The Big Announcement

Saints,

Shelby and I have a big announcement. We are taking what could be the largest step of faith in our lives. We are excited to announce that after 15+ years in the corporate world, we are stepping out in faith to serve Jesus Christ full-time on the mission field. We were recently accepted on staff with a mission organization called “Open Air Campaigners,” or OAC.

Open Air Campaigners is a fantastic organization that has been faithfully taking the gospel to where the people are since 1892. It is a huge honor to be appointed by our Local Church and by the OAC Board of Directors as Staff Evangelists. Technically, Shelby and I are both on staff, but Shelby will continue to work primarily in raising and schooling our kids. (She has the hard job!)

We have two main goals for the ministry:

1. To go out where people are to Biblically and lovingly share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost.
2. To come alongside, encourage, and equip Christians to share their faith and see God work as they have never imagined.

Many of you know that I grew up in a home hostile to Christianity and disgusted with evangelism. So when God saved me on Yom Kippur Day, 1993, it was an immediate and drastic life-changer. From the very beginning, God gave me a desire to share Christ with others – anybody – everybody. I couldn’t “not” share Christ. Like Paul in Athens, my spirit was constantly “provoked within [me]” () by the idolatry around me. For the 17+ years since then, sharing Christ with the lost is on my mind and heart constantly. I also am passionate about encouraging and teaching other Christians to share their faith! This is exactly what Open Air Campaigners does.

For over 100 years, OAC has been known for going wherever non-Christians can be reached effectively with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have been assigned to the Boston branch. Boston is a strategic location as people come from all over the world to Boston. Sharing the gospel in Boston is like being on a different overseas mission trip every day!

Like the Shepherd who left 99 sheep to seek out the one that staggered away (), God’s heart is to redeem those who may not appear to have much value to the world. Lost people are valuable to God! That’s why, as a member of the Boston branch of OAC, I will reach out and work with the forgotten children in the housing projects, as well as lovingly challenging the atheists and cultists at the Universities, the lowly and the wealthy in downtown Boston, as well as all demographics in the subways under the city. The end goal is to refer people to evangelical churches for discipleship.

I’m a big believer that God ordained the local church, so I love that OAC works alongside local churches, spending a lot of time training Christians, as one of our core values is that those who God has called as evangelists have a responsibility to build up and edify the church. OAC trains Christians to be effective witnesses for Jesus Christ through one-on-one discipleship, seminars, short-term mission trips, and by being available to help you and your church with your evangelistic outreaches. We want to help any way we can!

I praise God that He lead me and my family to a ministry compatible with my spiritual gifts, passions, Theology, personality, convictions, and heart. I cannot not answer this call with a “yes.”

With this announcement comes a new website. The address is: http://Luke-15.org.

Please visit the site. There is lots of information about OAC, about what we will be doing with them, and quite a number of videos of me open-air preaching “OAC Style.” I say “OAC style” because one of the things OAC is known for is making use of a 4-foot-wide by 3-foot-high paint board, and preaching gospel messages while painting. I know it sounds strange, but OAC has found that since people are so visual by nature, making use of the paint board draws in crowds of people cross-culturally. OAC has missionaries all over the world doing this with great success, thanks to God.

I know it sounds a bit strange to hear that we preach while painting, but please check it out for yourself. There are a number of videos where you can see it in action at: http://Luke-15.org/videos/

Please click around the website! There is a lot of information there, including pages for non-Christians to read, like “Why Believe” and “Why Jesus.” All of the Christian resources that I used to keep on my personal family website have been moved over to this new website. You can find a ton of free resources on Theology, the Bible, Evangelism, False Teachers, Cults, Other Religions, and more at: http://Luke-15.org/resources/

You can also read about and see photos from an amazing week I spent on the streets of Boston with OAC at: http://Luke-15.org/2010/12/the-week-that-changed-my-life/

The testimony of how God changed me from a self-righteous Jewish kid, hostile to the gospel, to a follower of Jesus Christ can be found at: http://Luke-15.org/a-Jew-and-his-God/

At that link are also a version that you can download and print to give to an unsaved Jewish person you know, as well as an audio version you can download to listen to or make into a CD, and there is also video of me presenting my testimony that you can watch if you’d like.

I hope that http://Luke-15.org will be a site you will find a useful source of information and encouragement. If you want to be notified via email whenever a new article is posted, please sign-up for email updates at: http://Luke-15.org/subscribe/

There are also links at the site for you to stay in touch via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, RSS News Reader, and of course regular email. 🙂

And if you want to know why the site URL is “Luke-15.org” there’s a page that explains that too. Luke, chapter 15, has had a strong influence on our motivation for working with the lost. We’ve adopted that chapter of Scripture as the “theme verses,” so to speak, of our ministry. Please feel free to read why at: http://Luke-15.org/luke-15/

I’m also writing because we need your help. God is using more than just our Church and our Missions Organization to send us to the field. We need you too. We are not paid by OAC. We are currently looking for churches and individuals who will commit to joining with us prayerfully and financially. Would you please pray about joining with us?

Would you please pray about introducing us to your church or those you know who might be interested? I have a dear brother in Christ who lives in Chicago, quite a distance from us in New England, but he wants us to come out to share our vision for the ministry with a number of his friends who he believes would be interested in partnering with us. That’s an amazing answer to prayer! We would love to take a “road trip” to come visit you and your church and your friends too.

We’d love to be able to chat with you personally about this ministry, so if you, someone you know, or your church would like to have us call you or even visit, please contact us at: http://Luke-15.org/contact-us/.

You can also sign up for regular donations or a one-time gift via our website. Open Air Campaigners is certified through the Evangelical Counsel for Financial Accountability, so you can trust that your donations are being used properly. Please see http://Luke-15.org/how-to-donate/

Please feel free to forward along this to anyone you think would be blessed by it, or interested in what we are doing.

Thank you and God bless you!
with love in Christ,

The Sohmer Family
Reaching people from around the world
in Boston and New England with
Open Air Campaigners, USA.
Mark, Shelby, Vivienne, Juliana, Caleb, and Gabriella Sohmer
(with Miranda hopefully arriving, Lord willing, next year from Ethiopia!)
http://Luke-15.org

P.S. Those of you who have been receiving emails from me for a while know that I had the opportunity to preach the gospel recently at the University of New Hampshire, and then again at a Christmas Outreach on a main road of Derry, New Hampshire. Updates and video footage of both events are posted on the new website:

• http://Luke-15.org/2010/12/christmas-live-nativity-outreach/
• http://Luke-15.org/2010/12/the-titanic-meets-the-university/

P.P.S. I cannot emphasize enough how much we NEED your prayers. Some of our prayer requests include: spiritual protection, comfort for Shelby, the kids, and me as our lifestyle will change, a smooth transition from my current job to being a full-time Christian worker, finding affordable health insurance, making good financial choices as my salary drops significantly, and most importantly, that we will glorify Jesus Christ in everything we do, say, and think. Thank you so very much! 🙂