Missionaries that are supported by the Windsor Hills Baptist Church just received a letter from Katie Tuttle. They are asking for your prayers for Pastor Vineyard. Brother Vineyard and his church have been greatly used of God for the cause of world evangelism. Would you please take some time to pray for him. Below you will see a copy of the actual letter. Click here to visit the church’s website.
October 28, 2006
Dear Folks,
Dr. Vineyard wanted me to email everyone to ask you to pray for him. He is in the Mercy Hospital and is in very bad shape. He is in need of your prayers.
Our work is cut out for us both around the world and here in the US.
Vision needs and plans to reach and influence the world by building a strong Bible preaching, Bible practicing church that will change the way people think, equip, and then enable people to lead and impact the world in every area of life.
Our prayer is to build a church that the world cannot ignore.
We want a church where lives are changed, people are saved, and the altars are filled with people each service as they get saved, get right, and or grow in maturity.
We cannot accomplish this on our own. God must do it. We need Holy Spirit power so we must be a praying people.
Our pulpit and people must give a message that is so clear that lives are changed forever.
We must build a church that loves people, all people from every walk of life. They will come with lots of problems and needs but we want to be here with the gospel message, hope and love.
We are looking for high committment people that are willing to pay the price to make a difference in people’s lives all over the world.
We will start with you where you are but our goal is to make you a person that will make a difference. A person that will impact others for God and good.
We are and desire to be more of a church that will raise up and actively train leaders to take the gospel message to the entire world in this generation.
Our focus is to glorify God by preaching His name all over the world in the power of the Holy Spirit as we fulfill the Great Commission.
And now the article:
How many Americans go to church regularly?
If you listen to the answers provided by major opinion research firms, the answer usually hovers around 40%. (National Opinion Research Center: 38%; Institute for Social Research’s World Values: 44%; Barna: 41%; National Election Studies: 40%; Gallup: 41%.)
But in recent years this consensus has been challenged. It seems that it’s more accurate to say that 40% of Americans claim to attend church regularly.
In 1998, sociologist Stanley Presser at the University of Michigan—whose “research focuses on questionnaire design and testing, the accuracy of survey responses, and ethical issues stemming from the use of human subjects”—co-authored a study entitled: “Data Collection Mode and Social Desirability Bias in Self-Reported Religious Attendance,” American Sociological Review, v. 63 (1998): 137-145 (with L. Stinson). Comparing diaries with actual attendance, they made the estimate that the actual percentage of Americans attending church from the mid-1960’s to the 90’s was about 26%.
One of the problem comes in how the question is asked in a poll. Different questions yield different results. For example, in a survey you might ask, “What did you do last weekend?” listing for the person a number of possible activities, including church-going. This will yield a very different response than if you asked, “Did you attend church last Sunday?”
One factor is that people often answer according to what they think someone like them wants or ought to do. So people tend to overreport on the number of sexual partners they’ve had and how much money they give to charity, and tend to underreport on illegal drug use and the like. Hence, church attendance is often inflated.
In 1998 C. Kirk Hadaway and P.L. Marler published an article in the Christian Century entitled, Did You Really Go To Church This Week? Behind the Poll Data where they examine many of these factors. The authors focused on individual counties in the US and Canada, surveying actual church/synagogue attendance and comparing it with random surveys they were conducting. They found that actual church attendance was about half the rate indicated by national public opinion polls. Their estimate for US actual church attendance is around 20%.
Dave Olson, director of church planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church, surveying only Christian churches (i.e., evangelical, mainline, and Catholic) has come up with a similar number. The percentage of Americans regularly attending church is 18.7%.
Olson has collected his findings in an eye-opening slide-show entitled Twelve Surprising Facts about the US Church. The 12 points cannot be copied and pasted, so I’ve reprinted them below, along with links to his charts and maps.
