My plan was to start getting the new flyer out this morning, but it was raining heavily at times. I ran my four miles this morning anyway and got drenched on the last two. :) So, I waited until late morning and was able to get out after 11. I was able to put out around 300 flyers. Please pray that God will bless this flyer to men's hearts. I only had brief conversations this morning.

One was with a man who attended our church for a few months several years ago. He has lived a life of addiction and though he professed faith in Christ there is no evidence. I greeted him and he said, "Is this you still putting out the leafletts?" I confirmed his suspicion and he said, "You are wasting your time." I said, "I'm not wasting my time as long as there is a God in Heaven who loves sinners." I prayed as I walked away for God to put Him in his right mind. I'd love to see His life transformed by the God of the Gospel. 

God blessed us with a first time attender this morning. She is the little friend of a family in our church. It was great to have her (8) come. She really enjoyed it and wants to come again.

The theme of today seems to be facing opposition in the will of God. In Sunday School we considered how David ran to the Lord in time of difficulty. In the morning service I preached part 1 of Keep Looking UP from Hebrews 12:1-3,  a message on running our race. I ran out of time and decided to finish this sermon next Sunday. Tonight in our study of Proverbs we have some strong teaching about the adversity we will face in the will of God.

Please pray that God will use these messages to encourage us as we take a strong stand for truth. Lord willing, the new flyer, "Open Letter to Government" will begin to go out." I am struck more and more by the animosity towards those who hold traditional and Biblical positions about modern controversies. 

Our facebook advertisement on the open letter has generated some difficult feedback. I know that we will likewise receive negative feedback despite the gracious tone of the open letter.

This morning I wrote down some thoughts about that,...

"It's a sad day in a Christian nation when a church is accused of believing the Bible and that their belief in God's Word is described as being hateful and offensive."

"If a church is not following God's Word, who's word are they following? If they aren't beliving God's Word, who's word are they believing? If they are not preaching God's Word, who's word are they preaching?"

The feedback is visible on our facebook page for those with access to facebook. I'm leaving up anything that does not have profanity to allow truth to be brought into clearer light.  Please pray for the power of God to convict - and save lives that will be killed through abortion - save young people from lifestyle choices that will ruin their lives - save families from sin that will destroy their union - save souls from an eternal Hell to which they do not believe they are going.

This has been a very busy week. We enjoyed hosting a pastor's fellowship on Tuesday night with Layton Kelly as a speaker. We didn't have record attendance. However, we had what God has always given, a wonderfully refreshing time. It was good to be together and to be encouraged by brother Kelly's testimony and preaching.

On the home front, we've got a big project. We are replacing a rotten retaining wall (railway sleepers) with a block wall. In total it is over 100 feet long and about 2 feet high. I've ordered 17000 pounds worth of block (330 of them in total.) We've also got 11 bulk bags of rock, sand and soil. Your prayers are much appreciated as we take on a big landscaping project. :)

God gave us a fun divine appointment this morning as we met a young couple who are born again. They live very close to our church but attend another Gospel ministry. They hope to get together with us in the near future. They were aware of us as they found us online during the pandemic and had read through our doctrinal statement with appreciation. They had seen some of the journey vides we did during lockdown.

We also witnessed to two women this morning. Please pray that God will work in these hearts. It's amazing how much God loves people. He reached out to them through us this morning and we want to be faithful to reach out again as needed.

God's good. Thanks for praying.

God gave us a good morning. We missed some who were away, but still had fair attendance. The weather has been beautiful lately and that has been refreshing. I preached this morning a topical message, "Steadfast for Truth" and shared the, "Open Letter to Government" with our church. I've already received some of the flyers (10,000 total), but the rest will be delivered here early next week. Please pray for God's blessing as we put these out.

This Tuesday our church is hosting a pastor's fellowship. The speaker is Layton Kelly who leads, "New Hope Residential Centre" in Ireland. Layton is going to share his testimony and let us know about their ministry to the addicted. Our church has supported Layton's family for 9 or 10 years. He was our first missionary. He'll fly in just after noon on Wednesday and depart later that night, but it will be good to catch up. We'd appreciate your prayers for the ministers and their families on this special day.

I love times in ministry where God reveals his hand. He did that this morning and I hope you can see it. The politician to whom I wrote the PS which I have now made into the, "Open Letter to Government" was re-elected by a very small margin. The results came in yesterday.

We knocked on doors this morning in a new area just a few hundred meters from our church location. We only spoke with two people as most were not home and then the rain set in. Imagine our surprise as the politician mentioned above opened the door to their home. I didn't realise they had moved from a village a few miles away. 

Now, to show the hand of God, we are currently in an evangelistic outreach right now because of an email I sent to this politician. We have printed 10k flyers. I'm preaching on the open letter this Sunday. And God had me knock on this politician's door this morning. Can you see the hand of God in that?

Please pray for the power of God upon this open letter. We had an unusual prayer meeting on Wednesday night. Instead of preaching my class went to prayer. We finished at 9:00 PM having spent over an hour and a half in prayer. Please pray with us for the power of God. A church building is secondary. Our primary desire is to see the power of God open the hearts of people in our community.

