Reaching Couples:
From the time we started our ministry, we have had a desire to reach and help strengthen families. Our slogan as a church has been, “A Vision for the World, A Home for your Family”. We realize that if we want to have a strong church, we must have strong families. This is very important here, because the family is under attack, and to be honest there are very few marriage that last very long. To try and strengthen the families of our churches, we had our first couples meeting this past month. Although several couples were either working or traveling, we still had a great number that came for the meeting. We played some fun games to start out that might help the couples show affection to each other and then I taught a lesson on the basis or purpose of marriage. In Genesis chapter two, as God was creating man, He recognized and said that it was not good for man to be alone therefore He created a helpmeet for him. This shows us that God created marriage with the purpose of have communion or fellowship with each other. The question then comes, how is the communion in our marriage? How much do we enjoy spending time together, sharing dreams and concerns, and showing love to each other? At the end of the meeting I gave them five things to do for homework to help improve the communion in their marriages. We hope to have a meeting every couple of months with the desire to not only strengthen the couples of the churches, but also to reach new couples that do not know the Lord.
What’s the Next Step:
In our ministry here, I have often taught the people that there should be no stagnant times in their Christian lives but that they should always be growing and changing. To continual be growing and changing, you must always be looking at what is the next step that you need to take and be willing to step out by faith. Probably the first two steps that we encourage people to take, after their salvation, is that of baptism and becoming a member of the local church. To aid in that decision, one of the things that we started here many years ago, was giving membership classes for those who were interested in becoming members. The classes consist of seven lessons that explain what we believe, our ministry philosophy, and the expectations that we have for members. Every Sunday I am teaching two different member clases in two of our churches The fist one I am teaching is Sunday morning at 9:30am during Sunday School and the other is at 5:00pm before church service in our other church. We currently have close to 12 in each class, several of which are planning on getting baptized and the others that are interested in being members. Please pray for these people that will hopefully soon be added to the church.
Classes Begin:
We are excited about this new year and this new semester we are staring in our Bible College. This semester we are only having three classes; NT Survey, Christian Family, and Homiletics III. Please pray for the students as they prepare to serve the Lord and that the Lord will continue to call people to serve Him.
Prayer Requests:
1. Pray for the men and women studying in our Bible College.
2. Pray for our upcoming pastor’s classes that we will be having this month.
3. Pray for many families that are struggling and that need the Lord.
4. Pray for Bolivia and the elections that we will have later this year .