Texas IBS Graduation

 Earlier this week my son and I graduated from Texas Independent Baptist Seminary with our Master of Theology Degrees. It took 30 hours of course work and a 50,000 word Thesis paper in order for us to accomplish this task. It was a great honor to get the opportunity to be present for this graduation and to have both myself and my son graduating on the same day. This is not something one gets to experience very often in this life.

The pictures at the top are the graduates with the staff. The center picture is Bro. Jonathan and his wife Faith. Then at the bottom is me and my wife along with Dr. Bob Gray the 2nd. Before he presented me with my diploma, he spoke some very kind words regarding our friendship. I greatly appreciate Bro. Gray and all that he has done to be an encouragement to me. Yet, he was proclaiming that I have been an encouragement to him. He is a very kind and humble man. I thank the Lord for our friendship!

 Upon our return on Thursday we stopped by the church for a short period of time to do a few things in the office and then got ready for one of the main events every week. Thursday Night Church Wide Soul Winning! We had 26 soul winners out and 22 precious souls come to trust Christ as their Saviour. Thank God for a Saviour that still saves and a church that still goes. This Sunday we will be celebrating our 12 year anniversary of our church. Please pray for us to have a good Sunday!

Decisions Being Made on Memorial Day Weekend

This is Maria and Dominique who both got baptized on Sunday. Maria got saved during the invitation and Dominique got saved two weeks ago on a Thursday morning while I was out soul winning. There was also a child saved in junior church that morning. I was glad to see these decisions being made for Christ. I preached on "The Memory of the Christian's Death" on Sunday morning and "Fainthearted" on Sunday night.

25 Out and 25 Saved

 This is Carlos (on left) pictured with Blaise my soul winning partner this past Thursday night. Carlos accepted Christ as his personal Saviour tonight. He is a Brazilian and has lived in America about four years. He is supposed to come visit church this coming Sunday. He was very open to the Gospel and Blaise did a wonderful job presenting it to him. We had 25 soul winners out tonight and the same number saved! Praise God!

 Wednesday night the Children's choir sang for the first time. They did a wonderful job and I was very pleased to have the opportunity to hear them sing two songs. I love the young children in our church and I especially love to hear them sing. I believe the Lord was pleased as well as every parent. Amen!

Family Fun Night at the Park

We had a family fun night at Pioneers Park on Friday night. We had a good crowd of folks come out. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs to go with side dishes. Then we had a pie baking contest with a three judge panel. Mrs. Faith Painter took first place, Mrs. Lyn Painter took second place, and Mrs. Claudie Gaiser took third place. All the ladies that baked pies did a fantastic job. By the way first place got a $40 gift card to Russ's IGA, 2nd place got a $20 gift card to Russ's IGA, and third place got a pat on the back. (My gave the pat on the back. Ha!) After the contest we had dessert and then played some games before heading out about 9 PM. Everyone had a great time. It is nice to relax as a church before we get back into the battle for souls. Saturday came and we went visiting and soul winning getting to see 9 saved throughout the day. Looking forward to Sunday, God bless and have a good night.

Field Trip

We had our field trip last Saturday for the contest winners from Sunday Night 101. There were 11 who made the trip, but there were supposed to be 16. (Some could not make it.) We went to Omaha on Saturday afternoon to the Lauritzen Gardens. It was great fun as we toured through the many different gardens enjoying each one as we went. I enjoyed getting to spend time with our people. Sunday followed and the storms rolled into town including tornadoes. Our evening service was delayed. Overall one profession of faith was made.

Final Week of Sunday Night 101

 Pictured to the right is our new children's choir who were practicing Sunday evening before church. We will have them singing in a few weeks for the whole church. It is a blessing to see young people sing songs for the Lord. I am very thankful for all of these young people.
 Pictured below is Mrs. Faith Painter playing the violin while my daughter Rachel plays the piano for a offertory special on Sunday night. They did a great job!

 Overall I want to give God the Praise and Glory for our entire Sunday. We had much opposition from the Devil and we fell well short of our goals. However, I praise God for it anyway. I believe we should praise Him for the times when we make the goals. I also believe we should praise Him for the times when we don't make the goals. I know our people worked hard and I know that we prayed hard. I also know that we had a great day even without making our goal. We had three saved and two baptized, along with three other visitors. One of our visitors was a professor of physics. He is not saved and he knows it. However, he is coming back next week. Please pray that he will get saved! I lifted up Christ on Sunday, I know God is drawing this man. It will be up to him to accept Christ. I am praying he will.

Last Minute Preparations

This is the final week and weekend of Sunday Night 101. At this point it is later Saturday afternoon and there are several lined up for the baptism tomorrow already. We started off by having 24 out for soul winning Thursday night and having 15 saved. Glory to God for the good results in a rather tough neighborhood.

We are planning on having a great Lord's day in both the morning and the evening. I am preaching about Christ all day tomorrow and the morning sermon is called "What Do Those Beautiful Words Mean?" My text will be 1 John 3:1-3. I am excited about this message!

The Devil is going to working hard to stop us. We must battle the dreaded citywide marathon in the morning. I believe there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,000 runners in this thing tomorrow that starts at 7:00 AM. I encourage all of our members to leave early and make plans to get through the droves of runners as the route boxes our church in entirely. Some local "churches" actually cancel services and have church on Saturday night. I refuse to do this and always will!

After the services tomorrow morning we are having a teen fundraiser for the Texas youth conference trip. The teens will be selling beef hot dogs for $1.50, soda's for $.50, and yummy funnel cakes for $5.00 per plate. Remember it is a fundraiser for the teens. I do pray that most would be willing to participate.

Tomorrow night will be the final night of our contest. We are praying for 100 in attendance which would be a double increase of our Sunday night average. I am preaching a message called "Is It Religion or Is It Christ?"