This was presented to me this morning at the end of my Sunday school class by the Itty-Bitty Baptist Class. I felt very honored as they sang "We Love You Preacher!" Overall the attendance was low in the morning with 103. We did have 2 saved at the invitation with 2 others getting baptized. On Sunday night we had 50 in attendance to hear me preach "How To Enjoy Heaven More." Praise God for loyal people who make you feel good as the Preacher!

This is a picture of Mrs. Painter counting the number of ornaments that were placed on Brother Dennis Houdek by his wife. The game was a contest of husbands and wives called the human Christmas tree. The one that got the most ornaments hung on their spouse in one minute won the contest. This was at our Joint Heirs Sunday school Christmas party this past Friday night. It was a lot of fun and the contestants were very good sports about it. Overall our attendance was down this past Sunday morning, but we did have three converts baptized. We had a fair crowd Sunday night, but the spirit was great! The need has continued for our Spanish interpeting on Sunday morning and Sunday night services. It would be great for our church to build a solid base of Spanish folks. Our neighborhood is over run with them, so it would b e great for us to start getting them in. Somebody say, AMEN! Thank God for good faithful folks that make our church a lot of fun and help us reach our community.

This is one of our converts that got saved and baptized this morning. Mildred shot her hand up at the invitation and actually came down the aisle and met me at the front altar. She trusted Christ and immediately submitted to Scriptural baptism. Praise God for a church that still baptizes converts right away. Overall we had 107 in Sunday school, which was a bit on the low side, but it was an extremely cold weekend. We did have 3 public professions made and 1 follow the Lord in baptism. Sunday night we had 46 which was also on the low side, but the spirit of the people was great.

This is Lang and his wife Zo Kim with their baby boy named Van. He is also called "Todd" named after me! We had a baby shower for them this past Tuesday night. They are saved and baptized members of our church from Burma. We had a good Sunday overall with 115 on Sunday morning with 5 making public professions of faith with one of those following the Lord in believer's baptism. We had another great service on Sunday night with 51 in attendance. God is truly a great God and I thank him for wonderful families. Truly we are the most diverse church I have ever been a part of. Once again Sunday morning and Sunday night we had Spanish interpreting for our services. It amazes me that we could have at least ten different languages or more that could be spoken every Sunday morning. In fact one of the professions of faith made on Sunday morning was made by a lady led to Christ by me through an Arabic interpreter!

The Young Fundamentalist sung "The Bible Stands" on Sunday night. Overall the attendance was down with it being a holiday weekend. It was also the first Sunday since last April that we didn't have someone get baptized. I hated to see that streak end, but the spirit of the people was great. We had 112 Sunday morning and 47 on Sunday night. We also had a Spanish couple visit on Sunday night that moved here from Michigan. We had one of our ladies interpet the preaching for them and they truly enjoyed it. They said they would be back Wednesday night. They have lived here four months and had been attending a Spanish Pentecostal church, because they could not find a Spanish speaking Baptist church. There isn't one here! They visited our church, because they received one of our Spanish tracts. They have been Baptist for twenty years. Pray that God will use this to raise up a man to start a Spanish church in our church. We want Lincoln for Christ, every nation and every tongue that lives here. Amen and Amen!

This is Nya, who got saved and baptized this past Sunday morning. We had a good day with 121 in attendance in the morning and 63 coming back Sunday night. We had a great spirit and many great decisions being made. We also had one of our members bring their mother to the service Sunday night. Praise God she got saved. I thought this was great especially since she lives out of town. It is a time a year for thankfulness, so I thank God for the power of the Bible and Bible preaching.

This is me with Brother Bob Miller. He has been coming to our church for about 1 1/2 years or so. He his wife, Megan, and their son Travis have all been saved and baptized here at Lincoln Baptist Church. They are a great and faithful family and I feel very fortunate to be able to be their pastor. He was raised Catholic and his wife Episcopal, praise God that he still saves religious people. Overall we had a good Sunday. I felt like I had to get a little harsh in the morning sermon, but only because of my love for the people that I pastor. Our attendence was a little down with 112 in Sunday school this morning and 3 people making professions of faith in Christ and 2 of those being baptized! Thank God for the King James Bible that helps makes all of this possible for us.

