Articles

September 2022 – Mission Director’s Report

 150 150 admin
By:
0

Dear BMAMO churches,

What an exciting time of year! A special shout out and thanks to Stony Point at Potosi, Bethel at Sikeston, Mt. Olive at Salem, and Loyalty at Sparta, Illinois. Dawn and I were blessed to be with these churches this summer to share the BMAMO Missions effort.

I would love to schedule your church for next summer! Please contact me and let’s fill the summer up with Wednesday appointments. I appreciate the pastors of all of our churches in Missouri doing their best to put the emphasis on missions in our churches.

We are so thankful to Bro. Gary Longstaff and SW MO BMA in voting in their local Association meeting to send a one-time gift of $2,000 to Bro. Juan Fernandez and a monthly support of $200. What a blessing they are and will be to the Fernandez family and the missions effort to reach the Hispanic population in St. Louis.

Please remember and make plans to attend our annual BMA of MO meeting on October 8th at Ozark Heights Baptist Church beginning at 9:00 a.m. Please be in prayer for this meeting as we continue to seek the Lord’s direction and power to launch a church growth and church planting movement through BMAMO Missions.

May the Lord richly bless you is my prayer,
Bro. Ben

August 2022 – Missions Director’s Report

 150 150 admin
By:
0

Dear BMAMO churches:

I hope this article finds you basking in the glory and blessings of the Lord. It has been a great month of church camps for the State as well as the Meramec. We have seen souls saved and saved souls dedicated. What a thrill these ministries are to our association! If we do not have youth, we do not have a future. God has truly blessed us with a great amount of youth.

One evening, I noticed a particular group of young ladies that I know to be attuned to the Gospel and I made up my mind to challenge them to a list of questions to evaluate through the month of August.

Here are the questions:

What are you doing?
Who are you being?
What are you praying?
What are you sowing?
How are you cultivating?
How are you worshiping?
What are you saying?
What are you thinking?
What are you refusing… To do? To see? To accept? To
acknowledge?

Now, these are meant to be answered both positively and negatively, because they have both positive and negative answers. If our negatives outweigh the positives, then we have a lot of work to do. These answers can show an accounting of our daily actions, but ultimately it is for the use of evaluation to see where improvements can be made and possibly what the
next step in our Christian life needs to be.

Let me take the first question as an example so that you know exactly what I mean. “What are you doing?” Your answers from the positive, spiritual side might be praying each day, reading the Bible each day, trying to share the gospel each day, etc. On the negative side, your answers might look
like: thinking bad thoughts, watching bad things, listening to bad music, etc. We know we do some of these things even on the same day, and they are obviously counterproductive to each other. But again, this is for the sake of evaluation.

If you discover what you’re doing on a spiritual level is just basically to “mail it in,” to say that you did it, then the rest of the day you’re living less than Christianlike, then we have some drastic, serious changes to make!

This brings me back to the challenge that I gave the association at the mission symposium. I handed out tomato plants with the goal to save
seeds from the plant and replant successfully next year, all along asking God to teach us the lessons of discipleship along the way.

When it comes to living the Christian life and fulfilling the Great Commission, pretty much every discipline that is required to successfully
raise and reproduce a tomato crop is present in sharing the gospel and ultimately planting churches that plant churches.

My hope and prayer is that this challenge will result in a better awareness of how to start a church planting movement among our Missouri Association churches.

May the Lord richly bless you is my prayer.
Bro. Ben Kingston

July 2022 – Mission Director’s Report

 150 150 admin
By:
0

Dear BMAMO churches:

Well, it seems like I just wrote an article for the paper! We are so thrilled that Bro. Jim Hoffmann is doing well, and I ask for your continued prayer for him. Bro. Juan’s dad seems to be improving or holding his own. We heard great news on Bro. Larry Woods’ wife Tammy this last week! They discovered that she does not have thyroid cancer, but instead a rare thyroid issue that takes care of itself over a few months’ time, Also, Bro. Larry’s nephew passed away during their delay of going to the mission field, which allowed Bro. Larry and Tammy to minister to the family during this loss. Please pray for the family during this difficult time. They are scheduled to leave for the field on July 12

Missions news about one of our very own here in Missouri:

Bro. Michael Quillman (missionary to Zambia) needs a vehicle. As a result of the sale of Charity Baptist church through Westview, a donation of $30,000.00 was given which we thought would be enough to complete the purchase, but due to the rising costs of everything these days, a $30k SUV in Africa six months ago is now $45k, so please pray for this additional amount to be raised quickly. If you are interested in helping as a church or individual, please contact Bro. Quillman or myself.

