God is moving in Northern Ireland. We have seen God doing some really exciting things in the lives of Travis and Teri Snode. They are our own staff missionaries from Vision Baptist Church. It was exciting today to get another report from that area of the world and see what God is doing.
Stephen and April Baker are there for a few short months helping Martin Wickens. God is really moving. Several teens have accepted the Lord Jesus and surrendered their lives to Him. Here is a picture of the meeting after they got saved.
They came back to the church. They seem to be genuinely interested in the gospel. This is an act of God. I hope you will take the time to click here and go read what God is doing through Stephen and April Baker. Brother Tony was there for the start of this move of God. What an awesome privilege. April was a member of our church before she married.
Tonight I had the privilege of preaching in the Youth Meeting at the Iglesia Bautista Vision (Vision Baptist Church, Pastor Kevin White) in Cochabamba, Bolivia. We had about 30 young people from 16 and up and the average age was about 20.
Then the group from Peru came in and I was able to see them, give them all a hug and sit and talk for about an hour. That was a wonderful time.
I also went to the airport to pick up Jeff Bush–our missionary to Argentina. He is sitting right here with me. It is always a blessing to see him.
You are not going to believe the pizza that we are about to eat. It is from a place called Eli’s. It comes in a square box that is about 32 inches by 32 inches. The biggest pizza box that I have ever seen.
Thanks for praying for the meeting here and for being in your place at Vision. I was also excited to hear of the good times the men had at the golf outing with Victory Baptist. I hope we can do it again when I am able to be there.
Greetings from Cochabamba and the home of our missionaries Kevin and Beth White. Last night I arrived at the airport here after midnight. There were several of the people from the church and ministry waiting for us as a welcome committee. Jorge and Jennie Montenegro also work here and are a great blessing. They were waiting at the airport last night.
Tonight we will have a youth meeting and then tomorrow we start the Family Conference. Please do not forget to pray.
I am excited about Brother Tony preaching on Sunday. He will be loaded for bear–I am sure that you have heard by now that they saw 10 people saved in Northern Ireland with Stephen Baker.
I pray that several of you are wanting to know what God wants you to do with your life! You know that God might want you to take the gospel to some part of the world. Well here are some thoughts that might help you on the way!
1. Find God’s perfect will for your life, primarily through His Word, but also through the desires that He puts in your heart, through the preaching of the Word of God, through other Christians, through circumstances, and through a peace that only God can give you.
2. Begin praying for the world. Pray over maps of the world. Study about countries, places, and peoples until God leads you specifically.
3. Talk to your pastor about the burden and call that God has given you. God will give Him much wisdom and insight about specific direction that you should take.
4. If possible, go on a trip to the place where God has called you. Many times God will confirm that call one way or the other when you see it a place and talk to the people.
5. Make preparations to go to the field. No doctor, lawyer, or dentist begins work without training, and neither should a missionary. The best place to get this training is in your church and on the field. You need to get involved in the ministries of your church. Learn all that you can there. Then you should, if at all possible go to the field for an extended period of time, such as six months to a year, to train under a missionary who is getting the job done. (The Our Generation Training Center has all students study for the field on the field)
6. After you have been trained, you should decide if you are going to need the help of a mission agency in your endeavor. A mission agency that exists as a mere handmaiden to the church is one that you should look for it. It should not take the place of your pastor or usurp the authority of the local church, but should simply help your church send you.
7. Then, you will need to begin raising support for the work. There are many ways to raise support, but the Biblical way is for God’s people to support you, because you are (or should be) doing God’s work. Deputation is the process that many missionaries go through to get to the field. This a great way to not only raise financial support, but prayer support, as well as encourage others to get involved in world evangelism.
8. Finally, you will need to go through all of the meticulous details that will be required to live on the
particular field where God has called you, such as getting your Visa and passport, buying needed clothes, furniture, books, and saving money to buy a house, car, and other things that you will need once you arrive on the field.
Well I left the house today at 4:10 in the afternoon on the way to Cochabamba, Bolivia. The first flight went great and I arrived in Miami. After getting my bag I went to Aero Sur to check in on the way to Santa Cruz and then on to Cochabamba.
Arriving at the counter it seemed that things weren’t going to well–people agitated and fussing. I was told that my flight had been canceled and so after waiting for a long time I finally was given a room to spend the night and show up tomorrow at noon for a 3 pm flight on American Airlines.
