Judgement House

Judgement House at PGBC 2010

What's it All About? -An Overview of This Years Event

For the last four years, Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, has put on a walk-through drama called Judgement House. Please don't confuse "Judgement House" with "Hell House©" They are not at all the same. The only thing they share in common is that they are both walk-through dramas. The mission of "Judgement House", as stated on their website is as follows:

Our Mission:

At Judgement House our mission is to provide as many people as possible with an opportunity to choose a saving, and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We believe the basis for this mission can be found in Matthew 28:19-20. "Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (New Living Translation)


Our goal in the presentation of the Judgement House drama is to provide as many people as possible with an opportunity to choose a saving, and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We perform the drama over the course of two weekends (Thursday through Saturday). Each night we have 16 to 20 groups of approximately 30 people. The groups begin the journey through the scenes at 15 minute intervals, lead from scene to scene by a guide who narrates the entire story. So we see on average about 3,000 guests during the course of this ministry.

The Judgement House Organization has various scripts to choose from. This year our script was "Words: A Prescription for Tragedy". The story line deals with the plight of a young man, Russ, whose parents have made many bad decisions and end up in prison for drug related charges. With nowhere else to go, Russ ends up living with his Grandmother who is a Christian trying to share the love of Jesus with her Grandson. Russ, who is very bitter, wants nothing to do with it and rejects the call of Jesus at every opportunity. To further complicate this situation, the youth group at Grandmother's church is less than welcoming and very harshly belittles and berates Russ as a "loser who is probably on drugs just like his Mom and Dad". While Russ is at Youth Camp with the church youth group, he is informed by the Youth Pastor that his Grandmother has died. Stricken with grief and despair, Russ chooses to end his own life in hopes to finally end the pain.

The rest of the scenes portray Judgement, Hell and finally a beautiful glimpse of what we that HAVE accepted Jesus can look forward to in the Heaven scene. At the completion of the drama the groups are then taken into a counsleing room where an overview is presented and an invitation is given to those who wish to choose to accept salvation. Encouragers are available for individual prayer and counseling.

Many lives are touched and blessed through this ministry. Many visitors receive salvation, many lives are re-dedicated to the Lord Jesus Christ, and many seeds are sown that we pray will bloom into the salvation of a lost soul one day. Not only are the visitors blessed, but we as participants - whether acting, directing, sound, scheduling, parking or any of the many other tasks that it takes to put on a ministry of this magnitude are blessed beyond measure. We are blessed in the fellowship, the delight in seeing the gospel presented in a powerful way and often amazing miracles in seeing lives transformed never again to be the same.

As we prepared for this ministry, I promoted the event on Twitter, Facebook and other web services. Many responded and enquired, wanting to know if I knew of a JH Event near their locality. If your ministry has never heard or done this type of presentation I would encourage you to pray about it and look into it. You can find the information you need at http://www.judgementhouse.org//.

What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know how effective you think ministries like this can be.

Hebrews 9:27 (King James Version)
27And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Memories - The UGLY Ones

This weekend has been such a flurry of emotions. The memory of the tragedy that happened 9 years ago yesterday. Although I remember vividly where I was, how I found out, the emotions of finding out what was happening (and I will never forget); The fervor of committment has lessened as time goes by. For instance, I saw a disturbing tweet today saying "Wishing all of our Muslim friends a happy Eid ul-Fitr. Let's all forgive and forget. http://bit.ly/aKclej" (via @123RF). Now first of all, I'm not bashing on 123RF (although I do consider the tweet completely inappropriate - IMHO). Jesus tells us in the bible "...we are to love our enemies." (Matthew 5: 43-44 ESV) So the forgiveness part I can completely get and accept as a Christian. But we are never to forget what happened on that infamous day. A terrible, pre-meditated crime of hate was carried out against innocent people in the name of a false religion who believes in a false God. I do forgive, I pray that all people of the Muslim faith will hear the Gospel and accept Jesus as their Lord and personal Savior. "He is the WAY and the TRUTH and the LIFE. No one comes to the Father accept thru him." (John 14:6 ESV).



The other thing that sruck me fairly hard (square on the chin), was talking with my children about that tragic day in 2001. You see my kids were 11, 5, 3 and 1 at the time. They don't really remember - not even the 11 year old (he's a Junior at NGU now). Much as I don't really remember when JFK was shot (I was almost 2 yrs. old at the time). So we spent a great deal of time discussing what they "knew" about the events of 9/11/2001. I found out that some of what they knew and much of what they understood was incorrect. Scary thought - needless to say we spent a great deal of time discussing the truth of what happened and how those events have lead to where we find ourselves today.

So in closing, I would like to encourage you to not take for granted that your children fully understand what went on and what is going on. Talk with them and make sure they know the truth - not what this new age of "tolerance" would like everyone to believe. What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them.

Matthew 5:43-44 (New International Version)
Love for Enemies


43"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.' 44But I tell you: Love your enemies[b] and pray for those who persecute you,..."