Currently Vicente and Gabriella need about $400 a month support. Please pray about helping them. God is greatly using them.

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, November, 2009

Dear Brothers,

I thank God for this privilage to be able to write you and send our greetings hoping that they find you in love and harmony.

Thanks to God He has blessed us in a great way. I must thank you for what you hav edone for us. This month of November in our church we had a campaign on missions. It was a great success. We had Pastor Ake from Ivory Coast preaching. Some made decisions were made in giving and going.

As the week on missions ended, Bro. Mamadou from the church of Missionary Keith Shumaker opened a church at the edge of the city in a district called Sonre. The church was kicked off with a three day evangelistic campaign which was a great success. Many people in this area speak the Moray language. We were able to show the Jesus Film in their language as well as pass out many tracts. Many who had made decisions for missions were able to start with this new church plant. 16 people were saved by the grace of our God.

Concerning us, thanks to God we are improving daily in the language. We have five hours of class per day from Monday to Friday. These last two weeks we have been learning how to witness. We thank you for your prayers in this. The first week of November we were able to move into our new house. God has been tremendesouly good to us. We are very happy and excited in the work in Burkina.

Prayer Requests:
• That God would continue using us
• That we might quickly learn French
• That God might use Bro. Mamadou in the new church
• That my wife’s family might be saved.
• For the Shumaker family, our missionary partners
• That those who accepted Christ this month begin to grow.

It also might remind you that we need to be careful to train leaders. Though I love the idea of a large church this church might have reached more people, spread out more, and caused less disturbance to the community if they had been dozens of smaller churches reaching a community.

I hope that you pray about being a leader trainer. It is not about how many you can get to come and hear you preach but by how many you can train to do the job.

Jesus could have had the largest church ever but the way He changed the world was by training 11 men to shake the entire world after He had gone back to Heaven.

These charges are trumped up charges, no doubt! But megachurches cause problems in the community that the people have a problem with, noise, traffic, etc.

At least you could think of planting churches and training leaders!

by Michelle A Vu, Christian Post

Posted: Saturday, November 28, 2009, 9:37 (GMT)

A Chinese court sentenced the pastor and leaders of a 50,000-member megachurch in northeastern China to prison, rights groups reported Thursday.

Pastor Wang Xiaoguang of Linfen Fushan Church in Linfen, northern Shanxi province received three years for “illegal land occupation” and his wife Yang Rongli received a maximum of seven years for “illegal land occupation” and “assembling a crowd to disrupt public order”, according to ChinaAid Association. Other church leaders received three- to four-and-a-half-year prison sentences.

The sentences are some of the toughest for house church leaders in recent years.

“To punish an innocent house church leader with seven years imprisonment is the most serious sentence since 2004 when the senior Henan house church leader Pastor Zhang Rongliang received a similar length,” said CAA President Bob Fu in a statement. “We strongly condemn these unjust sentences, which are based on trumped-up changes.”

The trial was held at the People’s Court of Raodu district, Linfen City on Wednesday and lasted over 12 hours. Only one family member for each of the accused church leaders was allowed to attend the court hearing. In total, only four family members were at the trial for the five church leaders.

Moreover, the defense lawyers were only allowed to review 50 pages of the “evidence materials” related to the case before the trial. But during the trial, government prosecutors presented more than 1,000 pages of so-called evidence.

The five were convicted of “illegal land occupation” and “assembling a crowd to disrupt public order”.

The trial came after a massive raid by police and hired security guards on Fushan Church in September. During the pre-dawn raid on September 13, reportedly 400 people in police suits raided and destroyed buildings on the Good News Cloth Shoes Factory property, where the Fushan Church is located.

The raid was one of the worst crackdowns against a house church in the past decade, according to CAA.

Men tore at the building’s foundation with shovels as bulldozers worked to level other buildings on the site. Church members sleeping at the construction site of the new church building were reportedly attacked with bricks and other objects, according to CAA. Several members were seriously injured and were sent to the emergency room, and some members were unconscious.

Following the raid, Yang and other church officials attempted to travel to Beijing to protest the destruction of their church to the central government authorities. However, they were arrested and detained during their trip.

During Wednesday’s trial, Yang and Pastor Wang encouraged their son to stand firm in his faith in Christ, according to CAA. The husband and wife team had led the Fushan Church for more than 30 years.

“This case clearly shows the serious deteriorating situation of religious persecution in China,” Fu said. “We call upon the Obama administration and international community to speak up unequivocally in its concern about this case.”

I just finished this book by Paul Chappell and Clayton Reed. I found the book well worth your time to read it.

I read the book because Trent Cornwell encouraged me to do so. I enjoyed the material they gathered from the survey. I got help from the material presented that I could personally apply to our church, Vision Baptist. I was encouraged to see the spirit the book conveyed. There was a spirit of fellowship and working together that can be unusual in books by independent Baptists.

I love the emphasis on discipleship and church planting. We are definitely in a needy time in our country and the world. Maybe one of the most surprising findings was that the USA is now one of the most populous countries in need of evangelism. “Only China, India, and Indonesia have larger non-churched populations!”

You can get this book here and on the kindle here!

You can also find David Gardner’s prayer letter and Jason Holt’s prayer recently posted to Vision News.

Impacting our World:

These past two months we have been talking about impacting our world with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is easy for us to get focused on the temporal or just what is immediately around us instead of the whole world. We have a narrow vision of things. When we speak of missions what we must realize is that we are called to impact our world and everyone in it.

This past month we had our third mission’s conference in the church. We had as our special speaker Miguel Murillo from Arequipa, Peru. Miguel is the pastor of the Hunter Baptist Church, which is the first church that Bro. Austin Gardner founded when he started his ministry in Peru. He is also the director of the Macedonia Baptist Bible College located there in Arequipa. It was a great blessing to have him preach and challenge our people about World Evangelism.

