How often do we take the great privilege of knowing God for granted?
Like a storyteller has no obligation to write himself into the story, God did not have to reveal himself to us, and yet he has made himself known, not only in a general way through creation, but specifically in his word. In fact, the great purpose of our lives is to know God—to have him as our God and to be his people.
In view of the great privilege of knowing God through his revealed word, what a great task, privilege, and joy we have been given to multiply and train those whom God has called to make clear his word to his people!
In the month of July, much of our time will be focused on making improvements to our classrooms in preparation for expanding our programs to a Bible college level. We are incredibly blessed to have two members from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Decatur, Illinois coming to help us with some of these projects mid-month.
I look forward in the coming days to show you how we will be doing what God has called us to do with greater focus and increased energy.
Seeing pastors again
At the end of May and first of June, I finally got the privilege of meeting with our partner pastors again for the first time since our return to Malawi in January. At our conferences in two locations, Zomba and the Lower Shire, we saw about 160 pastors along with several pastors-in-training and Shepherds Academy alumni.
Our founder, Eric Chapman, preached several powerful messages from Nehemiah, and I focused on what we can learn about being a good shepherd from Jesus in John 10.
Our next pastors conference will be in August when Pastor Dallas Goebel from Burton Memorial Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky will be our guest teacher.
Growing as Gospel Life Baptist Church
This month, I’ve spent time with the other pastors of Gospel Life Baptist Church, Wilkes and Isaac, praying for and strategizing for the next year of ministry at Gospel Life Baptist Church. We long to see a healthy, thriving church, where disciples are growing to maturity and being sent out to share the gospel with others.
As the pastor of preaching and vision, I’ve been working not only to preach myself but to train the other pastors and young men to become faithful preachers of God’s word. Right now, we are preaching through the life of Abraham in Genesis, and we are all growing in our ability to preach Christ from all of Scripture.
Bibles and Books
We have already heard from several Vacation Bible Schools that have collected money to supply Chichewa Bibles here in Malawi. What a blessing! If your VBS is in July, it isn’t too late to partner with Gospel Life to provide Bibles. If you have any questions, send me an email.
Another important need we have is growing the library at Shepherds Academy. If you want to support this project, you can buy needed titles from this Amazon wishlist. Or if you prefer to buy the titles from somewhere else, just let me know so I can remove them from the list.
