July 2012

Dear friends and family,

What a wonderful month this has been!  I can truly say there is never a dull moment fulfilling the work of the Lord in reaching the lost for the sake of Christ.  We love what we do and count it an honor and a privilege to serve the Lord as a missionary evangelist to the United States of America.

As many of you know, I left the mission field overseas around eleven years ago.  I spent two years as an itinerant missionary evangelist living in Thailand and Europe.  In 2001, I felt the Lord lead me back to America.  A thought that I often have concerning the lost and the blood of Jesus in the USA is a simple one: Africa, India and the rest of the world, are extremely important to Jesus.  However, the blood of Jesus was shed just as much for the lost in America as it was in any nation that is or ever will be.  Many often overlook the importance of missions in America.  I believe that your family, friends, and co-workers are just as important to Christ as someone who lives in a mud hut in a third-world nation.  This is the very reason I have devoted my life to reaching America.

Throughout our travels we have noted several glowing needs in our nation.  Rather than just identify the needs, our ministry has set strategy and vision to make a difference.

As you may know, one of those needs is a “five-fold” evangelist.  Many in the body of Christ, including leaders, have a distorted image of a true evangelist.  Just to give you a quick definition, an evangelist must have a couple of key ingredients:  1) a passion to see the lost saved; 2) a heart to ignite and see revival birthed in the local church; 3) to be a personal soul winner; 4) last, but not least, and the most neglected, yet needed work of the evangelist, is to equip, mobilize and ignite believers through the local church to effectively share their faith.  This key point is one of the foundations Joe Oden Ministries rests upon.  This is a strong passion that I carry and that I’m believing will be revived in America.

The way we are currently carrying this out is through local church training and evangelism through the Acts 29 School of Evangelism and Outreach.  As we travel every weekend of the year, outside of revival, our main focus is to equip the church to effectively reach their community for the long-haul.  We have found that evangelism inside the local church in America is by far the weakest department of the majority of the churches in our nation.  If this goes unaddressed, the next generation will pay a lofty price for our neglect.

We are working extensively in many states with district leaderships to serve and address this great need.  Our goal is a big one.  I’ve heard it said before that if you could accomplish your dream, then it may not have been from God.  But if the only way your dream could be accomplished is by the miraculous hand of God, that would be a “God-dream”, and our goal is a God-dream!  One part of this dream is to raise up an evangelism director in every church in the USA.  One may say, “that is impossible” but, I say, “With God, ALL THINGS are possible!”

The reason we’re focusing on evangelism directors is because over the years after leaving a church with a successful outreach, the evangelism wasn’t sustained over a long period of time.  I cried out to God and asked him to give us Heaven’s strategy for this need in the church and believe he spoke clearly, “to help the pastor identify and select a couple or individual to be the church’s evangelism director.”  This is imperative for the church to have long-lasting fruit that will remain.  We are seeing this happen in churches throughout America at this very moment.  The number of evangelism directors are increasing every month.  Our ministry has a monthly conference call to encourage these directors with the tools they need and helpful resources to empower them to continue to reach their communities.  This has turned into a national network, called R.E.A.C.H. America, which stands for Reaching, Equipping, and Activating the Church for the Harvest.

We know that this cannot take place through one individual, therefore, we are working earnestly to raise up a team of evangelists with this paradigm and value system to reach our nation.  Right now, we have 5 young evangelists that are being trained in this process to be released in America.  One of the hardest things to do concerning the ministry in our nation is to get started as an evangelist.  Therefore, we are committed to helping these young men and women get started through financial support, training, and personal mentorship.  This is a key component of what we do to reproduce ourselves throughout the country.  Just imagine with me 5 more young evangelists being sent out over the next couple of years.  This will multiply our efforts and we will have five times the impact we have now.   Our goal is to continually produce new young evangelists until America is fully touched.  This will be very common one day in the body of Christ, but it has to start somewhere and I know in my heart that God is using us to be a catalyst.