I just read a book review on another blog that I read everyday. I have not purchased the book yet but will be ordering it today from Amazon. I like SharperIron quite a bit though do confess that I do not always agree with everything but then I do not agree with myself after a day or two sometimes and so that isn’t much of a qualifying statement. I wanted to give you the first couple of paragraphs to get you interested and then let you click over to their blog and read the rest. I do want Vision Baptist Church to be a church for all people. I do find it very hypocritical to have a church with a world vision and a desire to reach all the world and all peoples that is afraid to have them in the church with them. I find it quite wicked to desire to send a missionary to a black man in Africa and yet not cross the street to win the black man on the other side of the street. So far God has given our church a tremendous attitude it seems. I do not mean that it couldn’t get better because I am sure that there is always room for improvement but we are reaching out to one and all and loving it. Read the following and let me know what you think at church the next time we see each other:
According to at least one disgruntled vandal, I reside in the “MOST CORRUPT AND PREJUDICE CITY IN THE USA.” If this marquee at an abandoned theater tells the truth, Rockford seems to be an unlikely spot for a racially and culturally diverse congregation.
Whether it’s hung out on theater marquees or hiding just under our own upturned noses, the reality is no less real. With very few exceptions, churches today are segregated, and, contrary to what we biblical separatists would wish to believe, the lines of division are not always doctrinal, but racial and cultural. Corporate fellowship with “other” races and cultures is an exception rather than the rule. When we do accumulate a few minorities in our congregations or institutions, they’re treated almost as celebrities—poster children—walking proof that “no, we’re not!” Aren’t we?
I do not know much about A. Charles Ware, which is slightly appalling, since I grew up in his neck of Indiana. That I’d barely heard of him prior to reading his book makes me wonder just how “outside” of “our” circles he is—and what I’ve learned of him since makes me wonder just why.
Dr. Ware is also black. He has written a book titled Prejudice and the People of God. I have two policies when it comes to books: 1. I never bash a book I haven’t read. Ok, well, almost never. Rarely. I imagine the unread books I’ve bashed are books you have bashed a priori, too. (The old “you don’t have to try drugs to know they’re bad” theory.)
2. I always judge a book by its cover. In the visual marketing sense, I certainly plead guilty to prejudice. For this book, there is another cover out there, but I prefer this one.
After reading Prejudice and the People of God last weekend, I think that the primary thing I don’t appreciate about Dr. Ware is his directing his church’s Katrina relief to the Salvation Army rather than to Global Grace.
The man loves the Bible. His perspective on the sin of racism is informed primarily by his saturation in the Word and honed by his preeminent allegiance to the God of the Word. It is because he esteems the fundamentals of the faith so highly that he promotes racial reconciliation among believers so persistently. He does not use the platform of this book merely as a soapbox for his social agenda. He showcases the Gospel and springboards from it to gives us a glimpse of how the people of God could and should love if the Gospel is to be lived out and if God is to be glorified in His Church (”glorified” in word, but also in deed and truth).
Dr. Ware’s book is balanced. For the first half of Prejudice and the People of God, I deliberately avoided finding out whether Dr. Ware is black or white, and it was not hard to stay in the dark. Preferences or a leaning favoritism were not blatant in his writing, and there was little if any evident reference to his own skin color until nearly the end of the book. He is truly a gentleman and a scholar.
I was very excited to get a forwarded email telling about a new ministry that Crown College and Pastor Clarence Sexton are developing. I am so excited about what they will do and what they will be able to accomplish. God can use them in a great way. They have great potential. These are some of the excerpts from the letter from Scott Pauley that truly excite me for what God is going to do in and through them:
“Pastor Sexton has just presented a special campaign to evangelize our world in this generation…” They have started a website that you can look at www.theroyalcrusade.com. They have asked that people help to get the word out to others who have a burden to reach the lost for Christ.
Please pray for Dr Sexton, Crown College and their new campaign.
