Dedicated People

This past Thursday night was cold and rainy. Temperature was hovering at 30 degrees and the rain was steady. Yet, 19 of our people came out to go soul winning door to door in this weather. We were able to see 9 people make decisions to trust Christ as their Saviour. Brother Jonathan took a picture of a few our people that were out who sought a little refugee under a shelter while waiting for the rest of us to finish up. It takes a dedicated people to get the job done for God! Somebody say, AMEN!

TO EVERY NATION

We had our first Sunday of 2016. God blessed us by letting us see two Burmese refugees make professions of faith in Christ. We were also blessed with an American visitor. I preached in the morning service on "Keys for Success in Becoming a Life Changer in 2016."

With a new year we are kicking off a new program that we are calling "To Every Nation." We have divided our community into seven different regions of the globe and put in place regional leaders that will be responsible for reaching people from that region. The regional leaders are responsible to try and learn one or eventually more than one of the main languages spoken from that region of the globe. For example one leader speaks Swahili already and is going to be learning to speak French. Another leader is learning Spanish. Another is learning Burmese, etc and etc...

As the leaders reach more and more people from that group they are to recruit these people and organize them into classes for the language group from that area. Then they can use these people to help reach more others from that language group. This is only the first phase of three in regards to what we hope God will do with this ministry in the future. Please pray for God to use this to help us perfect what we have really already started doing and to eventually do even more.

Our Sunday morning crowd is already very diverse. The evening services are becoming more and more diverse all the time. God gave us a commission to reach every nation. Since we live in one of the bigger refugee relocation centers in the United States it seemed best for us to start right here at home!  

Last Sunday of 2015

Kelly getting baptized

Kelly got saved last Sunday and then followed the Lord in baptism this Sunday. It is always good to see new converts going forward in their faith. Please pray for Kelly to continue to be faithful to church and to grow in the Lord.

We had a pretty good day overall for a holiday weekend. I asked my son to take a picture of David and his wife Grace. They are from Africa and have been coming to our church for many years. David was sporting a new suit today, which I thought he looked pretty sharp so I had a picture taken of them. They were both saved many years ago through the personal soul winning efforts of our church. Grace was saved out of a false world religion and changed her name to Grace so she could have a Christian name. God is good to allow us to see these trophies of grace come through our church doors. Pray for their spiritual growth!

The Sunday Before Christmas...

Bro. Painter with Yien and his boys

Bro. Jonathan Painter led Yien and his two boys to Christ on Saturday and the father got baptized on Sunday. The boys are supposed to get baptized next Sunday. The wife and mother was sick today and could not come. I am always excited about reaching new families. God is doing some great things in the area of us reaching new families. Please pray for Yien and his family to experience much spiritual growth.

My 9 year old daughter getting the job done. 

Saw and Boh Boh Wah with their new church clothing

On Saturday one of our members sent me a picture of two of my daughters out visiting and soul winning. Here my 9 year old daughter Debbie is getting the job done handing out a Gospel tract. We should observe this and ask ourselves how we spent our Saturday this past week. Being a witness for Christ or just spending the day like most Fall Saturday's; raking our leaves? Only what is done for Christ will last. Just a few more years and it will all be over. We need to get busy getting the Gospel out to a needy world!


This is two of our riders on the Burmese refugee bus route. It is Saw and his younger brother Boh Boh Wah. They just got matching clothing for church and were pretty excited to wear it on Sunday. Boh Boh Wah looks excited in the picture, Saw does not. However, Saw was actually much more excited than the picture showed. Thank God for another great week and weekend at Lincoln Baptist Church!

Adaptability in Soul Winning

Missionary Saint Jomhong soul winning here last September

Last Thursday night I was out soul winning with my partner Say Nay Moo. While out soul winning we knocked on a door and had a Thai man answer the door who was named Sakda. Sadka is the first actual Thai man I have ever met in this city in the almost 14 years I have been here. We have many Burmese refugees here who use to live in refugee camps in Thailand, but before now not any actual Thai people. This man Sadka did not speak much English and my partner who speaks many languages, only spoke a little Thai. The man had acknowledge that he did not know he was going to heaven, but I was at a loss at how we could get him the Gospel...

Then it occurred to me that Missionary to Thailand; Saint Jomhong is still living in the United States. I had Saint's cell phone number and called him up. I told him what I was doing and that I had a man right in front of me from Thailand that was lost. I handed my phone to Sadka and Saint who speaks Thai fluently went right to work presenting the Gospel. After about ten minutes the man bowed his head and trusted Christ as his Saviour. Praise God!

Sometimes while out soul winning we have to adapt. I am glad Saint was available by phone and I am glad that I was able to think fast at the door. In this case our adaptability worked! Praise God for another soul going to Heaven!

GREAT CHRISTMAS PARTY

You had to get the ball through the wreath!

Some of our Ladies enjoying the party!

 We had a great Christmas party this past Friday night. We typically spend a lot of time soul winning and we preach and teach the Book pretty intensely, so it is nice to just relax and have fun sometimes.
  This year we had one of the best parties we have ever had. Great crowd for the party and a great spirit among the people that attended. I love having fellowship with people that love each other and people that truly love the Lord instead of themselves.
  We actually had a lot of new faces at the party this year and they all really enjoyed themselves! We served up some great food and played some really fun games. Adults love to play games! I am excited about finishing our year off strong and having the best year of soul winning and growth that we have ever had in 2016!

They had to hook the candy cane!

They had to sort through the boxes to see how bells are in each one!

What's Wrong with a Culturally Diverse Church?

Mrs. Painter with her visitors on Sunday morning. Ma Jee and her children.

Mrs. Painter hosted an activity to the Burmese refugee girls at our house.

Lincoln Baptist Church is culturally diverse. Our services are in English, however, we have people attend every week from all over world. We have a core of Americans, but a great outreach for refugees. For example this past Sunday morning we had two visiting couples that were from Congo and a Karen lady that came with her children. All first timers! We also had a Burmese couple and a Sudanese family return from the previous week. Praise God!

More activities from the Saturday get together.

However, it has been brought to my attention that some don't like the fact that our church is so culturally diverse. Might I say that God loves the souls of all men! In Matthew 28:19 He said, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the   Holy Ghost:" I think He meant all nations!!!

Folks, our church is not run like some conglomeration of multiple churches from different countries. We run our church like an independent, fundamental, KJB preaching and believing Baptist Church! What I cannot understand is why someone would want to support missionaries to go across the world to reach these same kind of people, but not want to go to church with them themselves! I will always oppose this Pharisee attitude that self righteous Christians carry with them while they sit on their blessed assurance and do nothing to reach a dying world!!!

The Bible tells us in Revelation 7:9,  "After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;" I'll bet that will be tough for some people! Image this, Christ loves everybody! Christ also wants every nation, kindred, people, and tongue reached in any given area. Christ had much love patience and tolerance for many different kinds of people. However, He had very little patience for self-righteous Pharisees. Those were the ones that we can see in the Scriptures that He criticized. God has been good to us so we are going to keep reaching everybody! Somebody say Amen!