We had a great weekend of ministry that started Saturday morning with five men gathering for breakfast and a Bible study. The deacons and pastors then meet for a monthly leadership meeting and had great discussions praising God for what He has done and we looked forward together to what He will do in continuing to grow people, the congregation, and providing land. We are in a search mode to find land possibilities as it is the desire of the church to find something in the next year that we can call our own. Please pray with us for God’s wisdom and direction.

Sunday morning I had the privilege of leading communion and providing the sermon. We had a family of four visit the church for the first time and other recent visitors continue to attend. We had 27 in attendance and several “regulars” who were gone! We are praising God for recent numerical growth for the Sunday morning service. We are praising Him even more for recent spiritual growth in many of our members. We truly believe the numerical growth is due to the preceding spiritual growth.

We are looking forward to continued growth in both areas and look forward to watching God work in Bennington through us and in spite of us (we are human after all).

What an amazing weekend in God's grace! It started with the wedding of a dear friend. The wedding was a great testament to God's goodness and His love which has guided this couple together. I am excited to watch over the coming years how God will use them for His will.

We then had a great opportunity to fellowship and worship with the great folks at Slater Baptist Church in Slater, Iowa for the churches 41st anniversary. It is great to have a sending church who looks back with joy to the day they were planted and looks out to other places (Bennington, NE) with excitement about the church plant work going on there. I had the opportunity to preach the Word and give an update during the afternoon service. Those afternoon services are great, but after a big meal they can be tough. I didn't see too many droopy eyes and I stayed awake too! God has been so good to me and my family through the great people in Slater. We praise God often for them and we praise God for a wonderful Sunday with them.

After we finished the afternoon service we packed up our display and hit the road so that we could make it back to Bennington for the Sunday evening Bible study. We made it about 10 minutes before service started. Amy had a good time with the kids in Joy club and I was able to lead our 8 session in the Growing Strong in God's Family study. It was a lesson focusing us on prayer. We talked about walking the tight rope of praying for great amazing things to happen while praying God's will to be done. We have a great opportunity to put our praying with faith in action coming up as we  send out approximately 2400 postcards to the local neighborhoods inviting people to join us for Palm Sunday and Easter services. A couple of our deacons challenged my faith as they desire to set up expecting God to move in the hearts of people and bring them to hear the Word. We are preparing for a great turn out and we are praying good would help us to be faithful in our prayer and our trust in Him. Please pray along with us.

This week I am in Ohio at the Baptist Church Planters headquarters for the board meetings (I am just an observer, I am not on the board) and the Leadership Summit following. As of this writing (Wednesday morning) the meetings have been great. It is always encouraging to be in a room of Godly men who desire God's will to be done. God has gathered a great group of leaders who lead by following and serving our risen Savior!

Next weekend we are looking forward to being with our church family at Indianola Regular Baptist Church. I am excited to share what God is doing in person and to see what He is doing there as well.

Until next week! 

This past week has been filled with activity. It started last Monday with a trip to Grace Baptist Church in Grand Island, NE for the fall conferences of the NARBC. It was a great time of fellowship and being in the word. Pastor Jim Vogel was our guest speaker and we had a great time in Hebrews 12:1-2. There were many great moments but one caused me to draw an illustration. The idea behind it is that we, as Christisns are in the row boat rowing away trying to be good Christians and yet we stay tied to the dock of sin and we go nowhere.

Sunday was a busy and great day! I was able to conduct my first baptism service in the afternoon.The pictures didn't turn out to good but thats okay because the baptism was effectively wet. :) It was a very joyous occassion. This was my first baptismal service and I thought it went very well. I am looking forwad to future baptisms and more immediately, the discipleship of Mary.

Sunday night was the 6th night for the Shepherding a Child's Heart video series. It is a great set of lessons and everyone is benefiting.

This coming weekend we will be attending 2 BCP promotional banquets, one in Creston, IA on Friday the 23rd, and the next in West Des Moines on the 24th. Hope to see you there.

Many a mile has been driven over the last few weeks. I have been out to our states church camp twice, down to Wilson, KS for the Mid-Continent Association of Regular Baptist Churches fall conferences, and I am now sitting in Grand Island, NE for the Nebraska Association fall conferences. I haven’t stopped to count up the hours (or miles) that I have logged but I am sure it would depress me. J So I only think about the good things that occurred at all the destinations of those trips and the joys of returning home.

The camp trips where for Men’s Retreat (which I attended and helped run) and Young Adults Retreat (which I was the speaker for and technically am still classified as). During both trips I had the opportunity to donate some physical labor to help with work projects and had a fantastic time in the Word and fellowship with the believers. Both times I had the opportunity to shoot stuff which was fun. At men’s retreat I shot skeet for the first time and actually hit a clay pigeon on my 5^th or 6^th attempt. I quit right after that. J Quit while you’re ahead. At the young adults retreat I shot up some pumpkins with various fire arms, if there is a version of peta that holds up the rights of fruits, they won’t be happy with me.

My trip to Kansas was fruitful in that I have a few churches that expressed interest in potentially bringing us down for a deputation meeting and Lord willing we will be able to raise our support level.  Be in prayer during 2010 we desire to really hit deputation hard and raise our support level as much as God will allow. I would love to be able to reduce my work load ASAP. In my current missionary presentation I mention that I desire to reduce 4 jobs to 2 ministries. Currently we have the jobs of work-work, church-work, deputation-work, and family-work. The two ministries will be church and family. That can only happen when our support levels increase so we can be focused on the work God has set before us.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We love each of you and appreciate your support more than words can express.