“In case you didn’t know, census results put the number of college and university students in the US near 16.6 million. That includes full-time, part-time, undergrad and graduate students. But the more stunning number comes from the Freshman Norms, the CRIP survey given each year to tens of thousands of incoming freshman at the nation’s two and four year schools. Among other things it asks, “Do you consider yourself to be a born again Christian?”
Sure, it’s a loaded question, especially in areas removed from the south. But, Jesus did, in fact, use the words Himself in describing what happens when we are reconnected to God. Staggeringly, every year close to 78% say “No.”
Each year 8 of every 10 students in the US say, “NO, I am NOT a born again Christian!”
Of course that number is balanced by the Universitys of Georgia out there that have an abundance of people saying “Yes.” (Which is great!) Balanced by the the ocean of campuses where those actively following Jesus is maybe 1-2% of the entire student body.”
As I consider these statistics I am alarmed. We are not accomplishing our job as a church or as Christians. I want to ask you to pray for these young people. I want to ask you to help me try to reach these young people with the gospel message. In one of the comments added to this blog I found this:
“Basically… those numbers mean that potentially, 80% of college freshmen made it through middle school and high school without someone coming along side of them and sharing the love of Jesus with them, and not giving up on them at first rejection.
To all the middle school workers out there… all the high school workers out there… I say, let’s get out there and love on some students and tell them about Jesus, so that one day that 78% would begin to decline.”
We live in the middle of a very needy people, yet we are unable to make much of a difference because as adults and leaders we are often low committment. We are not willing to pay the price to make a difference in men and women’s lives nor in the lives of these college students. Will we rise to the challenge?
They will not appreciate us. They will say hurtful things. They will reject the messager and even the messenge. Will we decide now to make a real difference, an eternal difference in lives for His honor and glory.
Fifty-three percent of high school teen girls are sexually active. Over half of all teenagers are active alcoholic drinkers. Thirty-three percent of high school students smoke regularly. Fourteen percent have tried marijuana. Every day 1,106 teens have abortions, 135,000 carry a gun to school, 10 are killed by guns, 54 are infected by AIDS, and 6 commit suicide (USN&WR).
The following was sent to me by Mark Tolson. For those who pass out gospel tracts I think you will find it interesting to say the least.
Tract distributors are sometimes hindered in their work by town and city officials. Sometimes they are forbidden to give out Christian literature from house to house. Many towns and cities have passed ordinances against such distribution.
In the light of a Supreme Court decision, such ordinances are wrong; and ANY LOCAL OFFICIAL WHO STOPS TRACT DISTRIBUTION HAS NOT ONLY GONE BEYOND HIS POWER, BUT HAS INTERFERED WITH THE LIBERTY OF THE DISTRIBUTOR.
In an opinion rendered by Chief Justice, the Honorable Charles E. Hughes, on March 28, 1938, in the case of Lovell versus the City of Griffin, Georgia, the following was said:
The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. Liberty of circulation is as essential to that freedom as liberty of publishing. Indeed, without the circulation, the publication would be of little value.”
Since that decision of March, 1938, other cities have enacted laws defining the prescribed literature and specifying times and places. The Supreme Court has called these also illegal: it voided three city ordinances prohibiting the distribution of handbills because they littered the streets, and a municipal law requiring permits for door-to-door canvasing.
The appeals to the high court came from Los Angeles and from Worcester, Mass. where persons had been arrested for distributing meeting announcements, also from Irvington, N.J.
The tribunal’s 7-to-1 decision, Justice McReynolds dissented, was delivered by Justice Roberts. a municipality, the court ruled, may enact “regulations in the interest of public safety, health, welfare, or convenience,” but may not deprive anyone of his civil rights to circulate information and opinion. To prevent littering, cities must punish those who actually throw papers on the streets. The Irvington law, the court declared, was not limited to those who canvass for personal profit to everyone - including “one who wishes to present his views on political, social, or economic questions” - and such censorship through license “strikes at the very heart of the constitutional guarantees.”
