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.  

Time Change Sunday

This is a picture of two of our fine ladies, Masoka (left) and May. Masoka and her family have been coming to our church since they moved to America from Congo (about four years ago). May and her husband moved to Lincoln from Kansas City about six months ago and are originally from Nigeria. They have actually lived in America for quite awhile, May is a registered nurse and her husband (not pictured) actually works for Immigration. I enjoy the opportunity I have to work with such an array of people from so many different backgrounds and cultures. I would have never imagined how much I would love it, before God prepared my heart for such a ministry.

Overall we had a pretty good Sunday as we sort of kicked off our "Old School" Bible conference. The attendance was not bad considering that it was time change (daylight savings) Sunday. That is always a beating for us because we have so many people from other countries coming and they often times don't understand the time change concept. I was excited that one of my converts from two Thursday nights ago came and made a public profession of faith in Christ. It was a tremendous blessing to see the fruits of my labor from a record cold Thursday night when many did not feel like going soul winning!

Speaking of our conference, we will be having Dr. Bob Gray the 2nd from Longview, Texas preaching for us on Monday night and on Tuesday night at 7 pm. We are excited to have him here and expect to receive greatly from the truths that he delivers to us from the Lord. Be sure to come out and be with us on Monday and Tuesday night.

Don't Forget the "Old School"

We had a good service Wednesday night with me teaching a Bible study on the "Role of the New Testament Baptist Church." We have been teaching our doctrinal statement for our yearly theme of "Back to the Basics" and right now spending some time teaching on the church.

Thursday night we went soul winning with 25 soul winners out on the bus. We covered the Regency Apartment Complex and had seven trust Christ as their Saviour. That actually wasn't too bad for just going to one complex with everybody. The wonderful thing about it is that every single soul that comes to trust Christ is precious to God.

Next Monday and Tuesday we have our "Old School" conference. I am very excited about having Dr. Bob Gray the 2nd as our special guest speaker for it. He is becoming more popular all the time as a speaker and we are honored to be able to have him come speak for us here at our church.

Dr. Gray the 2nd is the pastor of the Longview Baptist Temple in Longview, Texas. That is my home church and the church that Lincoln Baptist Church was birthed by and out of back in 2002. Dr. Gray the 2nd's father, Dr. Bob Gray Sr. was my pastor back then. However, I still served under Dr. Bob Gray the 2nd through the church and the college. I remember the years I spent in Longview with much fondness, and am grateful for the influence I gain from Dr. Gray the 2nd and all of the many fine mentors I had there. I do pray you will be able to make our conference starting Monday night at 7 PM.

One last thing I would like to mention is a prayer request for Sam Smith. He is a young man from Heritage Baptist Church in Lawrence, Kansas who was in a bad accident involving a semi truck yesterday (Thursday). He has seventeen broken bones and is in surgery today. He is the brother of Faith Smith whom is soon to marry my son, Brother Jonathan. Please pray for his recovery and for the family during these difficult times.  

This is Brother Ed Fauth who is a 86 years old and a faithful member of our church. He went 'out' back in January with a bad infection. It made him very weak and caused him to have to go to a nursing home/rehab hospital for four weeks. He just got out a few days ago and couldn't wait to get back to church. One of his jobs at the church is to work in the kitchen handing out doughnuts and coffee before Sunday school. He wasn't really supposed to be standing that long, but insisted on being back at his post. Once he was down there he told me that "now everything is in order because I got my building back." By building he meant 'spot.' I decided to take a picture of him. He was also back on Sunday night for church. I told him he was like the "Comeback Kid." Praise God for faithful people like Brother Fauth!

Speaking of Sunday, Brother Fauth chose one of the coldest ones of the year to make his return. It was -4 degrees on Sunday morning with -27 degree wind chill factor. We had church and we ran our bus route. It was a low attendance day overall, but a great spirit abounded and we even had a visiting couple come in. One of my members told me that there were 25 churches in our town that had canceled church that morning. That is ridiculous! I never even had that though cross my mind.

Sunday night we had a good service as well. The temperatures were supposed to drop to -10 overnight, but we keep it warm inside the building, between the furnace and the preaching. We had 42 folks here in attendance with a good spirit. I preached a message called "The Lions Are Lacking." There was a great response as I preached that message primarily from Psalm 34:10. I challenged our people to "seek the Lord." The altars were full at the invitation. I am looking forward to our Wednesday night Bible study as we continue our "Back to the Basics Theme."