One of the expectations of the State for their director of missions is to visit with churches that request a visit from the director. Since I am a full-time pastor, I knew most Sundays were unavailable. Therefore, I made the special missions committee aware that I would only be available on Wednesday nights through the summer. I am pleased to report that on July 13 I will be at Stoney Point, August 17 at Bethel Sikeston, and August 24 at Mt. Olive in Salem. If any other Churches close to these venues would like to join in, I am sure these Churches would welcome that. I want to thank these Churches for inviting me and I look forward to sharing our missions effort and the BMAMO Benchmark Assessment at these Churches.

In closing, I want to share a pet peeve of mine. I love Christian music – all flavors! However, one issue I have is the groups that critique the church in their songs on the airwaves for anybody to hear it, and then we wonder why the world has such a sour view of the Lord’s church. I do not share the world’s view, much less the dissatisfied Christian’s view, of the Lord’s Church. Is there room for improvement? Always! But let’s keep the correct messages and songs in-house, please.

With that said, this is an article that goes directly to our churches. It is my understanding that it goes on our website also, but I would say that for the most part it is only BMA folks, and specifically BMA Missouri that avail themselves to this media. So here we go, I had a conversation with a young man that is helping me with the missions assessment, and we launched into a discussion on why some churches may struggle with change, new ideas, or new methods. And this word came up: autonomy. Autonomy is a beautiful word for our churches, because we are most definitely autonomous. What does that word mean for us? It means we do not have to bow to anyone except the Lord and His word on our faith and practice. However, what happens when a church needs to address change and ultimately embrace change to stay alive? Well, quite frankly, they need to not allow autonomy to become a stumbling block to the very thing they need to stay in existence. So this is what I am asking you as our BMAMO churches: please pray for and with me on how we can help any church struggling with any level of this issue so that for the glory of the Lord we can navigate these troubled waters to get churches to see the dangers when we allow our autonomy to blind us to reality.

Here are the questions I’m asking all of us to pray through and use to help us all truly understand autonomy:

What are you doing with your autonomy?
Who gave it to you?
Why did He give it do you?
What does He want you to do with it?
What good is it if you’re not using it for the intended purpose?

Autonomy is not for us to do what we want, but rather it is to do what we ought. It was never meant to be a shield for preferences.

I submit these questions with humility, trembling, and foreboding. I am not trying to do anything but hold up the mirror of God’s word and ask the question, “Is there room for improvement?”

Let’s enter into prayer together, ask our loving Father this question, accept the answer, and ask for His assistance to change for His Glory

May the Lord richly bless you is my prayer.
Bro. Ben Kingston

June 2022 – Mission Director’s Report

 150 150 admin
By:
0

Dear BMAMO churches,

I hope all is well for you this month of June. I am sure you are aware of our need to lift our editor, Bro. Jim Hoffman up in prayer for his recent health concerns, I am grateful to the Lord for answered prayer for two successful procedures.

Also, please continue to pray for Bro Juan Fernandez’s father, who has had serious health concerns. I am also grateful for answered pray for Juan’s father and safe travels for the Fernandez family.

This is the first article since our missions symposium and mid-year meeting at Bethel. Everyone was so gracious of our attempt to treat you well. Special thanks to the folks of Bethel for rising to the challenge. I was especially appreciative of your acceptance in the late change of the program due to Bro. Larry Woods’ news about His wife’s health concerns. Bro. Juan brought an energetic and exciting message and update from His field. I also want to thank Bro Claude for his report on how Stony Point has responded, and as a result been blessed by raising the bar of awareness of missions in their local church. Again, I do not see the BMAMO assessment as a necessity, but as a tool that God can use to raise the bar of awareness in your local church. I am very excited about a meeting I have tonight with a professional in the area of evaluating businesses to see what improvements can be made in the assessment itself.

