading information in the past because certain groups doing statistics would consider anyone who just put on a birth certificate a certain denominational affiliation as a Christian. This type of reporting was misleading because even though a person may be an atheist or agnostic, nor have any faith in or association with Christ or Christianity whatsoever they would still be considered Christian by way of their birth certificate or family religious background, grossly misrepresenting the reality of the situation.

Recent research by the U.S. Center for World Mission and a number of others shows a great need for God’s people to get in gear and spread the Gospel in this continent. Otherwise, the spiritual void is bound to be filled either by another round of some kind of destructive social force as it was in times past like with Nazism or Fascism. More likely today though it will be filled by Islam, which is rapidly spreading, through immigration and birth, in this once-Christian continent. (See CBN Article). The call is clear in Scripture; “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die...” (Rev 3:2)
Left: Ministering at Arbol de Vida in Chino as the Holy Spirit touches and restores many lives.
Right: In September we celebrate nine years on the radio on two stations!
We can definitely use your prayers and financial help. Ticket prices are way up due to high fuel surcharges and as a result of 9/11 taxes. In fact just the taxes cause the price to go up as much as 75% to even 100% on some tickets. We ask that you would seek the Lord about helping us in some special way for this mission to what has become one of the world’s most strategic mission fields. Europe’s proximity to the Middle East, Africa and Asia means it is imperative for the Gospel to spread and to strengthen what remains. Your prayers and financial participation can greatly aid us in our efforts.

Holy Ghost Retreat--The School of the Spirit
As Summer rolled around we felt led by the Holy Spirit to take a little personal retreat. But where and what were questions that remained. God puts His children often in the School of the Spirit to teach us things and to hear His voice better as we are willing to submit to His leading.

With a continual prompting by the Spirit of God but not knowing where we were actually going to go, we loaded up the truck and just began to drive out towards the desert in the Owen’s valley on Hwy. 395. Along the way we found a little lake which we stopped at for a night or two which was a nice start to getting to relax and rest in God’s presence, and it was there that we met a ranger who began to tell us about a cool place just a few miles away with awesome views and scenery and the highest peak in the contiguous 48 American states—Mt. Whitney. We headed up there and camped and experienced some refreshing and awesome time in the forest including hiking up to a lake located at 10,000 feet where you can definitely feel oxygen deprivation (at that elevation you already have 1/3 less oxygen than at sea level).
   
Camping and fishing at Mt.Whitney
in the Sierras of California.
  
The only frustrating thing was trying to fish in the challenging Sierra streams, ponds, and lakes. After three days of trying to fish and not even getting a single bite, I was ready to forget it as being too hard, but it was exasperating because you could see the fish swimming right by but couldn’t get them to even respond. After a frustrated prayer for God’s help I was hiking and praying one early morning when I met a guy and we started talking. It turned out he was a fellow believer and he began to share with me how it took him 12 years to figure out how to fish these areas and how frustrated he would get before too.

He then shared techniques he had learned over the years and not only did he do that but he also gave me a brand new package of bait as well as an unopened package of hooks that he said were essential for catching these fish. We also spent some time fellowshipping afterwards one evening where I shared my testimony on how I got filled with the Holy Spirit with him and others at his camp.

So God had us share on the baptism of the Spirit with him and he shared the fishing techniques he had learned and honed over long hard years, and now, equipped with new insight, bait, and equipment, we set out to try and catch some fish.

Incredibly, over the next few days we caught around 25 fish, Patrick caught his first fish and then more , causing some who were around us to look on in frustration as he just kept reeling them in with a little Tweety Bird plastic pole while they caught nothing.

We went from 0 to 25 by a divine appointment and God’s grace. There were lessons here that obviously went far beyond just fish and fishing that the Spirit of God revealed and spoke unto us through this situation.

Lessons Learned

God uses things to teach us: it was in response to asking God’s help that the Holy Spirit brought forth a divine appointment that caused the breakthrough needed to have some success fishing in those Sierras. His Holy Spirit arranged a divine appointment, which brought along the needed help.

All the conferences in the world as well as books and seminars on how to do the work of God’s kingdom are moot points if we do not look first to God for help and rely on the Holy Spirit’s power.

The Book of Acts gives us 45 direct references to the Holy Spirit and His work and power. Acts is one book of the Bible amongst many others that tells us the same thing over and over: rely on the Holy Spirit.

In the Western world where Christians often tend to rely on human formulas and means, we must instead see our need for the Spirit’s anointing and power.

In addition, I personally didn’t need to spend 12 years myself learning to fish the Sierras; God had me learn from someone else’s history. We must learn from biblical history as well as from the history of those throughout the ages who have gone before us. Some Christians have negative or indifferent attitudes towards Christian history but this is blindness. The Bible itself has much history in it. There isn’t a story in it less than 2000 years old and it stands unique as God’s inspired and infallible Word. Thus we should see that God values the historical story and legacy of those that follow Him.

A willingness to learn and adapt to the circumstances at hand is essential if we have any hope of reaching the current and forthcoming generations for Christ. Also, as Billy Graham has stated “Without the Spirit’s power we have no hope of reaching this generation at all.”

Jesus said that the Spirit gives life and the flesh counts for nothing. Let us go forward depending on God’s power in all we do.

We appreciate your willingness to obey the Spirit’s leading in your continued prayers and support of the ministry work we are doing. It is more blessed to give than receive and great blessings surely are yours as you sow faithfully into this ministry work.
May God's richest blessings be upon your life,

Bryan and Mercedes Marleaux		 Your support of our ministry is
very appreciated.