Expanding the Harvest

The RJ Worship team in action

Usually a person’s sphere of ministry increases gradually, but sometimes the Lord of the Harvest decides to double or triple it overnight. When He does so all we can do as his followers is smile, chuckle a little, and hold on for the wild ride that is to come.

I wrote to you awhile back mentioning that because of our low support I had been forced to take on a part time job. Although the work wasn’t that stressful, the time it took up limited the amount of ministry opportunities I could explore. As a missionary I struggled with this situation but was grateful that the Lord had provided us with some badly needed income. Suddenly one day a new management company took over and soon replaced my close friend (who had hired me) and his wife with a team of their own. Joyce and I sensed my days there were probably limited, as well.

Then one night at our Asian Fellowship some of our members approached me and asked me to apply for a new position opening in their church. Now, a little over a month later, I find myself the new pastor of a vibrant, young international congregation. Rejuvenate Worship is the English service of Edmond Chinese International, and despite the church being affiliated with the United Methodist the pastoral search team unanimously approved a Baptist boy like me to shepherd their group. For those of you I was able to connect with for prayer and counsel over this opportunity while it was developing, thank you for your overwhelming love and support of this move.

Sure enough, my other job let me go, but God has replaced that part-time position with another one that is infinitely more soul-satisfying. Please pray God will bring in much fruit through this new expansion of our ministry.

Other Prayer Requests

Continue to pray for our finances. The new position at RJ Worship is still just part-time, and while it does make up for some of our mission support shortfall we still are a long way from being financially where we need to be. 

Adding to our financial needs is a situation of urgent prayer. This last year some of our supporters died or for various reasons had to reduce or drop our support. These changes have not always been communicated effectively to the home office, and as the mission’s policy in the past has been to pay their missionaries based on the commitment level rather than funds received, we were accidentally overpaid last year. Currently, we owe the mission over $11,000.  Please pray that the Lord will provide for this loss through one-time gifts and/or additional support.