If I may, I would like to take this opportunity to share how the Lord put this all together. This professional, you see, is not meeting with me in his professional capacity. Instead, he’s meeting with me because he and his partner help charitable organizations with their tools and evaluating systems. I met him at a wedding reception through our mutual friend, Dr. Gavin Hooks. We started with small talk at the reception, and I basically asked his profession. When he shared it with me, I asked if he would mind reviewing the assessment to get his opinion if it is hitting the mark. He scrolled through the assessment, looked at me and said, “This is what I do! I can absolutely help you and let’s meet soon.” About two or three months ago I got the news from Gavin that Joe had had a devastating stroke and the doctors did not think he would make it through the night. Joe is a believer. Praise God, Joe did survive the night and in fact did much better than anyone expected, but he was still “not out of the woods.” So, on my tractor a few days after the stroke I just said, “Lord, You know what this man’s plans are, and You know what Your plans are. If You still have plans to use him I pray that he will recover completely. I know that I was not the only one praying, but I’m telling you God has answered those prayers! So much so that about two weeks ago out of the blue I get a text from him, “Hey brother Ben, do you still want to meet?” I said, “Joe, I’m just thrilled to hear from you!” His response was hilarious: “Well, I knocked on heaven’s door and they said not yet, so I’ve still got to work to do.” I just wanted you, the BMA churches of Missouri, to be aware of how God is working! I praise Him for it! You’ll probably be hearing the continuation of this conversation in next
month’s article.


Lastly, I would like to follow up on my challenge from the Missions Symposium. How is your tomato doing? If you’re reading this and you were not at the symposium, I will explain! I had several tomato plants laid in my lap right before the symposium, so I decided to share this caveat with the
people that were in attendance. I asked if they took a tomato plant, to transplant it and take care of it and try to bring it to full fruition. Then, save a few seeds from one of the fruits and then plant another plant the following year. This is essentially mirroring the discipleship process. God has not just called us to win people to Christ. He’s called us to win people to Christ AND TRAIN them to win people to Christ to train them to win people to Christ, etc. The ultimate goal of any seed is not fruit for that season. The ultimate goal is seed for the next season, and so on, and so on. As a result, I challenged the people that night to take that tomato plant home and do just that, All along, asking God to teach them lessons of discipleship as they care for this tomato plant. I’ve already had some interesting conversations with people and I’m excited about what God‘s going to do in teaching us how to truly reproductively disciple others.

May the Lord richly bless you is my prayer.
Bro. Ben Kingston

PS this from Bro Larry Wood about his wife’s current health situation: After a series of tests and scans the doctor decided to do a biopsy this past Saturday. The results will take 7 to 10 days. We are rescheduled to fly out on June 28 and will keep this schedule if everything is good. If not, we will adjust our plan. If the biopsy is good, then her issues can be treated with medication. If not, she will have to have surgery and possibly some type of treatment.

So please add these needs to your church’s prayer list.

Greetings From Camp Garwood

 150 150 admin
By:
0

It’s officially crunch time. While we don’t have any “big” projects this year. We have several small maintenance items keeping us busy. I look at my list and then at my calendar and it makes me wonder, how am I going to get it all done?

But, then I remember. 1) It doesn’t all have to be done. 2) JULY 25 – 29, 2022
Camp Theme • Forward in Faith 2 Peter 1:5-7 See bmamissouri.org for Rules, Schedule, etc. as we get closer to camp help will come. 3) These are the small things. The main thing is the gospel. And it will be proclaimed. With or without every light bulb working. Or every leak stopped. By this time your church should be registered. Please ensure all adults have completed the screening and read the camp rules. Both can be found at bmamissouri.org along with the camp schedule and other information. We are getting excited to see everyone. It sounds like we’ll have a full camp again.

Forward in Faith. That’s our theme. Forward….In…. Faith. Always moving forward. Forward in our walk. Forward in our spiritual growth. Forward in our Faith. Supplementing our faith with virtue and knowledge and self
control. With those we become Steadfast and live godly lives with brotherly affection. And as these are increased we become fruitful. And that, That is our ultimate goal. To be fruitful in the LORD.

Yep. I’m excited to see everyone. But I’m more excited to hear Bro. Jordan preach the gospel from 2 Peter.

In these final weeks would you lift Camp Garwood up in prayer. Cover every camper, worker, recreation event, meal, and daily weather with prayer. Bro. Ben says every failure is a prayer failure. Pray for me.
What am I forgetting? For health. Patience. Energy. Pray for my family as we enter the busiest month of the year. Pray for Matthews church as she
functions under a pastor serving in dual roles.

If you have any questions or if you want to know how you or your church can help get ready for a successful camp please contact me or a camp
committee member. We will be happy to answer your questions and encouraged by your willingness to be involved. The more you are involved,
the greater the blessing of seeing souls saved and other good things that happen at Camp!

