March 2023 Update

A newsletter is long overdue.  Apologies for missing the one that should have been written last quarter in January.  Here's an update for those of you who are partnered with this ministry through prayer.

Updates for how to pray for my local church:
1) A huge item of praise that in January we had Pastor Kyle Smith join us at Harvest Christian Fellowship as our new full-time pastor.  Please pray for Pastor Kyle and his family.  You can read more about him here.
2) Things are progressing well with the property we recently purchased and with the warmer weather, we intend to have a dedication ceremony sometime after Easter (I believe in April).  Please pray for us as we seek to build there to reach out to the neighbors and the community.
3) Continue to pray for men and women to step up to be disciple-makers.  Evangelism is hard, but discipleship is much harder and "messier" as we live life alongside each other.
4) Pray for the next generation of leaders who are being prepared to serve in various ways.  We don't know who all of them are, but the Lord does, and we know that He will equip those who He calls to serve.  Pray for us that those who hear the call will respond in obedience.
5) Pray for our youth as they are going through a curriculum on Apologetics.  We desire for them to know what they believe and why they believe it, especially before we send them off to college or into the workplace, but even as we prepare them for the battlefield many are in as they go to school.  The Christian worldview they are taught at church (and hopefully at home) is questioned on a daily basis just like the serpent who tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden when he said, "Did God really say,....?"  Please pray for our youth as they learn what it means to have a biblical worldview and how they are to contend for the faith, and to always be ready to give an answer for the reason for the hope that they have.

I continue to meet with a small group for Bible study on Tuesday and and different group on Wednesday.  As I mentioned above, the Tuesday night group is now in Exodus.  The Wednesday night group is in the book of Acts.  As a family we are studying the book of Joshua, and I am personally making my way through 1 and 2 Kings on the website.  I also continue to talk to many on a regular basis through Discord.  This week I got to share with many of them how I had epilepsy as a child that was so severe that the experts didn't expect me to live, and if I did live they expected me to have no higher brain function.  I made sure to tell them this was my testimony and to give glory to God for me being alive.  All that came out of a conversation of a Subway employee in the server who saw a customer have a grand mal seizure in front of him and it rattled him a little bit.  That server in particular is full of people who are not Christians (we all like the same video games).

I also had the chance this week to speak to a friend about what happened at Asbury College (many are calling it a "revival," but I'm not so quick to label it that way).  Much of what I said to him privately, I turned into a public message on Facebook (not naming him at all) and copied it as a separate Journal Article here on the website.  You can read that here:  Saving Faith Leads to Obedience.  The Lord know who those are that I had in mind that are caught up in the false gospels that I mentioned in this post.  Some are family, some are friends, some are probably co-workers, and some are those that I'm connected to only through the internet.

Please also be in prayer for our church's ministry at a homeless shelter for veterans called Liberation Veteran Services.  One night a month (the fourth Saturday of every month) we go and serve the men dinner and share the gospel with them while they eat.  We have had some encouraging conversations with a small group of them, but we don't have long-term relationships with these men as they are in and out rather quickly.  Please pray for these men to be connected with a church that preaches, teaches, believes and lives according to the Word of God and will disciple them to do the same.  It is hard to get to speak to them maybe once or twice and never see them again, but one man plants, and another waters, but it is the Lord that gives the increase.


1 Corinthians 3:5-9
English Standard Version5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.

Please continue to pray for our missionaries around the world.  Specifically, our church as missionaries working in Tanzania that I probably have mentioned before.  The country is under severe drought and while the seminary they work at is okay for now, the people in the surrounding area are not okay.  Please also pray for our missionaries in East Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe (I won't mention any more specifics about any of them) as well as our missionaries that work with the International Missions Board giving leadership and training to other missionaries and those who are helping to plant churches in other parts of the world.  It's also the time of year for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering with support our North American Missions Board (NAMB).  Those interested in supporting our "local" church planters and missionaries may give a tax-deductible donation at https://www.anniearmstrong.com/ (100% of your gift goes to support our NAMB missionaries and this one offering typically provides 50% of the funding for our NAMB missionaries).

Thanks to all who regularly pray for me and those that I minister to and who are praying for my family (especially for those praying for the unsaved members of my family).  Please continue to pray for the Lord to open doors for me to share the gospel with others (especially online, as that is where I feel my "mission field" is) and to encourage those I come in contact with to not only repent and believe but also be obedient as was His command in The Great Commission "Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."