Location and Times
When Vision Baptist Church was started nearly seven years, Pastor Gardner and the men helping him did it with the rally cry of reaching the world with the Gospel in our generation. After this years annual missions conference, our church boldly declared that they still believed in that vision.
The Missions conference was a great blessing for our entire church. The keynote speaker for the conference was Randy Stirewalt, who has served over 35 years in Kenya and has seen over 250 churches started and, more importantly, over 450 African men trained to do the ministry and work in these churches. Bro Stirewalt, with a humble attitude and a clear realization that it is God alone who has accomplished so much, reminded us throughout he entire week that missions is a work done for God and through him, not us or our personalities. We were also privileges to have nine other missionary families with us through this wonderful week. Each family was a blessing and challenge to us as they presented the work God has called them to. The families were:
Travis and Teri Snode – Northern Ireland
Gary and Linda Ledford – First Bible International
Wayne and Lina Cooke – Colombia
Richard and Leah Jacobs – Impact International Ministries
Chris and Kathy Fies – Voice in the Villages
Jonathan and Heather Marks – Japan
Jeff and Mindy Bush – Vision Baptist Missions
Mike and Jen Peters – Spain
At the end of our week, when our faith promise cards were collected, our church has pledged to give $101,930 over the next year to missions (and this number is growing)! We thank and praise the Lord for the opportunity to be so heavily involved in the work of World Evangelism.
On Wednesday, we will post our pastor’s teachings on faith promise, so you can better understand what this means.