Fellow Laborers:
Hello! Thanks to God’s grace, He has brought me peacefully through another month. Under God’s guidance, my family and I were well this month. My wife and I continue to persevere in the training of our child, we continually share the gospel with him, teach him the catechism, and tell him Bible stories. Also, during the Lord’s Day worship services he has begun to learn to sit quietly and not move about. Through this I have seen the Lord working in the life of my kid. I also have seen growth in my wife. She invited some younger sisters over to our house and prepared a meal with them and so was an “informal” example to them.
For maintaining my own personal growth this month, I continued to read through the Bible with the other brothers and sisters in the church and sought to dig in deep. Another way was this month I met with some classmates from seminary. The topic of our meeting was the nine fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5;22-23). There were nine of us and so each person shared for about 20 minutes on a fruit. My topic was kindness. Through my sharing on this topic I gained a better understanding of what it means to be kind, and also how I myself can better apply kindness to my ministry. I also gained a lot of encouragement from the other brothers’ sharing. They helped me better understand the meaning of each fruit and how to better discipline myself to grow in each area.
I preached two Lord’s Days this month. I shared from Mark 6 where Jesus was not accepted in His home town (respected by them), where He sends out the disciples to work, and also about John the Baptist’s death. I was encouraged because if Jesus was not respected when He was on earth then why should we be who follow Him? Also, John the Baptist died because he held to the truth and pointed out error, and we should follow his example, not fearing anyone over standing up for the truth. The other two weeks a coworker spoke on James 5. One other Lord’s Day Teacher Larry Pan spoke on “The Rich Young Ruler Who Could Not Squeeze through the Eye of a Needle.” Through sharing about the rich young ruler, he showed us how a true Christian should be willing lay down everything for Christ. Even though this is hard, with God nothing is too difficult and this encouraged us a lot.
On the 22nd of this month we held a conference on “A Healthy Church”. The speaker was a missionary sent from Capital Hill Baptist Church. The participants included the brothers and sisters from my church and some leaders from other churches that I invited. There were about 20 people total. The speaker explained to us several Biblical marks of a healthy church: it must understand the gospel in accordance to the Bible; it must evangelize in accordance with the Bible; it must have membership; it must carry out discipline according to the Bible. These are some of the very things that W____ is missing. His teaching gave our church and the other churches’ leaders a better understanding of what a Biblical church should look like.
This month we added 4 new people to our group: two sisters, one brother, and one seeker. Both sisters affirmed that were Christians, understand the gospel and have already been baptized. Their problem is that they both are married to unbelievers. One of the sisters was involved in a church from quite young, but once she started dating her husband she stopped going to church. When she started coming here I talked with her and she knows she did wrong, and has wept in repentance before the Lord asking for forgiveness. We prayed with her asking God to cleanse her of her sin and encouraged her to return afresh to His presence. The other sister just married and also married an unbeliever. We discussed the issue with her and she also willingly repented. Thanksgiving evening she brought her husband with her to our meeting. We used the opportunity to share the gospel with him establish a relationship with him. This made me realize how important a good church is. These sisters were unable to resist the enchantment of the world because their churches had not given them good teaching or shepherding. This further encouraged me to be even more diligent in make this church more Biblically based so that more people can receive feeding that is in accord with the Bible.
This month one sister left us because of work. She had to return to her home town to work. When she left us she shared with us here feelings and what she has gained from these past 6 months with us. She was going to miss us a lot. Because in this half a year she felt as if she found a home; we were growing together and studying together. She also told us that this half year she was built up on God’s Word among us by His grace. She gained a greater understanding of what a Biblical church should be like. We were thankful for all she shared and miss her too.