We’ll see you in a few short weeks at Camp Garwood!

Camp Director Chris Polk

May 2022 – Mission Director’s Report

 150 150 admin
By:
0

Dear churches,

It’s hard to believe, but here we are in the fifth month of 2022. In the state association that means Missions Symposium and the mid-year state meeting of our associated churches.

This year’s meetings will be held at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Lonedell, MO on Friday, May 20 – Saturday, May 21. We cordially invite EVERYONE to worship and learn about our missions efforts abroad and here in the state of Missouri.

The Missions Symposium will begin Friday, May 20 at 6pm with worship in song, then Bro. Larry Wood will present his ministry, church planting in Ukraine, and his new efforts.

We will have a small break for refreshments, then resume with special singing and a report from Bro. Juan Fernandez on his work with Hispanics in the St. Louis area. Bro. Juan has been seeing wonderful seed planting and harvest.

We may have a surprise guest missionary speaker, then I will close out the evening with a report of the BMAMO efforts.

On Saturday, May 21 we will begin at 9am. Bro. Jerry Adams will lead our Association through the mid-year meeting and Bethel will provide a lunch for all attendees.

Please pray that there will be a sweet Spirit and the Lord will be lifted up in these meetings.

It’s my sincere desire to see us encouraged and challenged by what God is doing to reach a lost world to Himself.

Ben Kingston

United By The Word

 150 150 admin
By:
0

A Summary of the BMAA Annual Meeting

by Jeff Herring, Executive Director Baptist Trumpet

The 73rd annual meeting of the Baptist Missionary Association of America met in Springfield, Mo., April 18-20. The theme of the meeting was “Preach the Word,” and I believe the entire meeting displayed a remarkable spirit of unity based on the preaching of the Word of God.

The meeting began with a welcome from Gary Longstaff, pastor of Grandview Baptist Church, which served as the host church for the meeting. Those in attendance also heard from Springfield, Mo. native and former US Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The opening session featured a message by BMA President Dr. Clif Johnson (See the printed sermon on page 1 or visit BaptistTrumpet.com/BMAA2022 for the complete video.) It was a challenging reminder to keep the Word of God at the heart of what we do and allow it to combat the hostile culture we are currently facing.

It was also a reminder that “preaching the Word” is not limited to preachers. All Christians have the responsibility to consistently live out and share the Word with those around them. He closed the session by inviting pastors who were 65 and older to come forward and step out in the aisles. He then encouraged all younger pastors to find an older pastor and spend some time praying for each other.

Tuesday began with the National Women’s Missionary Auxiliary Conference which met at Grandview Baptist Church and the National Brotherhood Meeting which took place at the convention center. There were also seven breakout sessions offered at 9:30 & 10:45 a.m. that attendees could choose to attend.

The Tuesday afternoon session began with the welcoming and seating of messengers from six petitioning churches:

  • Immanuel Baptist Church of Littleton, Mass.; Paul Brennan, pastor.
  • StonePoint Church, Cummings, Ga.; Todd Cox, pastor.
  • Connection Point Baptist Church, Jonesboro; Chad White, pastor.
  • Midway Baptist Church, Batesville, Miss.; Dr. Kenneth Pollock, pastor.
  • Cain Baptist Church, Van Buren; Jim Tollison, pastor.
  • Redeemer’s Love Church, Houston, Texas; Spencer Simpson, pastor.

After some associational business, those in attendance were able to hear from Jason Goodwin as he preached about the “Sufficiency of the Word.” Bro. Goodwin was asked to fill in since the planned speaker, Justin Peters, was not able to attend due to illness.

The session also included a time of worship in song led by Jack Daniels, minister of music at Garrett Memorial Baptist Church in Hope (where President Clif Johnson is pastor), along with Charlotte Ritchey and the praise band that volunteered their time for the duration of the meeting. The BMATS Singers (Dean of Students Dr. Phillip Attebery, Dr. David Hellwig and Administrative Assistant to the President Keri Southern) also shared some special music prior to the message.

After the Tuesday afternoon session concluded, the annual BMA Seminary Dinner was held and Richard Smith, lead pastor of Farley Street Baptist Church in Waxahachie was presented with the Kellar Award for 2022.

