Sunday Night 101

We went soul winning last night and had 30 saved while out on the streets. I was extremely excited about it. Especially, since we only had 21 soul winners out which is a down number for us. The street we were on started out rather rough and unfriendly. Blaise and my daughter Debbie were my partners and we were having to really plow through some unfriendly people. My wife and her partner though approached a porch of four adults and she was able to win all four of them to Christ after about 20 minutes. Then Blaise came across a group of five boys playing basketball and he won them to Christ while Debbie and I went to a door and won a dying mother Christ. Somebody say Amen!

It was a rough start for most of our groups, but very fruitful in the end. I wasn't sure how it would go when we started out by having a drunk man trying to board our bus once we pulled up to drop off our first group. I don't know if he thought we were some kind of public transportation or what, but once we got rid of him we started unloading the groups onto the streets for the next hour. All who came out had a great time!

This weekend starts our Sunday Night 101 campaign. For the next four weeks we are trying to have an emphasis placed on bringing folks to our Sunday night services. I am running it like a classroom with me as the teacher and the Bible as our text book. Each week whoever brings the most visitors will be rewarded by the teacher. Then whoever brings at least three visitors over the four weeks can make the field trip list, which will be a trip to the Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha. It will be a fun field trip. I will be preaching about "Good Friday or Good Wednesday" this first Sunday night. I hope to see you all come and participate.

The Wedding Day Finally Came

Sunday was a good day in attendance. We had five adult visitors come. We had three come on Sunday morning. Then Sunday night we had two more come. The two that came Sunday night came because we had knocked on their door about 5 or 6 weeks ago. One of them came forward at the invitation time and then came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Shen then made a public profession of faith.

This past Friday was Brother Jonathan Painter's wedding. He got married to Miss Faith Smith at the Heritage Baptist Church in Lawrence, Kansas. The wedding was officiated by Pastor Scott Hanks who did an absolutely fantastic job as well as all the people of his church who jumped in and helped out. It was a very beautiful wedding. It was a warm feeling inside to be able to watch my son kiss a girl for the first time at the altar, just the way God had intended for it to be. I thank God for the way that He guided Jonathan to the very girl that he had for him. I believe when he went through all those years of Bible college and not finding Mrs. Right for him, he kept his chin up and did not panic about it. He could have made the mistake that so many do in settling for someone who isn't the exact one that God has for them. I am happy that he did not do this and instead exercised patience. My wife and I have no doubt that Miss Faith Smith (who is now Mrs. Faith Painter) is the exact right girl for our son. She too has gone through life keeping herself clean and pure. She truly is a testament to her parents for the fine job of proper upbringing.

We are excited to have this new young couple as a part of our church and I look forward to having her get involved in helping with our ministries here at our church. It is exciting days ahead for our church. We are seeing souls saved and visitors coming. Converts are getting baptized and lives are being changed. We are seeing young people reap the benefits of doing that which is right. The sky is the limit from here on out! Praise God for his tender mercies!

Another Catholic Coming to Christ

 We had two saved in our junior church yesterday and two more saved in the morning service. God was good to us and gave us a great day weather wise. The attendance was really good except for some lingering sickness that kept a few of our regulars out. I was excited to see my visitor (pictured below) Dominic from South Sudan trust Christ as his personal Saviour at the invitation time. He then followed the Lord in believer's baptism. Praise God for another Catholic coming to Christ!

The Piano Recital

Rebekah after she finished

 On Saturday afternoon I attended our daughters piano recital. I was thrilled to hear all four of them play along with James Gaiser from our church. Rebekah played "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Deep and Wide." Deborah played "Clickity Clack Went the Carriage" along with a duet with her sister Rachel. Rachel also played Avalanche by herself. Sarah played the "Star Spangled Banner." Then James Gaiser who is just four years old played "Brother John." All five of them did an excellent job and I am glad to see them preparing to be used of the Lord in the area of music. Sarah is our current church piano player.

Sarah watches Rachel and Deborah play a duet.

This morning prior to heading out to the recital, my wife and I visited our Sunday school class. While out visiting we lead five precious souls to Christ. Thank God for the opportunity to give out the Gospel.

