Will You be My Friend?:
I heard it said once that most people are looking for a friendly church, but as I have been in the ministry for some time, I have come to realize that it is not necessarily a friendly church that people are looking for but a friend at church. If someone comes to church and doesn’t know anyone, it is much less likely that they will return. If a person brings a friend to church, they are much more likely to continue coming afterwards because they don’t feel too out of place. The point is, friendships in church are important and as Christians we have a great opportunity to invite our friends to come to church.
This past month here in Bolivia we celebrated friend day. It is not a huge holiday, but gave us a great opportunity to encourage the people of our church to invite their friends. We planned a special day including a message on the most important friend we could ever have and a meal afterwards. We had more than 75 people in attendance and four or five first time visitors. It was great to see how many invited, and brought friends to the church and that many of them heard the gospel for the first time.
Can you say Hello?:
I praise the Lord for my wife and the hard work she puts into the children’s ministry here. In the past we have offered English classes to try and meet new people from the neighborhood where we are working. Well Beth decided to offer English classes for kids with the goal of not only reaching them, but also their parents. They passed out a couple hundred invitations around the church and spoke with people as they would pass by. On the first day of classes they had close to fifteen show up and even got to speak to many of their parents. They had two classes each time, with the smaller children going to another class to learn more basic English. During the teaching time my wife would share truths from the Bible about heaven and hell. They all really enjoyed the classes and many of them have started coming to Sunday School and church on Sunday.
The most exciting result that we have seen, is a new family of one of the kids, that has started attending services on a regular basis. I spoke with the father after one of our services recently and he asked me where he could get a Bible and how he could learn more about what it says. As far as we know, none of them are Christians yet, but they have already started bringing some of their family members to the services. Please pray for Fernando and Adriana, that they will be saved and become part of the church.
Reaching the Lost:
For the last four months we have had an intern, named Andrew from our home church, here working with us. Recently he asked me if he could start a new ministry to try and reach more people in our neighborhood. He has set a goal to put a tract in every door within a kilometer radius of the church. He printed off maps with a circle at a kilometer distance and has divided it into sections so that we can visit each week. So far we have covered a good part of the area, but still have a little more than half to go. I am proud of Andrew and his desire to learn more about the ministry and get the gospel to many people in the area where we are starting our church. We pray that we will see fruit from all the seed that is being sowed and that many people will come to know Christ as a result. Pray for Andrew as he continues to take language classes and prepare for the ministry that the Lord has called him to.
Prayer Requests:
1. Pray for the new family coming from English classes and others that have visited.
2. Pray for our children’s ministry and their families that need to be reached.
3. Pray for Andrew as he has a couple more months left on his internship.
4. Pray for those who are starting to help in different ministries in our church.