Dear Partners in Ministry,
It is a new year with new opportunities and challenges. In this letter, the opportunities, and challenges of 2017 will be communicated.
Opportunities
God has provided us with ten ongoing evangelistic Bible studies with an additional study imminent. One individual who is still finishing up our series of 15 studies is actually preparing for believer’s baptism.
Seven of these evangelistic studies are local (in person) while three of them are by means of online video conferencing (GoToMeeting), but this changes weekly since many of these studies are with international scholars who tend to move back and forth between their homeland and Boston.
It is a tremendous blessing from God to be entrusted by God with these precious individuals. Please pray that the gospel will be made clear in each study, and that each individual will respond in faith and be saved.
Financial Needs
We need to work on our support level. It has been quite a while since we have reported back in person to our financial supporters. The combination of this along with an increase of insurance costs and the inevitable deterioration of committed support has made it an imperative to work at increasing our monthly support. We are currently reporting to one supporting church per month, but, in 2018, we will take several months and report back to all of our supporters. In addition to this, we need to increase our supporter base. This means speaking in new churches or asking individuals to join our financial team.
Deb and I have lived by faith for a long time, and the Lord has taught us that He is faithful. We enjoy raising support, because our cause (making disciples of all nations) is worthy. Therefore, since our God is faithful and our cause is worthy, we will be proactive rather than fretful.
Church Planning
Tomorrow is the beginning of our annual business meeting in the International Baptist Church. We will introduce several items which will not be voted upon until several weeks from now. We will be considering an assistant pastor as well as a second deacon.
The potential assistant pastor is a semi-retired pastor who loves our international disciples and is a gifted teacher of the Word of God. His main roll is teaching both on Sunday morning as well as other discipleship studies. This allows me to focus on evangelism and administration.
The potential deacon is a one of our Chinese disciples who has shown himself to be faithful. In fact, since his conversion and baptism, he has not missed church and has been consistent in his ministry responsibilities. One day, he may very well return to China. If he does so, he will go back a changed person—eternally saved and profitable for ministry.
This is Great Commission ministry.
Pray for us,
Bill and Deb