This is me pictured with Brother Richard Zlomke, who is one of our faithful men. He is a great blessing to our church and has really caught a fire lately for winning souls. He had six souls saved just last Thursday night. He is also a worker on one of our bus routes along with helping out as an usher when need and any other task that we might need done. It is folks like him that make our church very special. Over all we had a very good Sunday. There were 2 saved during the invitation and three got baptized. There were 128 in attendance and the offerings were very good. I praise God for great days like we just had.

This is Nya who got saved on Saturday when I went by a new church member's house. She is a precious new mother that we were glad to baptize. Overall we had a down attendance of 104, but that was expected the week after the campaign was over. However, there was good offerings and a great spirit amongest the people. We had a down crowd on Sunday night with it being the devil's holiday, but once again an even better spirit as I preached a message that I called, "He stood between the living and the dead." Thank God for the power of God!

This is me pictured with our missionary guest for our missions conference. The theme was the same as our Sunday school campaign "Building and Battling." To the (your) left of me is Missionary Charlie Schildnecht (Thailand) and on the right is Missionary Sam Owen (Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation). Bro. Owen was our main speaker for the conference. We had some great crowds each night and took in a good number of Faith Promise Commitment cards. We finished our campaign Sunday by meeting all of our five goals. We had 57 saved for the week and 5 baptized! Then Monday and Tuesday night we had the bulk of our conference as Bro. Charlie arrived with his sweet family. On Tuesday morning we loaded up and went soul winning. We had 19 soul winners out and produce 18 salvations in one hour! Praise God for soul winning and soul winning missionaries. We will no longer have any missionaries to our church that we don't make go soul winning. Amen and Amen.

The picture to the far right is of Lorenzo Rodriguez. He is a Spanish man that I met a couple of Thursday nights ago and was able to lead to Christ. He is currently fighting a battle for his life with cancer, but praise God he was able to come this Sunday and get baptized. The other picture is our teen singing group singing a special on Sunday night with Brother Jager our song leader. They did an excellent job singing that night. Overall we missed two of our five goals for our campaign, but it was still a great Sunday. There were several return visitors and some new visitors. In fact one visiting family that is looking for a good Baptist church came back Sunday night too. Praise God for Jesus Christ and all that he did for us!

This is a picture of our teen singing group practicing on Sunday evening. These kids do a great job singing and being faithful to services, working in the bus ministry and going soul winning on Thursday nights. We had a great Sunday overall meeting 4 of our 5 campaign goals. We also had 3 baptized on Sunday morning. We had a great afternoon service at the nursing home with 3 trusting Christ as their personal Saviour.

This is Errin Mahoney pictured with my wife. She got saved last Thursday and baptized today. We were very happy to have her here today and to have the honor of seeing her follow the Lord in Scriptural baptism. Over all we had a good Sunday meeting four of our five campaign goals. We had 129 in Sunday school, 31 saved for the week, with 2 following the Lord in Baptism. We also had $147.53 given toward Faith Promise Missions. Praise God for His marvelous workings!

This is Nancy Bevin who was one of two baptisms this past Sunday. I was able to lead Nancy to Christ on Saturday. We had a great Sunday hitting all five of our campaign goals. We had 132 in Sunday school, 33 saved, 2 baptized, 30 Thursday night soul winners, and $111.00 in Faith Promise giving. We also had 61 on Sunday night! I praise God for all that he did this past weekend and week. We had to work hard for our salvation goal of having 25 saved every week, since Thursday night was rainy, it made it tough. We only had 13 saved that night. On Saturday morning follow-up, I challenged all the teachers to get some people saved while they were out. They came back at noontime with 19 converts! We topped the whole weekend off by leading a lady to Christ in the back parking lot after church. Praise God for our faithful workers, I could not do all of this without their help!

Building and Battling

We started our campaign this last Thursday night, seeing what we can do in 52 days. Nehemiah built an entire wall around Jerusalem in 52 days, so we are going to spend the next 52 days building and battling, just like Nehemiah. Our first Sunday we saw 129 in Sunday school and 6 professions of faith and one baptized. We also had 60 in church Sunday night. A special thanks to my wife and Mrs. Lyn Painter, Mrs. Fauth, Mrs. Zlomke, and Miss Erika for the great decorations.