Our conference started on Thursday and went through Sunday night. Each night we had videos, special music and great preaching. Many responded to the invitation and we were able to exceed our faith promise from this past year.

On Sunday morning, we had more than a hundred and close to seventy on Sunday night. During the invitation several people raised their hand for salvation and two accepted Christ that night, while another guy asked to come by to talk to me later. On that Tuesday he came by, and when we started to talk he said that he wanted to know how to live his life different in a way that would please the Lord. I explained what Christ did for us and how that He came to give us a new life. When we finished, I asked if he had any questions or doubts. He told me that this was exactly what he had been looking for.

Afterwards he prayed and trusted Christ. When we finished he said that felt great and excited about the decision he had made. Pray for Geraldo and our church that we can do more for missions every year because we know that this church is a product of missions.

Special Meeting:
One of my favorite subjects to teach or talk about is the family. Possibly because I realize what a great need there is and how many families are falling apart. At the request of several of the couples in the church, we are starting a couples meeting with the goal of helping unify and strengthen them as a family. We have about 6 o 7 couples that are meeting right now with many more interested.

One of the guys that comes with his wife gave the testimony that they were at the point of getting a divorce and didn’t know where to turn. They went to their former pastor and he told them that he didn’t do counseling or that type of thing. He said how thankful he was that he found a place where they could get help, grow, and learn. It has been amazing to see how much these couples have grown as they now walk holding hands, hugging and snickering like newlyweds. Please pray for the families of our church because we know that they are its strength.

Prayer Requests:

1. Pray for our paper work that has been sent. We still have not heard anything.
2. Pray for our couples meeting that the Lord will strengthen and work in their lives.
3. Pray that the Lord will give us wisdom as we prepare for furlough next June.
4. Pray for our upcoming financial conference the 27-29 of this month.

13,000 a year:

During our mission’s conference this year and while talking about how to impact our city and world with the gospel we came up with a plan to reach at least 13,000 houses a year. Acts 1:8 gives us the pattern of how we are to reach from our Jerusalem to the uttermost all at the same time.

Starting with our Jerusalem we want to have a Bible preaching church for every 50,000 people in our city. That would be the equivalent to around 13,000 houses. Each year we want to make sure that the people in our neighborhood receive a tract that tells them how to be saved. Every church that is started will have the same goal until each person has an opportunity to hear the gospel and be saved. Besides our normal visitation, we are planning the first Saturday of each month to go out as a church to reach our goal. That means we have to visit a little more than 1000 house each month. We have had a great response with three groups the first time and five the second time.

As more people get excited and involved, we hope to have around ten groups that go out the first Saturday of each month. Pray for our church that we can reach our Jerusalem and the world with the gospel gospel.

Kevin White’s blog

Pastor Brent Armstrong sent this picture from China out. I hope that it impresses you as much as it has impressed him and me. Chinese people need the gospel. There are literally millions of them that have never even heard the name of Jesus Christ.

I have several friends already working over there. You could go also. They do not need an English teacher, they need a church planter. Would you consider asking God today if He might have you go to China.

Another Reason to Train Leaders

Incredible Numbers

Multiply, Don’t Add

Here is the link where you will be able to see the conversations.

They are actually testing the channel now and so you can go ahead and log on right now.

Sign in so you can get involved in the chat and conversation if you would like.

What is it? Missionaries from around the world will be addressing the youth pastors of America concerning the cause of world missions.

When and where is it? It will be completely online. You will be able to watch the interviews here (www.ypmobilized.info) Some youth pastors may join other youth pastors and watch together via projectors. It will start at 12 pm EST on Nov. 16th, 2009.

Who will be speaking?

Chris Gardner (Peru)
Kevin Hall (South Africa)
Taube & Tolson (China)
Masters & XX (North Africa)
Kevin White (Bolivia)
Keith Shumaker (Burkina Faso)
Jason Holt (Chile)
Travis Snode (Ireland)
Jeff Bush (Argentina)
Matt Allen (P.N.G.)

Get on line now.

1. Work at evangelizing the world in their Jerusalem by committing to knock on and evangelize a minimum of 50,000 people that live close to their church at least twice a year

a. That means knocking on a minimum of 13,000 doors at least once each year and preferably twice a year in a systematic and organized fashion leaving a piece of literature in the house or on the door. This works out to approximately 250 doors a week if you plan to use another means to get the gospel to your area in the same year

b. Use the postal service or other means to get the gospel to each one at least one more time a year

c. Use radio, television and or Internet to reach their Jerusalem with the gospel.

We really can’t profess to be interested in World Evangelism if we do not start at home. This is actually quite an expensive endeavor. Gospel tracts and materials cost lots of money. In our particular ministry giving out that many tracts a week (500) cost an average of $50 per week.

It also costs in man hours, sweat, and commitment. But I certainly don’t think that we can give money to missionaries and send them around the world expecting them to do something overseas that we are not willing to do where we live.

Using direct mail is also very expensive as it TV and Radio. I struggle as the pastor of Vision to find the funds and the way to do what I believe we ought to do.

The first thing we are going to say is that none of this is very effective. I agree. The next thing you are going to say is that God will have to bring them. I agree. But since when does that mean that we shouldn’t do what we can.

The farmer who wants a crop and will not plow, plant, cultivate, fertilize and then wait on God would be thought a fool! We must be about our Father’s business.

It really isn’t important if they accept or not but that they know that there was a man of God and a church among them.

I want to step up more to the challenge and I want to ask you to do the same. In Peru for 18 years we gave out tracts, invitations, TV, Radio, you name it. Very little results come from all of this but at least we fulfill our responsibility and get the blood off of our hands!