Northwest News!

We had a great time at our youth drop-in club on Friday night.  We had 6 young people come, and David did a great job preaching on “Attitude” from the story of Ahab and Naboth.  During the club, I was able to go out and talk with about a dozen or so young people who congregate on the walls.  Despite all the drink and profanity, we had a couple of good talks about God, and I was able to witness to them and invite them to the drop-in club.  I met one young man who came to our youth meetings that we had about 3.5 years ago when I first came to Northern Ireland.  All our young people worked hard to invite their friends and pass out leaflets as well.

I want to praise the Lord for the 12 people we helped today with community outreach.  We put leaflets through 300 letterboxes today!  Thank you to everyone who helped.  It was great fun and good exercise, so if you can help us this Saturday, we would really appreciate it.  Our goal is to 634 doors a week, so we are getting closer and closer.

This will primarily be a notice for people who live in the States.  Our sending church, Vision Baptist Church, is hosting the 4th Pastor’s Conference for World Evangelism on Monday- Wednesday, May 5-7.  I believe the conference will be a big blessing to challenge and equip you to lead your church to be a world evangelism church.  My pastor has tons of experience of working in and leading others to get involved in world evangelism.  I know that he and the speakers will be a big blessing to you.  The cost is Free! Find out more details here.

On a day like today, when it is cold and rainy and we were getting blown about as we passed out tracts, stories like the one below, sent to me by Wayne Cooke, will help uskeep on keeping on.  Little is much when God is in it.

We had a great day yesterday in the services.  Thank you for attending and thank you for praying.In the morning, we continued our “Joined Together” series talking about “Learning to Share Unconditional Trust.”  In the evening, we looked at Giving God Maximum Glory in 2008 from Ephesians 3:20-21.Our attendances were down, but it was great to have most of our volunteers in places serving and working so faithfully.  God is going to do great things.  We are preparing, praying, and expecting His blessing.We talked alot about our goals for this year.  There is much we are asking God to do.  One big step is our 25 Club, which is a band of people who commit to knocking on 25 doors or putting leaflets through 25 letterboxes per day.  If we are going to get the gospel to all 33,000 homes in our city and surrounding area, then we need to contact 625 homes/week.  If 5 people committed to 125 homes/week, then we could do that.  Not only do we need help with making the contacts, but we also need people who will put together the literature to distribute.  If you want to get involved, please let us know.

I am so excited about reaching out and spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.  This week so far, we have knocked on 120 doors. Mark and I knocked on 60 doors on Monday. Grant and I knocked on 12 on Tuesday (the houses had long lanes and plenty of steps).  David and I knocked on 35 on Wednesday, and today, Grant and I knocked on 13 more.  We went to the cityside two days and to the waterside two days. 

I am trying to knock on at least 25 doors a day, and I want to ask you to help me.  We met a lady today who is from a Baptist church in England and said that she may visit with us.  No matter what happens, we are trying to obey the Lord and share the gospel.

Saturday, we are going to go over to the town and pass out flyers to the shoppers.  I hope you can join us.  We will meet up at the office at 11.00 AM and then head over to the city centre.

I thought the following article went along well with some of the message last night about how negative, condemning attitudes will kill our dreams of seeing the lost get saved.

Yesterday I talked about our responsibility to be grace wholesalers. So here’s where it gets really sad. If you interview people on the streets, few if any, would associate Christianity or Christians or Church with grace. In fact, people today associate Christians and the Church with the exact opposite of grace. When they think of Christians and Church they think of zero tolerance, of judgment, of condemnation.

Read on.

Here is our version of Jesus’s feeding the five thousand and doing the miracles.  We are trying to get a crowd to be able to give the message of Christ, so that we can train those who are interested to go out and reach others.

This flyer will be going out to 14,115 homes on Monday and Tuesday.  Pray that God will use it and we will have many folks come out on Celebration Sunday so we can preach the gospel to them.

Yesterday was a wonderful day meeting with God’s people.   It was great to be able to focus our eyes once again on Jesus, and how he can meet the needs of the world.  Also, it was great to have Evan and Carmen Williams, missionaries to Honduras, with us in both services.  I am so ashamed at my own lack of love for souls and burden for the world.

I am fired up and want to see God work in people’s lives.  I am hoping to get to at least 300 new doors this week.  Last night after the service, I just had to go talk to a young man in our neighborhood about attending church this coming Sunday and he said he would!

We had 10 in the morning service and 12 in the evening, and we are still praying for 20 this Sunday.

One other thing I wanted to mention that is exciting!  Gary from the Broomhill Hotel, said we could put our banners out everyday on the front fence, which is great becuase it is on a very busy road and is like a free billboard for the church.  I will go put it up and take it down every day.  Praise God for this!  God is very good to us.

Teri and I and the kids were able to visit 58 homes today.  Only two refused to take the literature, and we met some nice people who we pray will come visit the church.  Many of the people were not home, but we will just continue to sow the seed.

Saturday 1:30 pm

On Saturdays, our church will be doing some community outreach.  We will be visiting people who have visited with us in the past, as well as going to new houses to invite people to church and talk with them about their faith.

I hope that you will try to make it out, if you can.  We will meet at 10 Pelham Rd at 1.30 pm on Saturday, go over what we will be doing, pray together, and then go out for an hour or two, depending on how much time people have.

If you want to just be a silent partner and go with one of us who has gone before, that will be fine.  There will be no pressure; just come and let us know what you are comfortable with.

Grant and I went to 32 doors this afternoon.  We met a nice couple from South Africa who were interested in the church, so praise the Lord for that.