Brethren,
Greetings.
Peace, mercy, and grace be with you all from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Things are going well here in Norwalk. Spring has finally sprung of sorts, and the work here is progressing well.
Working with the Brethren
In the past month I have been able to spend a good deal of time with brethren, having many over for dinner and going out to dinner, talking in and out of the assembly, going to the gym with some of the brethren, and so on and so forth. I am getting to know everyone better day by day, and the brethren here are getting to know me better as the days go on.
Lessons and Classes
I have continued preaching series on the fundamentals of the faith; this month has been mostly focused on the nature of worship in the New Testament and an analysis of each act done in the assembly. Toward the end of the month I have begun preaching on various doctrinal matters, including the nature of covenant, understanding Romans 14, and two weeks of lessons on marriage, divorce, and remarriage matters and exposing the false doctrines espoused, unfortunately, by many brethren. The lessons, as always, are available in outline and mp3 form on the website.
The Sunday morning young people's class has continued, and has benefited from the addition of the newer converts to the church. We are still using Robert Harkrider's First Principles of Christianity: Basic Bible Doctrines 1, and will soon get into the second book of that series.
Likewise, our divided Wednesday night men's and women's classes are going very well; many of the brethren are highly encouraged by them, with some even saying that they are the best classes that they can remember. We will probably continue this setup and shift focus from how to be better husbands and wives to how to be better parents.
We have continued the Tuesday night Bible study at our house. We finished Judges, went through Ruth, and are now in the book of Hosea. Attendance to this study is growing, and I am confident that the longer it goes the better populated it will be.
Evangelism
We have continued to maintain and develop the same types of evangelistic strategies with which we began: the website is continually updated and we keep sending out the bulletin on every fourth Sunday. We have expanded the distribution of the bulletin to include people who have recently moved to new homes or into the area, and I hope to soon allow people to sign up to receive the bulletin via the website.
The elders are considering purchasing a bulk mail permit to facilitate the distribution not only of the bulletin but also perhaps other material. We would need to send out 200 bulletins at a time to use the bulk mail permit, and to that end we may have to put forth a challenge to the brethren to come up with enough addresses to make it work.
We have also developed a "business" card for brethren to hand out that should be printed very soon, and also a brochure introducing the church that can be handed out or mailed. We hope to begin to get these materials out into the community within the month.
Visitors
As I indicated in my last report, I am very amazed and encouraged at the number of visitors that we receive at our assemblies. It seems that not a Sunday goes by that does not include at least one visitor; in April so far, we had at least three families visiting with us almost every Sunday. Some of the visitors come through on account of travel, but many have come either because they are coming with a friend who is a member of our congregation or are coming from the community for other reasons.
To this end we have developed and are using visitor cards for our visitors to let us know who they are and if they desire more information or a Bible study, and the visitor card has a portion for them to take with them that thanks them for visiting and tells them when we assemble. I maintain a page on the member section of the website that includes all the visitor information for the past month, and many brethren get on there and use that information to send cards to our visitors. I likewise maintain a master visitor listing that indicates who has visited in any given month and what actions were taken regarding them so that the elders have an idea of who has been assembling with us and what has been done so as to determine what we can do in various matters.
We did have one difficulty in the past month with a visitor who came in during the adult Sunday morning Bible class and began teaching false doctrines regarding marriage, divorce, and remarriage, akin to what is called popularly the "Homer Hailey" doctrine of conversion leading to the justification of adulterous marriages. While he was refuted, both in the class and the next week, this caused no small discussion amongst the brethren here. I have every confidence that the adult Sunday morning Bible class will handle this matter in time (it is a class on marriage, divorce, and remarriage issues), and I will likewise be preaching on the same matter in two weeks.
Briarfield of Milan
I neglected to speak about Briarfield of Milan in my first report, and for that I apologize. For many years now, the church in Norwalk has been given the opportunity to hold a weekly Bible study and a monthly Sunday service at a local facility for physical and/or mentally disabled persons named Briarfield of Milan. Every Thursday morning at 10 one of the elders and I go to Briarfield and we study from the Bible, most recently in the book of Acts. Attendance at the study is fairly good, around 12-15, although we are confident that most of the people there are not able to really comprehend what we are studying. There are some, however, who are mentally competent enough to understand, and they seem to enjoy our studies. On the first Sunday of every month many of us go to Briarfield in the afternoon and hold a small service involving prayer, singing, and a short basic lesson. We currently have two members who converted previously because of the involvement of the church there, and we constantly look for other opportunities to bring mentally competent residents into the fold.
Current Studies
1. Keith. As I indicated in my last report, early studies with Keith seemed to stall out and did not continue. I attempted to contact him no fewer than three times over a six week period in March and April with no response, even though we ran into him at a local eating establishment. Since by all accounts he seemed unwilling to study, and on account of his website that spoke negatively of the church and espoused not a few false doctrines, the elders determined to disassociate from Keith and his wife and to mark Keith as a false teacher. We regret that this action was necessary, and we hope that they will realize their error, will repent, and will return and be with us again.
Cindy. The weekly studies have continued with Cindy using the same book we use in the young peoples' class, and Cindy has also joined that class on Sunday mornings. Cindy has progressed very well, and she has surely been an encouragement to us.
Ben and Katie. It has been very difficult to get together with Ben and Katie on account of their very busy schedules and multiple health problems. Nevertheless, Katie and I continued to correspond via e-mail, and we were finally able to sit down and talk on one Friday morning. At that time she was basically convicted about the need to be baptized but desired her husband to be there. The next Saturday morning, both Ben and Katie put on Christ in baptism. We rejoice in their conversion, and we have set up, at least for the time being, a Friday evening study with both of them to help them progress in the faith.
Support
I would like to thank all of you for your participation in the work here in Norwalk, either through your prayers or through encouraging me or through financial support. I would like to solicit your continual prayers so that the work here may prosper.
May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirits.
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