Blog
Upon the first day of the week....
23/04/2023 14:50Praise the Lord for another Sunday. It was good to be in the House of the Lord this morning and the Lord gave us good services. Our discipleship lesson in SS was on evangelism. It was a good reminder of our responsability to tell (witness) to others. I preached this morning on, "How to be at peace when the world is seemingly winning." David, in Psalm 37, by divine inspiration gave several commands to help us to succeed when Satan wants us to be deceived regarding this battle.
It was a special blessing this morning to have a return adult visitor and 4 visitors from the States. Blake Huffman, a college student who attended our church 2 years ago, kindly sent his parents and couple friends to visit us. We've enjoyed being with his parents before and it was a joy to catch up with them and show them God's answer to prayer for a church property.
Please continue to pray for God to build his church. We have had several inquiries about visiting but 3 of these have yet to come along. Thanks for praying.
Works update from the week: As you'll see below we were busy and God blessed our labours.
Activity Centre - Sanded and primed yesterday. Now using filler to patch any remaining blemishes. Afterwards we will put up lining paper and then paint.
Fellowship Hall -The lower have of the buffet is now painted.
Exterior
- wall finished,
- shed finished,
- skip (dumster) filled with rubble,
- picnic tables and play park stained.
- 2 stumps cut down.
Photo Essay of Work
18/04/2023 19:50lean to remodel: Doors to be stained soon.
Wall painted:
Playground and picnic tables getting stained:
A great week....
16/04/2023 13:32God blessed us with a great week. The work projects were accomplished. The fence and interior paint projects both got two coats of paint. The sign is now installed at the entrance of the property.
On Thursday, my 4 boys, myself and Tommy, went to Irelaned for men's camp. The focus was on Enoch and it was a tremendous time. There were 6 preaching sessions and 2 prayer sessions spread over 3 days. You'd need to have been there to understand how good it was to be present. :) It was great! I preached on Friday and want to thank those of you who were praying for that ministry opportunity. My message was, "It's time to walk with God" from the text, "And Enoch walked with God AFTER he begat Methuselah....."
This morning our attendance was down, but we still enjoyed having a first time visitor with us. Our SS was a study on prayer and then in the AM I preached on, "Holy Ghost Power" from Acts 1. Please pray for our church to have a fresh outpouring of God's Spirit, and to recognise our need.
This evening a minister friend, Jon Gleason, will be preaching. After the service, we have a fellowship meal planned. Jon's wife, Terri, passed away from a brain tumour this past year. Jon is going to share some testimonies of God's grace with us. We are looking forward to His ministry.
Ok, so yes, we are busy...
11/04/2023 17:32I normally have updated this page 2-3 times a week. However, life has gotten busy and I've gotten behind in my update. God gave us a good week, weekend and start to this week. Our attendance Sunday was strong. There was a great spirit and we enjoyed a fellowship meal after both services. (The evening service fellowship is left overs.)
You probably would not be suprised to hear me say that I preached on the resurrection. We took a look at Calvary and the Empty Tomb.
Yesterday and today, my family did some work projects at the church. The outdoor project was staining the fence along one side of the property. The interior project was painting the lower half of a wall around the fellowship hall. Both projects went really well.
Last week, we worked at the church as well and I built a sign board. We will soon have 4x4 foot church sign in place there. It will be a vinyl printed sign on Aluminium backing.
Thanks for praying for us. It's busy, but all is going well. The flat roof replacement and added insulation is nearly complete. The electrician should be finished with his work this coming Friday.
Street Evangelism in Edinburgh
03/04/2023 15:20I enjoyed a beautiful morning doing evangelism in Edinburgh. I'm still replacing my receiver on our street speaker and so I didn't do street preaching today. However, it is a joy to do one on one evangelism.
God gave me many divine appointments. I spoke with two young people who are studying in Exeter, but are from Turkey. They are non practicing Muslims. After that I spoke with a believer from Romania who lives in Sheffield. He needs a good church and I hope he will email me as he said he intended to do.
I spoke with a very elderly woman and her Catholic daughter. I believe this was truly of the Lord as I intended to turn, but felt like God wanted me to approach them. The elderly woman didn't speak much at all, but patted the bench by her and had me sit down. I had a good opportunity to share the Gospel with them.
Next I spoke to a young lady who believes that God is IN everything and that we are gods. She said that she didn't believe the Bible because it came from men. She then took out a book she was reading about the spiritual truth she was sharing. I questioned how she could believe that since it came through men. It was a good conversation.
The last opportunity was with a Catholic young lady from Denmark. Please pray for Maria's eyes to be opened to the Gospel as a gift and not to be earned by our works. We sat on a park bench and looked up some verses in my Bible.
The above reminds me to ask you to please pray for divine appointments. We have seen God provide some unique opportunities in answer to your prayers. Thanks for praying.
Making progress.
02/04/2023 13:44We are making some progress in our renovations of the property. The flat roof replacement is going well. It should speed up this next week as I believe better weather is forecast. We also made some good progress on the renovations of the front hall. All of the wall paper is now down in the activity centre. Please pray for wisdom whether we should put lining paper back up or have the walls skimmed to make them smooth.
We want to get to the painting stage as we are currently in the, "This does not look good" but necessary stage. Our church family is working really hard on cleaning up the property inside and out.
Our attendance was down this morning as some are away and others are ill. We still had good services this morning and thank the Lord for meeting with us. Thanks for praying for SFBC.
Street Preaching
27/03/2023 17:55It was good to get back out street preaching in Edinburgh today. God blessed us with grace and strength. Tommy has been battling a chest infection for almost 3 months. He was fit to go out this morning and we are grateful.
For the first time we had more than verbal opposition to the preaching. A young lady kicked our speaker sending it tumbling and breaking the wireless receiver. Please pray for grace for that young lady and for God to continue to help us to get out His message to people He deeply desires to save.
Also, work has begun on replacing the flat roof on our church building. This is an exciting step as it was one of the big projects we knew needed to be done. Thanks for praying.
A new name in glory!
26/03/2023 20:28We have a praise tonight as a lady trusted Jesus as her Saviour this evening. We are thrilled at God's goodness and so is she. Please pray for God to help her grow in His grace and in the knowledge of His Son Jesus.
Get Ready for God to Work
26/03/2023 13:48God blessed us with a good morning despite time change being today. We sprang forward into British Summer Time and still had good attendance. Praise the Lord. It was especially fun to see the children outside playing on our playground after the morning service. The fellowship inside with the parents was refreshing as well.
I preached this morning on, "Get Ready for God to Work" from the story of Cornelious. A lot of things happened which prepared for His conversion and that of his friends and family. Many of those things which happened are under the control of man and not God. They were things that were done by obedient men which made it possible for God to do a great work. There was a good spirit in our services today and I praise God for our church family.
Thank you for praying for our family and ministry. We need it! And, God IS answering your prayers.
13 Years in Scotland!
25/03/2023 16:48We passed a milestone yesterday as it was the anniversary of our arrival in Scotland. God has be SOOOO GOOOOD to us and we praise Him for His many blessings. We love where God has put us in his harvest field.
Today was a fun church work day. Most of our church family were out to help us and it was time well spent together. We also are making good progress on the property. We've stripped a lot of wall paper in the front hall and are getting ready to redecorate. I'm sure that construction will be more exciting than destruction but much work that needed doing has been done. We also put up a couple of church signs which makes people aware that we have taken ownership. Exciting times!