We are also working on a national conference to equip these evangelism directors, along with their teams, to help continue igniting and resourcing them in their efforts.  We will have great speakers throughout America whose life focus is built around equipping believers in areas such as: one-on-one evangelism, street evangelism, prophetic evangelism, power evangelism, servant evangelism, etc.  There isn’t much in the body of Christ meeting this need, which is why we feel such a strong mandate to help in this capacity.

I wanted to lay out this core vision to let you know that you are sowing into fertile soil.  Our whole focus is this: America Shall Be Saved!  Amen!  I’m not just saying America shall be saved as some nice catch phrase.  I believe it.  We know that even though God is the one who gives the vision, we must give our heart and energy in working the vision, and as we do this, God is the one that will fulfill the vision.  To say it simply, God gives the vision, we work the vision, and God fulfills the vision.  That is why we can say, “America Shall Be Saved!”  This is the vision that you are partnering with through prayer and financial support.  If you are not currently partnering with us on a monthly basis, please take this before the Lord in prayer, and consider partnering with us in this crucial need for America.

This past month has  been amazing.  Just a few days ago, I was at a church in Garland, TX, pastored by my good friend, Mauricio Elizondo.  The miraculous power of God was at work.  At the end of the second service, there was a young man holding his right ear at the altar.  I assumed he was deaf and called him to the platform to rebuke deafness and asked God to heal him.  God opened his right ear 100% and he was healed!  We lost count of the number of deaf ears that opened.  One of the associates at the church said he counted 8.  Two of the people were 100% deaf.  One of them was 100% deaf in one ear and was 100% healed in that ear.  Another lady was 100% deaf in both ears and was 100% healed in both ears.  As I write this, I am thankful to God and filled with gratitude for his amazing grace and kindness to heal the sick.  Many were delivered from demons in this service, as well.  If you haven’t yet, feel free to shout AMEN!

While in Bradford, PA, we witnessed another beautiful move of the Holy Spirit.  The power of God began to fall on a Saturday night in Asbury United Methodist church.  That’s right!  A United Methodist church!  Remember, the Methodist church was started by a fiery preacher by the name of John Wesley.  The roots of the Methodist church were born out of Holy Ghost fire.  During the Saturday night service, people were slain in the spirit all around the altar and some people were instantaneously healed.  One lady just began to shout, “I’m healed!  I can move my leg with no pain.”  It was amazing to see people who had never been in a service where healing broke out like this or that had never seen a move of the supernatural and the manifestations that were occurring.  I can genuinely say this was a sovereign move of God.  One of the ladies who has attended the church for decades said she had never seen anything like this happen.  God is GOOD!!!  If God can do that here, He can do it anywhere!  Amen!  America shall be saved!

There was a real increase in the demonstration of power and healing at every place God had us this past month. It is a real honor to be a part of what God is doing.  Many testified of being healed. We also mobilized several churches that came together in Dallas to reach their community, as well.  At one of the churches, the power of God came upon the young people and the majority of them were slain in the spirit. It was an amazing sight.

I also had the privilege to attend Reinhard Bonnke’s first School of Evangelism this past month. It was a very inspiring and Holy Spirit filled time. My faith was challenged and I believed all that attended received a fresh impartation for the lost and to move in the miraculous. I will never be the same again.

Thank you very much for all of your prayer and support. You are a tremendous blessing to this ministry! Romans says, “How can someone be saved unless they hear, and how can someone hear unless there is a preacher, and how can there be a preacher unless they are sent.” The sender and the one who goes are both VERY important for the one who is going to hear.  Thank you for sending me!

Together in the harvest,

Joe Oden

This next month I will be traveling quite extensively.

-       July 1^{st -} Walnut Park Assembly of God – Garland TX

-       July 8^th Community Church of River Oaks – We will be preparing them for an all church outreach the following month – Fort Worth TX

-       July 11^th Collision Youth Conference – Dallas TX

-       July 15^th – 17^th Victory Assembly of God – Acts 29 School of Evangelism training and city wide outreach – Azle TX

-       July 22^nd – 25^th Pueblo CO – Acts 29 School of Evangelism training and outreach week

-       July 27^th – 29^th Acts 29 School of Evangelism training and city wide outreach Irving TX