Link to the open letter on our church website.

I preached last Wednesday and Sunday with a significant chest cold. So, I'm taking it easy this week and am not doing my regular outreach with flyers. However, I wrote a new flyer this morning and am working on prepping it for printing. I've also done a couple facebook advertisements. One is the message I preached this past Sunday which was a clear Gospel message. The second advert has to do with the new flyer, "Open Letter to Government." (Full letter and explanation here.) Please pray that Facebook will allow it to be promoted. It is currently under review.

I'll put the flyer below The flyer is a result of responding to a friend of mine in local government with a Post Script on issues which are hot buttons that the Government is pushing against God. I believe it is time for Christians to be outspoken about God's truth or we will be censured before we can take a stand.

Please pray for the power of God upon this effort. We need to challenge the ungodliness or the sad day is which we live or it will only get worse. God has awakened men before and God can do so again. Please pray for people who read this to humble their heart and say, "God you are right, I am wrong, please forgive me."

If you want to help with this wee effort and you are on facebook, please like/share the Gospel sermon post and the letter link post. The letter link is obvious. The Gospel sermon is the one that says, "No one can listen to this message and walk away without knowing HOW to be saved from Hell and on their way to Heaven. Why not trade one hour of physical life for open access to eternal life?"

Thank you for your prayers which avail much.

God blessed us with a wonderful day both in spiritual blessing as well as physical. I enjoyed preaching this morning on the Ethiopean Eunuch from Acts 8. Afterwards our church came over to our home where we baptised Nathan and his wife, Mali. These young parents have been saved this year. Praise the Lord. We are excited to see what God is going to do in their family. They will be joining our church this evening.

Meanwhile, another believer who had not yet been baptised decided to follow the Lord in believer's baptism. And so, we are all meeting back at our home before our evening service so that we can baptise Margaret.

The weather today was outstanding and almost hot as we waited to start our baptismal service. Logan played a stanza of Amazing Grace on his bagpipes and then we sang a stanza. I shared from Romans 6 the beautiful pictures of believer's baptism by immersion. Our old man dying with Christ. Our new man rising to walk in resurrection power with Jesus. Afterwards we went back to the church for a fellowship meal. We are going to repeat this meal tonight after the evening service. These are special days and we thank God for His grace. 

Please pray for Nathan's military service. He's been given orders to take a 5 week course down in England starting this Wednesday. He'll also be doing a 15 week tour of duty from September to December. Please pray that God will help us help him and his family through this time and that the spiritual growth will continue.

Thank you for praying with us about our desire for a permanent church location. We have now heard back from the closing date.

To make it simple, I'll paste below my email to our church family,

Dear church family,

Well, we have followed the Lord down a path of faith and God has allowed us to find some closed doors. 

Our solicitor notified us with the following statement, 

"Unfortunately, your offer at the closing date was un-successful."

The word, "unsuccessful" seems negative when all we want is what God wants. In reality success is "finding the will of God and doing it."

Paul tried to go into Asia and Bythinia, before the Spirit of God led them to Macedonia.

I'm thankful that I can honestly say I'm not disappointed although I long to see God's answer to our prayers.

Stay encouraged - God is faithful,

Pastor

Well, I hope I can focus on my studies now.  My "impatience" allowed me to find out through email that the seller of the church building hopes to have an answer today. God is still God and God is still good no matter whether the answer is yes or no. We are committed to thanking Him (In everything give thanks) either way. We only want this building IF it is the will of God and we know that He can either open this door or close it. I will certainly update this page once we have a definite answer.

Meanwhile, God allowed me to put out 200-250 Gospel flyers this morning. It was an interesting morning as it was hot when the sun came out and cold when it went away. I had a couple short opportunities to engage with people in conversations about God. The best was with a young man who was preparing to smoke outside a flat. His paper cigarette is destroying his physical life (great expence, poor health etc.). The Gospel paper I gave him can give him eternal life and set him free from vices like cigarettes. Please pray for the power of the Gospel to be unleashed in our area and that we'll see young men like this trust Christ.

Thanks for following along and praying.

Well, I'm sorry for neglecting to update this page this week. I think that may be a first, except for when we have been away on holiday. Unfortunately, I don't have an update on the church building yet. We continue to wait on the Lord.

Outreach was normal this week. I put out flyers on Monday. Tommy helped me put out flyers on Tuesday. I went over to Don's and put flyers out on Wednesday. Katie and I did door to door on Saturday. God did give some divine appointments. 

We enjoyed a good Sunday. We had a returning visitor this morning which was a blessing. He said that he will see us next week. I really hope that he faithfully begins attending our church.

Please pray for God to clear our men's schedules at work for His day. Two men were impacted by having to work today.

I enjoyed preaching on a passage that makes a wonderful statement about resting in God.  Isaiaih 30 "Their strength is to sit still."  (Uploading to sermon audio just now, but already on our facebook page (Free Baptist Lothian). Please listen in sometime and then pray earnestly for the power of God in the preaching of HIs Word at our church. We desperately desire His enablement.

Be assured I will update this page very quickly once we have any word on the church building. Thank you for your prayers.