The Tuesday evening session began with the election of the associational officers as required by the Principles of Cooperation. President Johnson explained that, according to his understanding they were confirmed by the parliamentarians, since the current officers were not elected to the positions in which they are now serving, they are still eligible to be elected for the first time by the association. Dr. Clif Johnson, pastor of Garrett Memorial Baptist Church in Hope was elected to serve as president of the association and Charles Johnson, pastor of Rosewood Baptist Church in Gilmer, Texas was elected to serve as the first vice-president. Gary Longstaff, pastor of Grandview Baptist Church in Springfield, Mo. was elected as the second vice-president.

Randy Shepherd, pastor of Spring Lake Baptist Church in Texarkana, Texas, was elected to serve another term as recording secretary, with a term to expire in 2025. Jerome Cooper (term to expire in 2023) and Greg Medenwald (term to expire in 2024) are the other elected recording secretaries.

Richard Smith preached the annual message, entitled “Preach the Powerful Word.” After an introduction to the sermon, special music by Shelby Race, music minister at Calvary Baptist Church in Fairfield, Texas, was shared during the sermon. Bro. Smith then challenged those present from Ezekiel 37 concerning the “dry bones” coming to life as the Word of the Lord was shared. The challenge was to know the Lord and make Him known by preaching the Word to spiritually dead people so that the Spirit of God can move as only He can because He is our only hope. The video of the sermon can be found at BaptistTrumpet.com/BMAA2022.)

The Wednesday morning session was the time set aside to hear from all our departments about the work that God has been and is doing. A video of each department’s report from this session will be available as soon as possible at BaptistTrumpet.com/BMAA2022 in the next few weeks. Chairman of the Coordinating Council Jeff Swart presented the recommended changes to the Principles of Cooperation. They were approved, discussed and set aside to be voted on in the next session. Following the approval, Bro. Swart submitted his resignation as chairman of the Coordinating Council due to health reasons. He stated that Paul White, previous chairman and president of the association, has agreed to serve in the role. Jordan Tew was elected as the new executive director of Baptist Publishing House. All other department leaders were re-elected.
The Wednesday afternoon session began with a report from National WMA President Charlotte Johnson. She shared that they had 175 ladies attend the Women’s Conference on Tuesday morning and that they raised over $65,000 for this year’s project— the Darlene Carey Academy in the Philippines. BMAA Missionary Tammy Wood shared at the Women’s Conference about the relief efforts for the Ukrainian people and after she spoke, they collected approximately $9,000 for the BMA Ukrainian Relief Fund. The National WMA chose Daniel Springs Baptist Camp for this year’s project, with the goal of raising $60,000.

The second annual Legacy Missionary Awards followed, and President of Missions Dr. John David Smith shared that the main criteria for being chosen as a Legacy Missionary is to have served for at least 30 years in God’s global mission as part of the BMAA Missions team. Prior to the introduction of the Legacy Missionaries, he challenged the audience with the question, “How will you outlive your life?”

The following Legacy Missionaries were presented for 2022: John & Shirley Ladd, Marvin & Helen Lloyd, Dale & Barbara Thornton and the late Don & Linda Newsom.

Following the recognition ceremony, which included a time for the missionaries to share, John Michael Poulin (who serves as the field coordinator for Southeast Asia for BMAA Missions) shared a challenging message about taking “All the Word to All the World.”

The final session of the meeting was held Wednesday night, and it is always a highlight of the meeting as all newly elected missionaries are able to be presented. President of Missions Dr. John David Smith began the evening by giving his annual report. (He would normally present this during the Wednesday morning session, but his arrival at the meeting was delayed because his mother-in-law passed away on Sunday). After recognition of the newly elected missionaries, those that are currently serving, along with the missions office personnel were invited to come to the stage for the commissioning prayer that was led by BMAA Missionary to Ecuador Buddy Johnson.

Remember

 150 150 admin
By:
0

Mission Symposium – May 20th 6:00 p.m.
Mid-Year Business Meeting –
May 21st 9:00 a.m.
at
Bethel Baptist Church – Lonedell, MO

April 2022 – Mission Director’s Report

 150 150 admin
By:
0

Dear Missouri Churches,

What a wonderful men’s Renewal Retreat we had! Special thanks to:

Dr. Gavin Hooks, who was our speaker that spoke on his book ‘The Core Principle,’ which is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Bro. Chris Polk and his crew for preparing and serving our meals – it was tremendous!

Every man that was able to be there just had an amazing time! I want to encourage you, men, please mark March 24-25, 2023 on your calendar for our next Renewal Retreat per approval at our semi-annual meeting and the Meramec annual meeting as they fund the event.