Lord willing I will leave tomorrow afternoon and be at Kevin White’s house around midnight. We do have time to still get there on time for the meetings that start on Sunday morning and go through Wednesday night.
I will be with Kevin and Beth White. They are our missionaries to Bolivia. I will be doing a family conference on Sunday and then Monday and Tuesday night. Lord willing on Wednesday night I will be getting on my first of 3 flights back to our church services on Thursday night.
During the day I will be teaching in a Pastor’s and workers conference. I am really looking forward to being with Kevin and Jorge Montenegro who comes from our church in Peru.
I also understand that Jeff Bush will be coming to the conference from Argentina along with about 10 people from Peru. I think we are going to have a great time.
I want to ask you to pray for me that I will be used of God and that I will honor Him and His Word. I will miss you this Sunday but I know that God will work at Vision through Tony Howeth.
I praise the Lord for the good services He gave you tonight at our church. Very good attendance for us –124– and I hear that Chris did a great job preaching.
I know that you enjoyed the service tonight with Chris Gardner–your own staff missionary from Vision Baptist Church. I am so glad that you got to spend some time with your missionary and I hope that you get to know him personally.
Also I invite you to keep up with Travis and Teri Snode –also staff missionaries of our church as they travel across North Africa.
I will keep you posted as I make my way to Bolivia. I hope that God blesses on both ends of the world this Sunday and coming week.
I just wanted to remind you of something very important. We can’t go over the same things over and over so I wanted to just post this so that you could use it in your ministry at Vision. We wrote these rules up as a tool to help us reach and keep more people. I hope you like them and can use them. I would love your comments on this when you get a chance just click below and tell me what you think.
1. The three minute rule. We are not to speak to someone we know in the first three minutes after the service. We must seek out first attenders or guests and greet them.
2. Never ask if they are a visitor or if it is there first time. Just ask how long they have been at Vision. That way you do not offend the visitor or first attender.
3. Be sure to help the first attender find the bathroom, classrooms etc so that they can feel at home
4. Be sure they know where the nursery is
5. Learn their name
6. Introduce the guest to the pastoral staff and other friends
7. Be seated with the guest if it seems to be agreeable to them
8. Give them a tour of the church
9. Be sure to get all the information you can without being intrusive or nosy
10. Be sure that he gets a visit, card or call from you and the church during the week
11. Pray for the first attender during the service and until God saves him
12. Ask if he has questions, doubts, etc
13. Shake hands warmly and look him in the eye
14. Be sure that their children know where to go for Sunday School or children’s church etc
15. Be aware if he shows interest in being saved during the service
16. Take the first attender to the welcome center and then to meet the pastor in the guest reception
17. Make personal notes of their names and anything you spoke about so you can call them by name the next time they attend.
This comes from one of the many blogs that I read. I have not read the book and do not know the author but the lesson given here is wonderful and so I will want to get the book. I hope that those of you that serve here at Vision Baptist Church will take the “Heart of the Artist” and feel that you have a “Holy Calling” rather than just be a volunteer. Comment and let me know what you think of this!
In his book entitled “Heart of the Artist” Rory Noland poses that your ministry teams must not be merely Volunteers but must have a “Holy Calling” on their lives for that specific ministry.
Below is his list of differences between “Volunteers” and people with a “Holy Calling”.
1. Volunteers see their involvement at church as community service, but people called of God see it as ministry.
2. Volunteers whine about what it’s going to cost to serve, but people called are committed to serving.
3. Volunteers shrink back from resolving relational conflict, but people called of God seek to resolve
relational conflict for the sake of unity in the church.
4. Volunteers look upon rehearsal as another commitment they’re obligated to fulfill, but people called of God look forward to rehearsal as another opportunity to be used by God.
5. Volunteers do no outside practicing or preparation, but people who are called of God come to rehearsals and a performance as prepared as possible.
6. Volunteers are not open to constructive criticism; they get defensive about it. But people of God are grateful for feedback because they want to be the best they can be.
7. Volunteers feel threatened by the talent of others, but people called of God Praise Him for distributing gifts and talents as He chooses.
8. Volunteers want to quit at the first sign of adversity or discouragement, but people called of God dig in and persevere.
9. Volunteers find their main source of fulfillment in their talents and abilities, but people called of God know that being used of God is the most fulfilling thing you can do with your life.
10. Volunteers can’t handle begin put in situations in which they’re going to be stretched, but people called of God respond to God’s call with humble dependence on Him.
