What happened in church today?

[weary warrior]

Had a pretty good service yesterday. Numbers were down a little, only had 13 present. But good freedom to preach.

One of my regulars is a 70 year old cowboy who was raised a catholic. He's rougher than a cob, but really supports us, listens intently to every sermon and keeps coming back. Every single Sunday.

We went out to his place to work some horses yesterday afternoon, and he told my son Will to flag a colt in the round pen while he and I went and visited in patio chairs against the barn. It turns out he had more questions that had been bugging him. Questions about the validity of cofessionals, rasaries and praying using written catholic prayers. He's seeing the difference between the simple grace and liberty of the gospel as I preach it, and the bondage he grew up with.

He not a practicing catholic,  hasnt been anything but a rough ol' sinner for many, many years. But until now, that was all he knew of God.

Seeds dont spring up and bear fruit overnight. They need to be nutured, watered and waited patiently for until God gives the increase.

[Ukulelemike]

Sadly, two of our regular members, twin brothers who have been coming for over 10 years, both saved with us, have for whatever reason to stop attending, just sort of dropped out. Both have gone back to video games most of the time, or lots of working overtime to fund their various interests. I suspect they may have gotten upset at my pointing out to them why they had left the video games in the first place, and now they have gone full back, so we never see them anymore. And in a tiny church as ours, that's a tough loss, after so long.

However, the Lord never promised an easy road. So we had four yesterday, taught on the subject of biblical judging in the morning, that after our discipleship class, and in the evening we have been doing a continuing study on wine and strong drink in the Bible, going over every passage in the Bible that mentions it, and considering each reference as neutral, positive, negative, service-connected, part of sacrifice, or a combination of those. The goal is, there is always such an argument from people as to whether wine is generally seen as good or evil in scripture, so I thought a full view of it completely, then make an assessment at the end.   

[Jim_Alaska]

Mike, I am sorry to hear of the loss of your twin brothers in attendance. I remember them from when I preached for you , but not their names. How are you handling their membership status, are they still members at this time?

I can sympathize with your concern and grief over this situation, to lose two when you only have six is very disheartening. Just hold the fort and wait to see if The Lord has something in store that we may not be aware of yet. I will also pray about this situation. Strengthen what remains and look to The Lord for guidance. Perhaps try to use this situation as a tool to prepare yourself and others in an effort to avoid this type of thing taking place again, or even to turn this situation around.

Just because the twins are gone doesn't mean they will stay gone, and it certainly doesn't mean that God will not work on their minds and hearts, so that they see their error.

[Ukulelemike]

17 hours ago, Jim_Alaska said:

Mike, I am sorry to hear of the loss of your twin brothers in attendance. I remember them from when I preached for you , but not their names. How are you handling their membership status, are they still members at this time?

I can sympathize with your concern and grief over this situation, to lose two when you only have six is very disheartening. Just hold the fort and wait to see if The Lord has something in store that we may not be aware of yet. I will also pray about this situation. Strengthen what remains and look to The Lord for guidance. Perhaps try to use this situation as a tool to prepare yourself and others in an effort to avoid this type of thing taking place again, or even to turn this situation around.

Just because the twins are gone doesn't mean they will stay gone, and it certainly doesn't mean that God will not work on their minds and hearts, so that they see their error.

They are still members-our membership policy (which they helped set, by the way, lol) gives 3 months of no regular attendance before we send a letter to them making official inquiry of their absence. Hasn't been that long. So we are hoping it will change, giving them time to figure out what's going on and what's important. 

We are getting ready to get out and do a big push in the area-you know how small our area is, so that won't take a long time-going to start with just getting something into every home about us. I have two tracts and a tri-fold called "What is an Independent Fundamental Baptist?" for those unfamiliar with us and what we believe-there are a lot of false stories about who we are ad what we do, and I thought I might quell some of those to make it easier for some to visit for a first time. We once has a lady telling people that we separated men and women on opposite sides of the church, (we did not). After this we will get more personal and direct-it has just been a while, I am ashamed to say, since we got out door-knocking. And no other church in town does either, and ew are all showing shrinking numbers, so time to get back to the basics.

[Jim_Alaska]

Thanks for the reply Mike. The three month non-attendance policy seems reasonable and fair. It could even be a restoration tool for the two brothers since they helped put it in place. If they are truly saved this point may be something that God can use to prick their conscience.

I will be in prayer regarding your church endeavoring to reach more people. Door knocking is difficult to begin with and even more so given the low population of the the area. I have never been much for an actual door knocking program, but am all for personal, one on one contact by church members with the community. I have always tended to favor the method of personal contact by just being friendly and getting out in the community to meet people and witnessing to them through the position of friendship. Offering help to those who may need an occasional helping hand goes a long way also, both as a church or individually.

Tracts and other literature are always good choices, even better if they don't sound like advertisements, but rather more like promoting friendship, community, and instilling a sense of curiosity and information. If I can be of any help please just say the word. 

[Ukulelemike]

2 hours ago, Jim_Alaska said:

Thanks for the reply Mike. The three month non-attendance policy seems reasonable and fair. It could even be a restoration tool for the two brothers since they helped put it in place. If they are truly saved this point may be something that God can use to prick their conscience.

I will be in prayer regarding your church endeavoring to reach more people. Door knocking is difficult to begin with and even more so given the low population of the the area. I have never been much for an actual door knocking program, but am all for personal, one on one contact by church members with the community. I have always tended to favor the method of personal contact by just being friendly and getting out in the community to meet people and witnessing to them through the position of friendship. Offering help to those who may need an occasional helping hand goes a long way also, both as a church or individually.

Tracts and other literature are always good choices, even better if they don't sound like advertisements, but rather more like promoting friendship, community, and instilling a sense of curiosity and information. If I can be of any help please just say the word. 

I will surely do that. Thanks, brother. And yes, before we hit the three month mark I will probably send off an early letter just as a reminder, see if something is bugging them, anything they'd like to talk about. Problem is, neither of them are much good at opening up with anything negative. Just not talkers. So that makes it tough to get to the meat of the issue.