Our annual Missions Symposium is right around the corner – May 20 at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Lonedell, Missouri beginning at 6:00PM. Bro.Larry Wood will speak to us about his missionary efforts in Ukraine, the three churches that have been planted there, and about church planting in general. Bro. Juan Fernandez will give a report and I will give a report as your missions Director. I’m so looking forward to this meeting. We will begin at 6:00 PM, take a half hour break at 7:00 PM and will end somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:30 p.m.

Please plan to come! There are two hotels in the area: Super 8 and Pinemark, where many of you stayed last year when the Mission Symposium was at New Testament. Please invite your church folks and let’s pack this event out for brother Larry and brother Juan. I know that you’re going to be blessed as we come and hear about missions and see how we can be more involved as a Church and as an association in our missions effort.

The semi-annual association meeting will also meet at Bethel church at 9 AM that Saturday, May 21.

If you have any questions about Mission Symposium, please do not hesitate to contact me 636-629-2526 and if you have questions about the semi-annual meeting on Saturday, Bro. Jerry Adams is our moderator, so he’s the one to contact about that.

I look forward to seeing you on May 20 and 21. May the Lord richly bless you!

Ben Kingston

Misión Bautista “Belen” STL MO

 150 150 admin
By:
0

“I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” … 1 Cor 3:6 (KJV)

Home Bible Study:

Baby Isaac is here! Our friends Nahum and Ermelinda’s baby Isaac was born on 2/27 at 9:25 p.m. in the St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond’s Heights, MO. He is 6 lbs7 oz. and 19 inches long. Very healthy and strong baby. He arrived 3 weeks early surprisingly for his parents and all of us. I met him 30 minutes after his birth and stayed almost until 2:00 am.

Bible Study in Misión Bautista Belen: Sunday 9:00 am starting this 3/6 is called Discovery Bible Group. We are promoting it on Facebook page “Misión Bautista Hispana” and with our many contacts we have made since 3/2021 We are hoping to practice hospitality and offering coffee and doughnuts those who arrive early… in our community we are known for always arriving late, so some encouragement here. We promote this event through our FB page so if you have a chance to hit like and share that will help to spread the word and this unity to share will be a blessing to others who don’t know about Jesus.

Evangelism:

We are so happy that spring is around the corner, also we are so thankful for this opportunity to say thank you for keeping me and my family in your prayers. We continue reaching out to Hispanic families and individuals in this area of Missouri, Harvest is plenty! Continue praying for more laborers. It is a privilege to bring you an update on how God is leading us.

Bible contacts, every Saturday from 9:00 to 11:00 am we are partnering with local business owner where Hispanic spend time shopping and hanging out to connect and offer time to hand out a Bible and go over the basics of the gospel. This has been a huge learning curve about our community. Many of the people contacted don’t have interest nor have heard about passages like John 3:16. Harvest is plenty!

Prayer:

Prayer Network: Follow us @Belenprayernetwork every day 12:00 pm. We read a passage of Scripture and pray for Salvation for each one of our contacts and special prayer request for health and wisdom while life happens. Wednesday at 7:00 pm in Florissant we continue recording a lesson of discipleship on Facebook live.

• Prayer walks: Every day from 2:00 to 2:45 pm we walk in neighborhoods seeking for open doors to share the gospel and pray for people in need.
Special Training this Month!

Aligning every believer with the mission of Jesus. The Multiplication Workshop a Missional Challenge by Dr. David DeVries. I pray and hope you have had the privilege of going through this amazing, effective practical tool for you and your ministry. I was able to join this training a second time last week in Conway Arkansas. Bro. Larry Barker, Elvis Garcia and Eli did an awesome job training us with real life experience and this amazing workbook.

Applying the WIN acronym:
What are we doing WELL?
What do I need to IMPROVE
and finally
What is Next?

I was able to redefine our Vision and core Values as well adjust our ministry timeline. In the last couple weeks, we have lost contact with two families who were already planning to join our church plant and becoming significant part of the core team. We celebrated 18 worship services, then they stopped coming and communicating…well God knows we did the best to equip them with the gospel. Now is time to go back to the basics: Prayer, Evangelism and Bible Study. We are excited to start a Discovery Bible Study this coming Sunday. If you have not gone through this workshop, I highly recommend it. It will encourage, will energize and help you define better your purpose and reason to serve the Lord Jesus.

“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation”

2 Corinthians 5:18

Dios le bendiga! God bless you.