Austin Gardner

Mark Coffey just called to say that he has the Certificate of Occupancy in hand. We are approved to meet in the new building. Sunday morning we will meet there unless Jesus comes back before.

So that step is behind us. Now we just have to continue reaching people and praying that God will meet the needs of every step along the way.

Tonight will be our last service in our current building. We will finish up the service, move more things, and in just a few short hours turn the building back over to its owner.

So do not forget that our mid week service will be tonight, Tuesday, December 29, 2009.

We will start at 7:15 pm as usual.

I want to thank so many of you that have done so much hard work getting the old building ready to turn back in. God has blessed us with super wonderful people. Without you it would not have been possible. Thanks.

Lord willing we will hear this afternoon that we have the go ahead on our new building for this Sunday. Mark Coffey has worked hard to get all the details worked out with the county.

God has been good and we are super blessed to have all of you at Vision.

Pray for the meeting this week at the Summit that God will richly bless.

Today many of the Peruvian Pastors are making their way to a camp outside of Ilo, Peru. They will be there until Wednesday. It will be a time of relaxing, a time of prayer, preparation, and fellowship. I used to love this time with the pastors as much as anything else I got to do.

I would like to ask you to pray for all the pastors, the missionaries, and their time together. Especially lift up Chris Gardner in this time that God would greatly use him.

I pray that the pastors and missionaries will all come back refreshed, batteries charged and ready to go into battle.

A missionary friend in China has written a great article called “Raising the Bar of Boldness.” I want to challenge you to go and read this article right now.

All over the world God’s people are taking the gospel even to closed countries. But Satan has won a big battle of the mind by causing many of God’s people to be 007 missionaries. They are secret agents. They hide who they are and what they do to the point that no even knows who they are. They are so afraid they hardly ever do what they went to the country to do.

God has used several of our friends to be bold. Please read the article for a man and his wife that are now living in China and dealing with this reality every day.

His article is based on a previously mentioned article here.

Today is Wayne Cooke’s birthday. Wayne is a tremendous blessing to our church. He is serving on the pastoral staff of Vision. He currently leads the ministry as we try to start a church in Cabbagetown, Atlanta. He is doing a great job and we are so very grateful for Wayne and the Cooke family.

He has been my friend for many years. He has a tremendous heart to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Wayne and Lina have 3 very fine children. They have been used of God in several ministries already and I am very grateful that God has lent them to us!

Wayne, please know that we love you and thank God for you. I hope you have a very wonderful birthday today. I am asking God right now to give you your best year ever coming up.

God bless.

Our last Sunday at 1235 Old Alpharetta Road Suite 165 happened today. We are moving on to the new rented facility at 1125 Alpha Drive, Alpharetta.

This was a special day for Vision. God has blessed us so much. We have now had over 600 services as a church. God has blessed us with wonderful new families, souls saved, and lives changed.

Today we had 120 in Sunday School, 142 in the morning service and 105 in the evening service.

We are just steps away from having our Certificate of Occupancy for the new building. Lord willing, it will all be ready for next Sunday. Stay tuned to this blog and Vision News and we will keep you posted.

Everyone that has seen the new building seems to be very excited. We had a wonderful work day on Saturday and the same will be happening tomorrow.

I hope you have been one of the people that have been in on the ground floor of what God is doing at Vision. Some day we will remember with great fondness all that we are watching God do right now.

So this Tuesday will be our last service in our current building. Then on to the Summit and then our new location.

God has been good. Why don’t you put a comment below telling your gratitude to God for what He did in this building. We had wonderful testimonies tonight at church about God’s blessings on us.

I am not sure that you have heard about what is happening in North Africa or not but you need to know.

The police in a certain country have been pulling a young believer in each day. They spend hours talking to him. They have only threatened him a little. They are mostly very kind to him. They tell him that he will be serving his country if he will report on the foreigners that are teaching and preaching the Bible.

They are talking to the young man for hours at a time. He has so far held strong and witnessed to them of his faith.

I would ask you to pray that our missionaries would have boldness. Pray that the nationals would have boldness. We do not want to see fear cripple all that God has for North Africa.

Thank you for your interest and your prayers. God bless you and God bless His work in all the Muslim countries of the world!