With legal approval plus divine sanction, tract workers may spread the name and fame of the Lord Jesus Christ from door to door and shore to shore by printed page.
The freedom of press and of religion is guaranteed to us by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution. One who is rightfully on a street which the state has left open to the public carries with him there as elsewhere the constitutional right to express his views in an orderly fashion.. This right extends to the communication of ideas by handbills and literature as well as by the spoken word.
Tract distributors should carry the above with them; it might help out in an emergency. You are not a criminal but a Christian about your Master’s business. However, he would be kind and courteous, although firm and fearless.
Gospel tracts and personal work are the simplest forms of Christian work and a work that everyone can do. They are also the most effective methods of winning souls. They accomplish great things for God and provide a great opportunity, a great open door to reach the lost.
Four Christian missionaries in Kenya have been charged with incitement to violence for distributing pamphlets considered anti-Muslim. U.S. nationals Andrew Saucier and Paul Garcia and Kenyans Michael Mullei and Patrick Mutinda were arrested on Oct. 18 in Ngong after distributing pamphlets outside a primary school the previous day. The literature read, “Prophet Mohammed is not a true prophet” and “Allah had no son,“ prompting angry Muslims to protest outside the Calvary Baptist Church where the four missionaries serve. As the trial for the four began on Monday, Oct. 23, police were forced to fire live rounds and teargas above the heads of the crowd to disperse the protesters, forcing the court to adjourn the hearing. Magistrate Hellen Wasilwa warned the lawyers for the Islamic community, saying, “The court wants peace as it hears the case. They are not conducting themselves in orderly manner and they have jammed the court.” If convicted, the four could face fines and up to three years in prison. They are currently free on bail. (Evangelical News/ Voice of the Martyrs)
Last night we got a call pretty late that Lelia had fallen and done pretty severe damage to her teeth. She had to go to an emergency dentist, be put to sleep, get some braces put on her teeth, etc. to get help. Will you please pray for her and her parents, Joy and Julio. We do not have all the details but were sure scared and worried last night. Chris just called to tell us that things were looking better this morning but I would still like to ask you to pray. Lelia will be 2 years old in January and is a sweet little girl. Thank you for praying for her and her family.
David Lundy, International Construction Team leader for Businessmen Committed to World Evangelism, lead a building team of 3 men with offerings from Businessmen to Arequipa to build a roof for Pastor Percy Lopez and his church. Here you will find some pictures of their Dedication Sunday of a couple of weeks ago. I thought you might like to see what this group of men do in their ministry to get the gospel to the world. This is only a small part of what they do but you will see happy faces of people thankful to God for help getting a place to worship. The original piece of land was also purchased by Businessmen Committed to World Evangelism.
Special meeting to dedicate the building with a total attendance of 93 people. God is blessing the church and the gospel is being preached to an entire community through the ministry of this church.
Here my wife, Betty, daughter in law, Andria, and daughter Joy are present to thank God for the new building.
Children’s class in the new building. Jacob and Hannah are enjoying the class with the other children. They are the children of Chris and Andria Gardner, missionaries in Arequipa sent out by Vision Baptist Church.
Chris preaching on this special Dedication Sunday.
There is still room to grow.
The view from the pulpit and the platform.
Thank you David, ICT and BCWE for all that you have done for this church. Thank you for your heart for the world. God is grealty using Businessmen Committed to World Evangelism and we are proud to be the home church for both John and David.
Notice the size of the beams in the roof. This roof also will serve as the floor to the second level when God gives them the money to continue bulding.
Be sure to check out the web page for Businessmen Committed to World Evangelism and also the Peru Bible College. There would be no preachers to start and pastor these churches if it were not for the missionaries and other pastors that win them and then train them to do the work. Thank you for all your help through our church. I thank God for all the great pastors and churches that have supported me and other missionaries all over the world carrying the gospel to the uttermost parts of the world.
