Mid July Update

We've had a couple of busy weeks!
  

Breakfast in Interlaken

We attended the International Baptist Convention's "Interlaken Summer Experience" July 7-12 in Interlaken, Switzerland.  This annual gathering of the IBC "family" has taken place every year since 1958.  This gathering is different from the other two annual IBC meetings in that it is meant to be broader in focus - beyond pastors and leaders, this meeting is for the entire community of IBC churches.  There are great workshops each morning, with gifted teachers and relevant topics.  (Bob really enjoyed his class with Dr. Lorin Cranford on the "Life of Paul" and Carol was blessed by Denise Glenn's "Five Priorities of a Woman's Life" class!) The workshops are joined with morning and evening worship services each day - which always feature excellent speakers.

Dr Lindsay Brown

This year's speakers were Dr. Lindsay Brown, a Welsh pastor and scholar, who for the past 4 years has been the International Director of the Lausanne Movement for World Evangelisation.  He was followed each evening by Dr. Billy Hanks, who worked with Dr. Billy Graham for many years, and is now the head of The International Evangelism Association.  With their backgrounds, you can imagine what the topic of their teaching was, right?  Evangelisation!  But more to the point - Effective Evangelisation, which is about Disciple-Making.  It is not enough to have a person agree with the facts about Jesus, or even to say a prayer of commitment.  Biblical Disciple Making, as Jesus commanded His disciples, means that we individually and intentionally help those new believers to "grow up into Him who is the head - that is, Christ."  (Eph. 4:15)

Carol and I were both deeply challenged by the messages and the theme of the conference.  We were reminded, and have been praying for God to grant us the insight and fortitude to be faithful to His call - not to a foreign land, not to church planting, not even to drawing a crowd of people - but to truly making disciples, who will in turn make more disciples...

Pray for us in this effort.

Praise Team - Preview Service 4

Three days after our return from Switzerland we were excited to hold our fourth Preview Service. Despite the number of people who are on "Holiday" at this time of the year, we had a really nice turn-out and a couple of new young families who joined us.   We had a great time together worshiping the Lord.  We joined with the angels in heaven in song and prayer, joined around the Lord's Table for Communion and joined together in His word for learning and growth.

Caring for the young worshipers!

We are learning a lot in these services.  We've worked out many of the details, like how to run the sound and projection systems, where to have people to greet guests,  and even how distribute the bread and cup for Communion!  We have been blessed with many godly people who are gifted and passionate about the ministry of praise - what a great blessing! But we've also discovered new challenges - like a growing number of toddlers & infants. Pray with us that God will equip us with enough willing servants who will assist in that ministry as we move toward our public launch service in September/October.