I received the following note from Pastor Gary Ledford. Please pray for this young man!

Some of you are aware that Dr. Paul Chappell’s son, Larry, has been diagnosed with cancer. He is to have surgery for this on this coming Monday, December 28th and Dr. Chappell has asked that as many as could to fast and pray for God’s will to be done. Bro. Larry is the over the Sr. High Student Ministries there at Lancaster Baptist Church. I know that we would want others to pray for one of our children during a time such as this. Please pass this on to your church and other pastors you know.

Thanks for taking time from you already busy schedule to pray.

The following clips come from an article “Did Jesus wear designer robes?”

I am embarrassed that this heresy is making it to Africa. Please read carefully the following notes. Go over to the article by clicking on the link and read the entire article. People have been twisting the Scriptures for too long to make money from them.

God’s people do not need to be manipulated to get them to give. God does not want His men to use the church to get rich, filthy lucre.

Preachers quote 3 John 2: “Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” Abraham, rich in cattle, sheep, and gold (Genesis 13:2), is commonly cited, with special emphasis on his willingness to pay tithes to Melchizedek. Since the Apostle Paul himself tells us that “the blessing of Abraham” has come to the Gentiles (Galatians 3:14), why shouldn’t Christians walk in similar wealth and influence, they ask?

The message of prosperity resonates with traditional African religious ideas because of the belief in mystical causality. Prayer vigils and healing camps are viewed as the Christian equivalent of traditional shrines. Prayers, like offerings, become ritual actions that are supposed to make things happen.

I saw first hand in Peru how curanderos and others could be paid to bring blessings or to curse someone. It makes a good living but it is not good living. The gospel of salvation that should be preached takes second seat to the money message!

When prosperity is lacking, the explanation given is failure to pay a tithe to the church, or it may be linked to demonic forces, curses, and witchcraft perpetrated by envious family members. Churches offer “anointing for vengeance” to help dismantle such spiritual traps. Services in charismatic churches include imprecatory prayers of sometimes alarming vengefulness.

Masters of manipulation using tricks to get people to believe that God is blessing only so they can get them to give more. Con artists in the name of Jesus robbing people and using God to achieve their wicked ends.

It is not uncommon for pastors who want a better vehicle to disguise their purchase. They claim God has directed them to give their old vehicle to a fellow church member. A few days after the ‘divine direction’ is carried out, a more luxurious vehicle appears, and members proudly point to this as visible proof of God’s blessing on their life and ministry.

One rarely hears of those who have failed in spite of their tithes and offerings. Or of those whose testimonies consist of grace and more grace, for example to continue in a marriage where one spouse is an alcoholic, or to cope in the face of painful loss.

God’s purpose in difficult situations is not always to take us out of them but to take us through them. In the words of the psalmist, ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me’ (Psalm 23:4); and ‘My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever’ (Psalm 73:26). The Apostle Paul himself had a “thorn in the flesh” that was not taken away. He lived with it not by “naming and claiming,” but by grace.

I hope that you have learned enough Bible to know better than this error. I hope you can see through it here in America as well because it runs rampant here.

God bless each of you. Be careful to be discerning of the truth always.

Matt Allen has arrived with his family back on the field in Papua New Guinea. God is doing a great work and many decisions have been made. This is the first paragraph in a note that Matt published on his blog:

We are currently experiencing a great in-gathering of spiritual fruit here in the Kamea Region! God has blessed abundantly in the last two weeks and we have seen many souls come to Christ. A turning point was experienced two weeks ago on Friday when the national preachers were confronted after preaching in the market.

I want to challenge you to go read this post and thank God for what He is doing.

Then I have two questions for you! Are you giving to faith promise so that we can get enough money to help men like Matt Allen? Did you increase your faith promise like you felt led at our last mission’s conference? Both these questions constitute the first question. Now for the second question.

Will you pray and ask God if He might have you go to a place like Papua New Guinea and work? God has so much work to be done. There are fields white unto harvest all over the world. Will you give your children to go?

Wouldn’t it be exciting to be in the middle of something like what you are reading about here and in Matt’s blog? Don’t miss out on all God has for you!