New Beginnings

My wife and I are first time ever grandparents and are very excited to see our first one come into this world after a long weekend (for the parents) of wrestling with getting this one out! This is my wife pictured with our new granddaughter, Allysa Rose. She was born at 2:02 AM on February 2nd. It is precious to see a new birth take place and new life come into this world. We couldn't be more pleased to have an addition to the Painter family!

This new birth also reminds me of the other opportunities we have in this life to see the new birth or a new beginning take place. Of course, there is a precious baby like this one. Then there is the opportunity we have to see a soul get born again. The spiritual new birth is a precious thing to see, it is a spiritual new born babe according to the Bible. It is also a new beginning representing new life for the individual that trust Christ. Praise God for every soul that gets saved!

The new beginning also reminds me of the fresh start our church has recently enjoyed. We had gone through some much needed changes at the end of 2014 that I am sure many thought may not be for the best. However, the opposite has been true. We have enjoyed five straight weeks of some of the best offerings we have ever seen. More than meeting our church budget each week has been a very encouraging thing to me. Besides the finances the over all spirit of our church has been the best it has ever been since the beginning of our church. God has created an excitement and refreshing spirit in our Sunday school department, our music ministry, our workers meetings, our ladies meetings, etc... It has truly been refreshing.

Our theme for the year is "Christ is..." it has created excitement at every level. Our people our excited, our soul winning bus has had the best spirit I can ever remember. Truly the Lord has lifted a great burden from our church and I am excited to shout it from the mountain tops! I look forward to this year being a year of New Beginning for the Lincoln Baptist Church!

The Highways and the Hedges

There are souls in need of Christ everywhere. Here is a long distance picture of one of our bus captains leading three souls to Christ on Sunday afternoon. Our bus captain is the one in the black jacket. He led these three gentlemen to Christ while taking his bus route home after the morning services. We must be ever ready to present the Gospel on a moments notice.

While our bus director was sending me this picture I was at a grocery store with my wife after we had just dropped off some people after church services. While in the store I ran into a man who graduated high school with me many years ago. He is a business owner here in our town and although I was not able to win him to Christ, I was able to give him a Gospel tract and give him something to think about. You never know, he may be saved one day in the near future too.

Folks, I implore you to be ever ready to sow the seed, water the seed, and reap the harvest whenever we possibly can. There is only a little time left to get souls saved before our Saviour returns!

Making Something Happen

This past Saturday I was out visiting with my two youngest daughters. It was a cold Saturday morning and we had just made a visit in an apartment building. We went down to the next level and I stopped at a door and knocked. My girls asked me, "Do you know the person who lives here?" I said to them, "No." They said, "Then why are we knocking on the door?" I said, "Because it has been a slow morning." They said, "Huh?" I said, "It has been slow this morning, so it is time to make something happen!" They looked confused and about that time a man named David answered the door. I witnessed to him and was able to lead him to Christ. Praise God for that!

After we left, I explained to my girls that sometimes when we are out visiting on a cold morning we have to create some excitement ourselves. We try to promote an aggressive soul winning program at our church and in doing so we really want our teachers and bus captains looking for people to win while out making their visits. That morning was cold and difficult to find people, so we just hit a door of someone we don't know in order to make something happen. It worked. Then we lead another one about 30 minutes later at another place. God is good when we work hard.

My wife also had one saved on Saturday afternoon. Becky came and got baptized on Sunday morning. Please pray for her spiritual growth! We also had two others saved during the morning service and they made public professions of faith. Let's make something happen!!!!

Good Final Sunday of 2014

We had a good final Sunday to the year of 2014. The overall attendance was low, but the visitors were high. We had 5 public professions of faith made with one following the Lord in believers baptism. I am glad about getting the opportunity see another year through all the way to the end here at Lincoln Baptist Church.

God blessed our soul winning efforts on Saturday with us getting to see 13 souls come to the Saviour during our Saturday bus calling and class visiting. I look forward to seeing the greatest year ever in our church in 2015. The sky is the limit if we go forward by faith! God bless everyone and have a Happy New Year!

Visiting Missionary is a Blessing

This past weekend we had one of our missionaries visiting with us. It was Charles Schildnecht our missionary to Thailand. He and his wife came out soul winning with us on Saturday and he is pictured here leading a Vietnamese man to Christ. I had the extreme pleasure of watching and listening to him later in the day lead a Karen man to Christ in the Thai language. He and his wife both speak Thai.

Interestingly enough his wife can speak Spanish fluently as well. She and my wife met a lady from Angolia who spoke Portuguese, but could understand Spanish. Mrs. Schildnecht witnessed to her in Spanish, but said, she was mixing in some Thai by accident. Ha! Getting her languages confused!!!

Having the Schildnechts here was a great blessing. He preached on Sunday night and gave much testimony of the great things that God has done. The man has a great heart for the Thai people and we are happy to support him. He will be heading back in July and starting a church. I look forward to seeing the great things that the Lord will do through them.

Beka's Converts

This is my daughter Beka and her converts from Thursday night soul winning. (From left to right.) The boy on the end is Sa Paw, then Wa Way Paw, then Say Kay Paw, then Marry Paw, and then my daughter. Marry Paw was actually my convert from Saturday and a neighbor to the others who are all siblings. My daughter Beka won them to Christ Thursday night and was excited to bring them to church on Sunday as her visitors. These are Karen children and they rode the Karen Van route that we have recently started. We actually had 14 on that Karen route this week, which was really good.

These Karen people originate from Burma and one of my heroes of the faith Adoniram Judson was one of the first people to ever reach them back in the early 1800's. One might wonder what is so special about these people, but all people are special to God. I promise you this, God will bless us for reaching these people and caring about them. I also consider it a privilege to reach people that the great missionary Judson tried to reach.

Today was Bible Sunday and I preached about the Bible all day. This morning I taught on the King James Bible and what is wrong with all these other versions. One of our people came to me after wards and said, "Thanks, I never knew that, now I know the truth." That is great when you can help someone grow in the faith!

The Weather Cannot Hamper the Truth

Winter has come early this year with freezing temperatures dipping all the way into the single digits. However, we had a faithful crew of 28 people out on Thursday night last week to face a 9 degree temperature. We ended the night having 18 saved! Praise God!

Then Saturday the cold brought with it a snow storm. We received a couple of inches through the day, but we had almost 20 folks out to visit Sunday school classes and bus routes. My wife and I each had one saved out in the snow showers that morning. Our overall group saw 8 saved. Once again, praise God!

Then on Sunday our attendance dropped to 116 people who ventured out to face the snowy streets. However, we did have one girl who got saved several weeks ago, follow the Lord in believer's baptism. For the third time, praise God! He is good!