James after he was finished with his songs.

I also have four lined up for church tomorrow which should make for an exciting Sunday. I love Sunday and I am thankful I live in a country that has freedom. I visited with a family in my church last night that are from another country and I listened to several stories of the persecution they faced in their country for their Christian beliefs and it makes me very thankful to live in America and to have the right to have church as we see fit to have it. Thank God for the right to have and own a Bible as well.

Great Sunday and a Great Conference

Pictured above is Yom who got baptized this past Sunday morning. Yom was led to Christ the previous week by our assistant pastor through the use of an Arabic translator. She was being given instructions here in Arabic right before I baptized her! We had a great Sunday morning with another coming forward to join our church. It is the third week in a row we have had people join by either statement of faith or letter of transfer. God is starting to do some special things in our church. "I can feel it in my bones", so to speak. Ha! God is really blessing us as a church and I think it is an exciting time to be a member of Lincoln Baptist Church.

On Sunday afternoon my wife and I took off to head to the "Old Paths Conference" in Longview, Texas. The drive is long and I decided to leave early to help cut the drive down, plus there had been some reports of snow coming overnight Sunday night. I do not think it amounted to much, but we left early anyway. My son and assistant pastor preached at our church and my wife and I attended services at Riverside Baptist Church in Hutchinson, KS. Dr. Richard Haley is the pastor there. We enjoyed listening to Dr. Haley preach a message called "Canaan or Bust." He did a great job. Afterwards we enjoyed some fellowship with him and his wife before heading on into Oklahoma where we stopped at a town called Blackwell for the night. While at Riverside Baptist Church a great thing happened to me. A lady walked up to me with tears in her eyes and started shaking my hand. She said to me, "I want to thank you for leading my son to Christ before he died." I was puzzled for a moment and then the lady mentioned his name. I remembered leading her son to Christ six years earlier in the Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in our town. As this woman kept thanking me with tears, it brought a tear to my own eye. It caused me to think, everybody we lead to Christ is someone else's son, daughter, mother, father, brother, or sister. We just never know who we are leading to Christ. It always pays to be a soul winner!

The other picture here is from the Monday night service of the Old Paths Conference at the Longview Baptist Temple in Longview, Texas. I love to hear Alvin Martinez sing! I listened to Dr. Bob Gray II preach a message called "America Needs Preachers" then, I listened to Dr. B.G. Buchanan preach a message called "One of Them." Both were great messages. I try to go at least one time a year to a good Bible Conference to help keep my own heart and mind spiritually sharp and fresh for the Lord's work. May God bless the rest of this conference.

A Great Conference with Dr. Gray the 2nd

We had our "Old School" Bible Conference this past week with Dr. Bob Gray the 2nd, from Longview Baptist Temple in Longview, Texas. It was a great success. We had good numbers both nights and the preaching was really good. We enjoyed getting to spend some time with Dr. Gray and getting a chance to glean from his wisdom. He preached two absolutely fantastic sermons each night and the people that came were inspired. We already have him on the schedule for next year!

Overall we had a good Sunday today with one saved at the invitation and making a public profession of faith. I also was excited about the Clark's from Georgia joining our church. They are a new couple who moved to the area from Georgia a few months ago. I believe they will be a tremendous blessing to our church. May God bless you this coming week as you endeavor to win souls for Christ.

An Afternoon at the Range

We had a fun afternoon at the firing range today! We took a firearms course today and all who enrolled passed. The picture to the top is Mrs. Miller (left) and my wife shooting their handguns at the instructors commands. (They both scored 100%) The instructor is Brad from Red Cloud who did a wonderful job along with another instructor by the name of Brian. At the end of the class Brad brought out a P-90 and allowed me to shoot it. I am pictured with it on the bottom with it.

All in all we had a great week with our conference. I will put out a separate post about the conference. I was also excited about the great night out soul winning. We had beautiful weather this past Thursday night with 25 folks coming out and we were able to see 15 folks trust Christ as their Saviour. Thank God for the best weapon out there, God's Word.