This is Justin Rashidi and his two oldest children. They are able to watch Mrs. Rashidi get baptized this morning. Now they are all members of the household of faith! Mrs. Rashidi had been previously saved, but not baptized in a independent Baptist church. Overall we had a good Sunday even though a lot of people were missing because of the holiday weekend. We had 111 with three following the Lord in believer's baptism. We had 43 on Sunday night to hear me preach "America and the Sin of Homosexuality." I am excited about our upcoming 52 day Sunday school campaign that starts Thursday night with our church wide soul winning. Praise God for Sunday school campaigns!

Two Bus Mom's Get Baptized!

This is Linda Kose on the left and Cecilia Ismail on the right. The are two mom's of some of our regular bus riders. They both had gotten saved before today and came to church today and got baptized! We had 114 in attendance this morning and had 3 adults get baptized! We had 58 tonight to hear me preach a message called, "What I Like About the Socialist." Don't be fooled by the title, it was a barn burner message against socialism! Somebody say, Amen. I was excited about these two mom's, because even though we love the bus ministry, we love having whole families come even more!

Cleyton Maywen

This Cleyton who was won to Christ yesterday by one of our soul winners. He came to church today and followed the Lord in believer's baptism. Cleyton has lived in America for 4 years and is from Sudan, Africa. He said, he enjoyed himself very much and will be back next week. We had 115 in church this morning and baptized 2 converts with 5 professions of faith being made. We also had a profession made on Wednesday night and another one tonight. Praise God for people willing to profess their faith in Christ!

Teen Group Sings

We had the privilege of listening to some of our teenagers sing this past Sunday night! It was a real blessing. Overall it was a great week with 39 trusting Christ for the week and 3 getting baptized Sunday morning. One during the invitation and two more got baptized by Brother Jager after the service. I thank God for Brother Jager my faithful deacon, there has been several occassions where I have been able to use him to help with the baptisms when I am unavailable! I never thought I would say this, but praise God for deacons!

New Record for Churchwide Soul Winning!

We had this past Thursday night a new record number of soul winners out for Thursday night soul winning. The new record was 34, surpassing the old record of 29. It was incredible to see such a good crowd. We had 16 saved that night by the time we were finished. In this crowd was the ability to not only speak English, but also Spanish, Arabic, French, Din'ka, and Swahili. That is real tongues in action! Thank God for Jesus and a soul winning Baptist church!

Preacher holds a newborn!

This is Justin Rashidi and his wife Masoka with their new baby Tabitha! I am holding Tabitha, aren't you proud of me. I don't like to hold babies this small, but enjoyed having my picture taken with these fine parents and their newest child. We had a great Sunday morning with 117 in attendance and an eye popping 13 public professions of faith, with 5 of those following the Lord in believers baptism! Amen for the fine families and amen for Jesus!

Baptism's Upon Baptism's at LBC

This is Hazgail (pronounced Ezekiel) Komi from Sudan, Africa. He was one of my converts from a few Thursday nights ago. He and his wife were two of four baptisms Sunday morning. The overall Sunday morning crowd was a little down with only 113 people in attendance. However, we had a great week overall. We had a good crowd of 52 last Wednesday night with two being saved and one baptized. Also, this past Sunday night we had 62 and one saved and baptized. God has blessed us greatly this year, by allowing us to baptize 77 people so far this year.

The spirit at every service was great this past week, especially Sunday morning, while I preached the message "Five Ways to Open the Windows of Heaven." Can you guess one of the ways? You guessed it, baptism! The windows of Heaven open when someone gets baptized!

God has been blessing our soul winning attendance also, with a new record this past Thursday of 29 soul winners out soul winning. God has given us a vision to reach our community that He has placed us in. In our neighborhood that includes people from every corner of the globe as our city is the 14th largest refugee resettlement area in the United States. I realize that God loves these refugees and they also have great value. In our church we have on a bad Sunday at least ten different languages that could be spoken. Last Thursday night among our soul winners we had the ability to speak not only English, but Spanish, Arabic, French, Dinka, and Swahili. Gotta love a soul winning church!

Another Great Sunday!

