God has blessed all the preparations to hit the road on our 3 month ministry furlough. Dave and Claudia Barba arrived on Friday morning and we've enjoyed acquainting them with Scotland, our home, our neighbourhood, villages, church, and church family.

The Lord gave us a very good morning. I taught SS and Pastor Barba took the AM service. After the service we had a fellowship lunch which was followed by a baby shower. A family in our church is adding a son next month. :) We praise God for His goodness to them. Please pray for a safe delivery and a healthy baby boy.

Tonight, I am going to share a message from Deuteronomy 31 which God put on my heart a couple of weeks ago. I look forward to sharing it with our church family. Tomorrow morning we head to the airport and we should be at Greenville, Spartonburg Airport tomorrow evening. Thank you for praying for our travels. It's obvious that God is leading, giving us grace, and guiding in everything.

It was refreshing this morning to see almost everyone who is currently attending church. So many times we wish that everyone would come at the same time. We're thankful for the good group of people God has brought to SFBC. Please pray for God to continue to bind our hearts together in Christian love and with purpose of heart to follow Him.

This Sunday was our Faith Promise Missions Giving Sunday. We take pledges every year and encourage each person to pray and ask God what God wants them to give to missions monthly. Then, we fill out anonymous pledge cards to help set a budget and to encourage us to increase in our missions giving. We've increased our missionary budget this year by 50 pounds a month and hope the Lord will bless our church with growth in our missions giving. It is our believe that He will do so.

I preached this morning on the, "Infallible Investment Strategy" which God gave us in His Word. (1 Corinthians 9) I love this text and have seen God use it my own life. I pray God uses it greatly in the hearts of our people. There was a very good spirit after church.

Now, we are on our way to the Care Home Ministry at 3:00. In our evening service we are also remembering our Lord's death as we observe the Lord's table. It's a special day indeed. Thanks for praying.

I don't often update on Wednesday night. But, I neglected to get an update on for Sunday and I'm reminded of this tonight. Tonight we studied the Life of Elijah. This was less 11 and the message was titled, "Revival Outpouring." The land was dry. Rain was needed to revive it. Our land is spiritually dry. The outpouring of God's Spirit is needed to revive it. Please pray with us for the revival we need, our church needs and our community needs (spiritual awakening.)

On Sunday I preached the fourth message in our series on our church theme, "Perfected Faith." I've enjoyed our study and pray that God blesses our church with significant spiritual growth this year.

On Monday I was able to do street preaching despite having had a cold and having had a weak voice on Sunday. God gave a good outing. Please pray for Stephen. I spoke with him after I preached and he is a Christian who is like a prodigal son. Please pray for God's clear leading for Him.

We have another man praying about whether God wants him to attend our church. There are good reasons why I would encourage him to come, but God will have to lead Him to do so. Please pray.

The Lord allowed me to get a work project done at the church this week. I've needed to finish the ceiling in our sound room. It had been the back bar for the function suite. There was an exhaust fan removed and I needed to sand the ceiling and paint. Thankfully, that job is now complete.

This Sunday is our Faith Promise Sunday. I'm going to preach on giving and we will fill in our anonymous pledges for missions giving for the year. Please pray for God's people to respond to His Word with generosity. We've increased our church missions budget by 50 pounds a month and it is a bit of a faith step for our congregation. Thanks for praying for SFBC, our family, and Scotland.

God blessed us with a good week of ministry. Monday was street preaching.  Tuesday, Nelson helped me finish putting flyers through a nearby village. The population is close to 20,000. I'm very grateful that the Lord allowed us to complete it. Wednesday I headed to Livingston to help Pastor Dillman do evangelism. Wednesday night, we had lesson 10 in our Life of Elijah series. The message was, "Revival Praying." 

Friday, some in our family began to come down with a pretty severe cold. On Sunday morning only Parker and I could attend church as Katie cared for the other two boys. Another family was out of church with illness. Another family was out with back pain.... etc. It was one of those days. We ended up having a good prayer time during the morning service.

Sunday evening we livestreamed for those who were watching from home. We don't normally record or livestream in our PM service as it is usually more interactive. We've been studying through 1 Corinthians and were finishing the, "Love Chapter," chapter 13.

I'm also ill, but the Lord allowed me yesterday to prepare our furlough presentation. If we are not able to visit your church on furlough and you would like to have a link, please email me and let me know. Otherwise, I'll wait to share the link until after our furlough. 

Today we have a young man arriving from Germany.  We look forward to getting to know him. Please pray for him as he considers coming to Scotland to minister.

Please pray for God to give us some good time with our church family before our departure. We realise our time is short and hope to have opportunity with each one before our departure. Thank you for praying.

One more thing, on Sunday night we had a fun visitor from England. He competes in "Speed Cubing" competitions. He solved a very messed up cube in 8.4 seconds. If you would like to see the video - it is on our church Facebook page and our church Youtube page.

