Win them to Christ, Disciple them into the Church

I have taken on what I guess would be a personal motto or theme for ministry. It is "Win them to Christ, then disciple them into the Church" or a relatively close paraphrase of such. I can't remember exactly when this came to me. But, it is becoming what I desire to be and do as a minister. So many people say that they want to win people to the Church. I agree that we want as many people in the Church as will come. Yet, our main task is to win people to Christ. If we look at the disciples throughout the book of Acts, I believe that we will see that their primary goal and aim was to tell people about Jesus. After they won them to Jesus, they taught them more doctrine and they naturally became a part of the Church. I believe that if the Church will work harder than ever to win souls to Jesus, we will not have to go around telling people that "We are The Church of God". People will know because we will be doing what the Church is supposed to be doing. If we are not working for and winning souls, then we are failing in our responsibility. Church, let us fail no more. Let us win more souls for Jesus this year than ever before. Once we win people to Jesus, then we disciple them in the "all things" message that Jesus instructed His disciples to teach. If we do not first win them to Him, we will never be able to disciple them into strong christian workers for Him. Dear Lord, help us to win sinners for you!

First Kick

Yesterday I felt our baby kick for the first time. Kelley has been feeling it for a while but it is just now kicking strong enough for me to feel outside. I only got to feel it once but hey that's good enough for now.

Jesus is the Way

Cruise Control

Well, I guess God knew I needed the cruise control for that trip yesterday, because after I got home I went out later to pick up a pizza and the cruise wouldn't work anymore. Thank the Lord for it working on the trip at least. Pray for us as we reach out to people in this area that we will demonstrate and they will feel the love of the Lord.

Great Day!

I thank the Lord for a great day in Newburgh, a town just outside of Evansville. There I met with the Loyas for a good time of fellowship as well as for a Sunday School class. I know, it was on a Saturday so technically it could be Saturday School. It was good to see them again as I have not seen them since the Assembly. At the Assembly I didn't get to spend very much time with them so it was nice to sit down and relax and fellowship with them. We had a wonderful class on "Walking in the Spirit." There was a lot of good discussion. I thank the Lord for starting out my morning with a little(to me a big) miracle. For several months now, the cruise control on our car has not worked. I don't get it looked at because it is not really a necessity. This morning as I started down the road, I thought to try it again. I prayed Lord please let this work. And it did! It worked the whole trip down and back. This is a huge blessing because it is a little bit over a three hour trip. That is a long time to have to have your foot on the pedal when you are sleepy. I would have probably ended up driving 50-55 down the interstate not noticing that I was going very fast, since I was sleepy.

Another new experience today was eating cow's tongue. Sister Loya fixed a brunch today for us before we had class. They were describing that what we were going to eat was like barbeque but different. So I ate part of a cow's tongue today. Can I just say that I love the Loya's! I could feel the love that they had, and I look forward to seeing them many more times in the future. Being there with them, I didn't even think about, that I can remember, the drive home. I was totally comfortable with them other than a slight language barrier occasionally.

Hope that God is blessing you.

It has been almost a year since my last post. I don't know that there is anyone out there reading this, but anyway. I thank the Lord for the confirmation I have received from Him lately. He has and will help me to be faithful to Him even in the difficult times. I am trusting that He will give the strength that I need during this next month of ministrying as I look at my schedule and see that currently I am scheduled to preach at least three times a week and this week already have preached twice and will be preaching 2/3 more before the week is up. It is a good thing I don't have to preach during the midweek service as well, otherwise I would probably be overwhelmed. I think back to all the times in the past where I didn't preach for extended periods and think, "It is being made up for now". If anyone is reading this just pray that the Lord will help me do all the outreach and visiting for the church that I need to do as well this month. On top of my normal 40 hr/wk job I am in the middle of helping someone put on part of a new roof when I can, finishing out a good sized walk-in closet at home for my office, and in the middle of remodeling two bathrooms, one which is almost complete, for someone else. God is going to help me I am sure. Pray also that the Lord will help me with my spanish. If everything turns out as planned, I will be teaching Sunday School and preaching in spanish every other weekend on Saturdays.

God bless