This is Christy Chism, one of three people who got baptized on Sunday. My wife had been inviting Christy for months and today she finally came. Christy along with Xavier (who also got baptized) both work at Kentucky Fried Chicken. My wife and I regularly eat at the KFC that these folks work at. My wife decided about 4 months ago that she wanted to win the whole store to Christ, so she began praying in that direction. Her and I together have had about 7 saved as a result and 3 of them have been baptized. The other Briley, has become a regular attender! We have had about 8 employees total visit church from the store, including a shift manager. The biggest problem we run into is that they are often scheduled to work during church times. However, we aren't going to stop working to this end. Over all we had 114 Sunday morning and 51 Sunday night! Thank God for a soul winning Baptist church!

Young Fundamentalist

July 11th, started our "Young Fundamentalist" for the teens before Sunday night church. Brother Jonathan is preaching messages geared toward teen agers each week. We had that evening 55 for church service with one adult getting saved and baptized! That morning saw us having 114 with 5 adults following the Lord in baptism. There was a great response to the message entitled, "When God Becomes Your Enemy." Praise God for His precious Word!

"I Pledge My Life to America"

The children's choir sings a patriotic song during Sunday night's service. We had a smaller than usually crowd for a normal Sunday night service, but an excellent spirit. I preached the message, "Does God Still Love America?" On Sunday morning we stayed over 100 with 104 in Sunday school, although attendance was down, there was a good spirit. We had 2 baptized, with 6 baptized for the week. Praise God for a nation that is free!

We had an absolutely great conference with Dr. Dean Miller. We enjoyed having both he and his wife here. They were a great blessing. We had 64 of our own church people in attendance Monday night and 63 on Tuesday night. It was just great! We saw 2 baptized on Tuesday night and had 2 more baptized on Wednesday night. That made for a total of 9 baptized while Dr. Miller was here. Two of them were church members that were doubting their salvation! Praise God for powerful preaching combined with a convicting Holy Spirit presence!

Record Sunday!

We had an absolutely great day this past Sunday, with a record crowd of 149 in Sunday school and 146 in the morning service. We also had a record crowd of 62 on Sunday night. There were 6 professions of faith made Sunday morning with 4 getting baptized. We also had another one baptized Sunday night! I preached the message "Have a Firm Foundation" on Sunday morning and then we were very privileged to hear Dr. Dean Miller preach the message called "The Altars" on Sunday night! Thank God for the Holy Spirit and the His workings!

Wonderful Teen Conference

This is my good friend, Dr. Wiley Bennett. I got to see him at the Teen Convention at the Longview Baptist Temple in Longview, Texas. We had a wonderful week as we took ten people to the conference. The preaching was fantastic and many great decisions were being made by our teens. We even had one girl lead her first soul to Christ during the Wednesday night soul winning. There were six saved by the group of soul winners from our church. Over all the church had 191 souls saved that night during the soul winning! Amen and amen! Praise God for soul winning and for the Teen Convention!

The Ree Reh Family

We had a wonderful weekend with 10 public professions ofn faith being made and 6 following the Lord in believer's baptism. Some of those making a public profession of faith were from this Burmese family, the Ree Reh family. I am thankful for the opportunity that we have to reach such a diverse population of people here in our city. We had 126 in attendance this morning! Thank God for Calvary!

Itty Bitty Baptist

Today we started a new Sunday school class called the Itty Bitty Baptist. This class was split from the Shining Lights Class and is for 4 and 5 year olds. Mrs. Daniel Jager, our deacon's wife, is the teacher for this class. Overall we had a good Sunday with 109 in attendance this morning and 4 following in believer's baptism. This evening we had 54 in attendance with one following in believer's baptism. This past week we had 57 souls trust Christ as Saviour. Praise God for Sunday school, a great tool for reaching individuals!

Anniversary Sunday

This past Sunday was our anniversary Sunday. Our church is now eight years old since we started it on June 2, 2002. We had a good Sunday overall with four professions of faith and two who followed the Lord in believer's baptism. We also had forty-one souls saved this past week. In the evening service we had the children's group sing. Praise the Lord for eight great years. I am looking forward to eight more wonderful years.

Guest From Cuba!

This is Lizbet Domingez and her son, Jose, from Cuba. They have lived in America for three months and saw our church bus going by their apartment last week, so they flagged us down and asked us if they could come to church. Jose got baptized on Sunday, and had already been saved in Cuba. Lizbet had already been saved in a Baptist church in Cuba. They wanted to come because they saw the word Baptist on the bus. They know very little English but we had spanish soulwinners that were able to deal with them. Praise God for the way he works.