God blessed us with a great week. Last Sunday we enjoyed our meeting with the residents at the care home. There was really good attention to the Word of God, but those who are there often can't stay awake. So, that was a blessing.

The business meeting went very well. We had one missionary on partial support and we decided to bring them up to full support. This is a step of faith which we trust the Lord will honour. We need to move forward in our missions program. We now support 4 missionaries at £125 per month.

Our outreach this week was Wendesday morning and Saturday morning. On Wednesday, Don Dillman and Logan helped put out Gospel flyers in our area. Yesterday, Mac, Katie and I knocked on doors. Our other two boys, Nelson and Parker put out Gospel flyers. God gave a wonderful divine appointment with a 19 year old muslim. We spoke for 30 minutes. Please pray for him to visit the church.

Our Wednesday night meeting was a good time together in God's Word. We're studying, "The Life of Elijah" and it's been a really good study. This was lesson 9. (False Fire)

This morning I preached the third message in a series on our church theme, "Go on  unto perfection." Our study this morning was, "Perfecting Holiness" from 2 Corinthians 7:1. There is no other way to walk with God than walking in holiness. We had a good time in God's Word. Our attendance had a little improvement and we're grateful for God's goodness there. Thanks for praying.

Today was the second message on our church theme, "Go on unto perfection." This morning was, "Saintly Servanthood" from Ephesians 4, "For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry." We had a good time in God's Word in SS and in the AM service.

Although we didn't have good attendance today, God gave us good services for which we are thankful. 

This is our busy Sunday of the month with a care home service at 3pm. Additionally, we have our annual general meeting following the evening service. I look forward to sharing God's goodenss with our church as we go over our financial statement. God continues to meet all of our church financial needs.

Tomorrow night is our monthly ladies' meeting. Katie and our ladies would appreciate your prayers for God's blessings upon it. Thank you for praying.

What a beautiful sun shining morning for the first day of the week and the first Lord's day of 2026. It was a very cold but beautiful morning. 

God blessed us with a first time visitor in SS and church. This young man was present Wednesday night for our film as well, but this was his first time in our church services. Please pray that God will help us to minister to him as he is a new believer as of May.

I enjoyed preaching a message on our church theme for 2026 which is, "Go on unto perfection." Yes, Southside Free Baptist Church desparately needs "perfect" believers - and - it is Biblical to seek perfection. (I'm tempted to leave it there and let you either listen in to the message or to study it out yourself.) The Bible has a lot to say about being, "perfect" or "perfection." However, it does not mean flawless, but does speak of being complete or mature. Would you please pray for God to bless our 2026 wilth significant spiritual growth in our church family?

Our attendance was not high. We had 3 families impacted by illness. (chicken pox in two cases and flu.) Hopefully, as the kids return to school, life will settle down for everyone and we will get back to better attendance. Thank you for praying for God's work at SFBC.

Wow - here we are on the last Sunday of the year. Praise the Lord for His grace for 2025 and His grace for this coming year.

We're thankful for the Lord's enablement today. Our attendance was low this morning. However, God gave us a good time together in His Word. I preached this morning on Ezekiel 36 where God said, "I will do it." Interestingly, God promised to do it. However, He said that the people would have to ask Him to do it. 

Tonight we continue our study of 1 Corinthians. We are on chapter 12 which speaks of spiritual gifts and the body of Christ. Wednesday night is our film night. We are showing the Bob Jones Unusual Films production of, "The Printing." 

Thank you for praying for our ministry and for following along. Here we go into 2026 and all the blessings which God intends for us there.

What an amazing night the Lord gave to us. What a joy to sing the carols, read about our Saviour's birth, and preach the Gospel for which Jesus lived and died. Thank you so much for praying. I don't normally share attendance numbers, but God gave us 54 people in attendance as best we can count. I share that to say - thank you for praying. Please pray for those who need Christ to find Him even this evening. I can't begin to say how special this evening was to us. I wish you could have been here to enjoy it with us. God is so very good.

Merry Christmas to ALL! (Here is a link to our service.)

It's always a blessing to have visitors in our services. A man who had already visited a couple of times in the past two weeks, was back this morning with his son. Additionally, a mother with a son also visited. All these "sons" seem very appropriate as we considered this morning the birth of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

God blessed our outreach this week despite our "dodgy" weather. We were able to put out Christmas flyers on three different days and I was down street preaching on another. In total, I think we have put out over 4,000 flyers for our Carol Sing service. These also have a Christmas card on the front of them with the Bible announcement of Christ's birth. It is our hope to see some visitors to that special service at 6pm Christmas Eve.

Our church does a couple of extra giving opportunities at Christmas. God blessed our missionary Christmas offering and we sent each of our 4 missionaries a nice financial gift. We also have some Christmas hampers being assembled which we will get out early this week. I thank the Lord for the generosity of His people.

Thank you for praying for our special events. May God bless you all with a very merry Christmas.