The Gospel in China

Finished the series on our church’s goals this weekend. One of the most important series we’ve taught so far. We’ve been praying that it would help the many middle-tier people understand why commitment and membership in a church is important. Surprisingly to me the teacher, an unplanned theme recurred every week. And that’s the demand […]

I’m about halfway through reading a biography of Martin Luther right now. Pretty amazing life. I’ll probably add some other things in the future, but here’s a few of the things that really set him apart as a generational catalyst.    1. Luther had to work things out between himself and the Bible.             As […]

I spent most of the hours after this past weekend’s services answering questions. Which is really my favorite way to pass the time, though there’s a good chance it’s not the best way. But it’s certainly the most tiring way – after a couple hours of that right after preaching, I’m ready to go on […]

Our Sunday night service at the new building are really improving. Wish I could say my preaching was. I feel a little like my Chinese level is plateauing – I’ll have to work on that. Plus the number of ‘overlappers’ is growing – students that come to both Saturday and Sunday services. They come because […]

Between services. Awesome one last night – two professions of faith from a couple girls who have been coming the last couple weeks. One is the best friend of L., who I mentioned a few days ago as witnessing to a friend for the first time. This best friend of hers has always told L. […]

At risk of using my blog as a platform for complaining, yesterday was impressively bizarre. Since we just moved, I wanted to go to the police station and register as new residents of this area. For the record, we probably could have got away with not doing that, but we’d like to do things as […]

In efforts to expand my own “top-of-the-funnel,” I’ve been going to English corners regularly for about three weeks now. Which is about the most tiring activity I know of, but it’s also an amazingly simple way to meet people. Some of the meetings are large (more than 75 people), some are still on the small […]

Monday. Time to analyze, with the weekend’s successes and failures fresh in the mind. First of all, praise the Lord, our attendance has been steadily growing since our return from the States. We’re still not quite at full strength, but we’re moving in the right direction. Lots of new visitors – just missing quite a […]

Quite the holiday weekend so far. Still got one service to go tonight. We spent Thanksgiving with about 20 or so of our closest Chinese friends at our new house. Had a Chinese food banquet with American desserts galore. One of the best Thanksgivings I’ve ever had, to tell the truth. We did the same […]

Deserts and swamps – neither very useful, both have water issues. One doesn’t have enough, the other has too much in all the wrong places. Good luck growing anything, building anything, or having much of a life in either one of these miserable locales.   A little like relationships as they relate to discipleship. Some […]