Look at Jesus, dead, buried, risen, and then say, “He loved me, and gave himself for me”! There is no restorative for a sinking faith like a sight of the wounded Savior. Look, soul, and live by the proofs of his death! Come and put thy finger, by faith, into the print of the nails, and these wounds shall heal thee of unbelief. The wounds of our Lord are the tokens of his love.
They are, again, the seals of his death, especially that wound in his side. He must have died; for “one of the soldiers, with a spear, pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare witness.”
The Son of God did assuredly die. God, who made the heavens and the earth, took to himself our nature, and in one wondrous person he was both God and man; and lo! this wondrous Son of God bore sufferings unutterable, and consummated all by his death. This is our comfort, for if he died in our stead, then we shall not die for our sins; our transgression is put away, and our iniquity is pardoned. If the sacrifice had never been slain, we might despair; but since the spear-wound proves that the great Sacrifice really died, despair is slain, hope revives, and confidence rejoices.
The wounds of Jesus, next, are the marks of identity. By these we identify his blessed person after his resurrection. The very Christ that died has risen again. There is no illusion: there could be no mistake. It is not somebody else foisted upon us in his place; but Jesus who died has left the dead, for there are the marks of the crucifixion in his hands and in his feet, and there is the spear-thrust still. It is Jesus: this same Jesus.
This is a matter of great comfort to a Christianthis indisputably proven doctrine of the resurrection of our Lord. It is the keystone of the gospel arch. Take that away, or doubt it, and there remains nothing to console you. But because Jesus died and in the selfsame person rose again, and ever lives, therefore does our heart sweetly rest, believing that “them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him”; and also that the whole of the work of Jesus is true, is completed, and is accepted of God.
Again, those wounds, those scars of our Lord, were the memorials of his love to his people. They set forth his love so that his chosen can see the tokens; but they are also memorials to himself. He condescendingly bears these as his reminders. In heaven, at this moment, upon the person of our blessed Lord, there are the scars of his. crucifixion. Centuries have gone by, and yet he looks like a Lamb that has been slain. Our first glance will assure us that this is he of whom they said, “Crucify him; crucify him.” Steadily look with the eyes of your faith into the glory, and see your Master’s wounds, and say within yourself, “He has compassion upon us still: he bears the marks of his passion.” Look up, poor sufferer! Jesus knows what physical pain means. Look up, poor depressed one! he knows what a broken heart means. Canst thou not perceive this?
Those prints upon his hands, these sacred stigmata, declare that he has not forgotten what he underwent for us, but still has a fellow-feeling for us. Once again, these wounds may comfort us because in heaven they are, before God and the holy angels, the perpetual ensigns of his finished work. That passion of his can never be repeated, and never needs to be: “After he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, he sat down on the right hand of God.” But the memorials are always being presented before the infinite mind of God. Those memorials are, in part, the wounds in our Lord’s blessed person.
Glorified spirits can never cease to sing, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain”; for every time they gaze upon him they perceive his scars. How resplendent shine the nail-prints! No jewels that ever gemmed a king can look one-half so lustrous as these. Though he be God over all blessed for ever, yet to us, at least, his brightest splendor comes from his death.
My hearer, whensoever thy soul is clouded, turn thou to these wounds. which shine like a constellation of five bright stars. Look not to thine own wounds, nor to thine own pains, or sins, or prayers, or tears, but remember that” with his stripes we are healed.” Gaze, then; intently gaze, upon thy Redeemer’s wounds if thou wouldest find comfort.
God tremendously blessed today. I am so grateful. Tonight was wonderful. The message was on the Lord’s Supper and will be posted here in the next day or two. This message will be the lesson for our discipleship when we teach on the Lord’s Supper.
What a privilege to serve God! What a blessing that God would allow us to celebrate such a wonderful time as the Lord’s Supper.
God gave us 90 in attendance tonight. We were all together including the Spanish Church. We had probably our longest normal service ever. It wasn’t over until nearly 1 hour and 20 minutes.
After church as usual I had the chance to sit in the office and talk with the young people from our church. We discussed what I taught about modesty in the Volunteers meeting and then about the message. God moved and it was a sweet time in the office just like it had been since 5:20. I am so proud of our church and what God is doing in our midst.
After church Betty and I did something we don’t got to do often and went out to eat with David and Katie–our youngest son and his wife. It was a wonderful time.
Thank you Lord Jesus for the chance to see you do so much today. It was wonderful. Show me how to do what you want me to do and what you want your people to do. Thank you
