Men's Fellowship

I took part last night in the Men's Fellowship meeting online via Google Meet. Philip brought the message of the night from Romans 6 - "Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" It was a good clear well argued message combating "cheap grace" ideas that some may have. There was a parallel prayer meeting last night for the ladies. 

Good service

Last night's service in Patos saw us use new software for the transmission so as to improve the sound quality. This was because as from the 19th the church band was back in action which demanded better sound quality. Hence this week we switched to the new system which was a bit complicated at first but worked out alright in the end... I think.

I have prepared my sermon for next Sunday on Philippians 2:5-11 called Jesus Christ is Lord. I have also prepared for Thursday's Bible Study on the latter part of Acts 10 plus chapters 11 and 12 are ready. I always prefer preparing more than enough because I do the studies informally, reading and commenting, so it is not a set half hour sermon so to speak. I usually speak for about 45 minutes each Thursday night so it is impossible to know how much I will manage to cover.

Today is my sister Jean's birthday so I made an earlyish video link call to her to wish her well. 

1992

I am continuing to write the history of the Mission in Portuguese and have now covered 1938 to 1991. I am now working on 1992. It is a very big job. I have information to draw on from the minutes of leadership meetings here plus EAB Newsletters + individual churches extra detailed local information. I value your prayers. 

I am today going back over Acts 10 and 11 for tonight's Bible Study online. This will be followed tonight by the regular Serenade of old hymns by Philip.

We have been sorting out one or two pastoral problems this week which I can't go into here. People get into difficulties or cause difficulties whether online or not! Things crop up and have to be handled and the lack of face to face meetings is missed for these sorts of things. Please pray. 

On Tuesday night the men had their fellowship meeting which went well, as did the prayer meeting. Last night was the women's fellowship meeting with 10 taking part.

QPR have finished the 2019/2020 season in 14th place in the Championship which at least is an improvement on 19th last season. They won and drew their last two games. In a few weeks time the new 2020/2021 season begins. 

Blessed services

Thursday's Bible Study went well and we completed Acts 9. This was followed, as usual, by Philip's increasingly popular serenade of old hymns.

Yesterday I spoke in Devizes in the morning and in Brazil at night! I was invited to speak in the Rock Community Church's service in the morning which is in Devizes, Wiltshire, UK. I spoke at night as usual in the Patos service.

I studied this morning an excellent essay by Tim Dieppe on women's ministries. I also started preparing the Bible study for this Thursday in Acts 10. This afternoon I stretched my legs for a couple of miles at Green Pastures. 

In Christ

I prepared my sermon for Sunday today. I will speak on being 'in Christ' as reflected by Philippians 2:1-5 and what effect this has on our lives as Christians. It's not such an easy passage to preach so it demanded a lot of prayerful thought. I find Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the text good. 

Good Service

I got up at 5.40 am today and went for a good two and a half mile walk at Green Pastures which was nice. I picked up the Bushnell automatic camera memory cards when there and was happy to see we picked up good 30 second videos of a Crane Hawk, an Opossum, a pair of ground doves and a beautiful family of 12 wild ducklings. The rains are finished so the stream is fast drying up with rich food supplies for wild ducks in the shallow waters. These videos all will be posted on the Green Pastures Nature Reserve's Facebook page which seeks to encourage people to value creation and help preserve nature. 

Last night's service went very well. I led the service, Philip and Louisa led the worship and Louisa and her fellow law student Rayla brought a two part message which was excellent. I asked them to do this so as to vary things a bit and because I knew I would be very busy last week with the London School of Theology Conference. I have already started preparing my sermon for this coming Sunday and then it's on to preparing the Bible study for Thursday. We value your prayers and support always.

The Deaf Fellowship

The Deaf Fellowship in the pandemic goes ahead well. I have discussed things with deaf pastor Luiz Carlos who tells me that on Mondays they meet online for prayer and Bible meditations. On Tuesdays they meet to have a general chat ending up with something from the Bible. On Wednesdays and Saturdays their meetings are open to the interpreters too as well as non-Christian deaf people. On Thursday Pastor Luiz Carlos does a Bible Study and on Sunday morning there's the deafs' Sunday School. Then they watch the main evening service which I lead and which is signed for the deaf. So as you can see the deaf fellowship is very active and being blessed of God. Thank you for your prayers and support.

We have now defined which families are going to get toilet/shower units built at the ex-slave community of Barra de Oitis. These are game changing moments for very poor people's lives as these units are built and equipped with flush toilets, showers, hand basins, clothes washing sinks, water tanks above and cess pits beneath. 

Bible Study

I started the Bible Study last night with a discussion of 'soul sleep' from the last word of Acts 7 linked to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. From this I went into Acts 8 covering the section about the church being persecuted and scattered + Philip in Samaria + Simon the sorcerer. In verses 14-17 we covered the difficult section of the receiving of the Holy Spirit by the Samarians. It all went well and was a blessing for the 33 people taking part via Google Meet. 

This was followed by Philip and his serenade of old hymns which is very popular and which went very well again. It is interesting to observe how many backslidden Christians are attracted by this and request certain hymns to be sung. It's good Philip has an amazing memory! We pray God will touch these people far from God through this means. We certainly will miss Philip when he returns to England with his family as he plans to.

Summer Conference

I finished the 4-day Summer Conference today with the London School of Theology. It was a tiring time as I had to set my alarm for 4:30 each day, grab a wake-me-up shower and then be online for a 5 am kick off. It then went through to 11:15 am each day (3:15 pm) in the UK. 

The first speaker each day was John Goldingay on Jeremiah. It was a challenging good review of the structure of the book and its theology. To quote John today on Jeremiah's theology "God is in control of His memory. He can forget things." And "God is immutable but He is flexible and can change His mind."

The current principal of LST is Mark Cartledge and he chaired the whole conference. He also spoke on the first day and showed himself to be an Anglican who is very open to the Holy Spirit moving in Scripture and in today's church. He was very good.

Another speaker was a lady called Dr. Kimberley Alexander from North Carolina who spoke on 'Women and Scripture'. Instead of a justification of women's ministry she just showed from her research how women are powerful expositors of the Scripture. She was excellent.

A further speaker was Brad Emry who brought some extremely challenging thoughts on 'Scripture and violence' especially working through the difficult texts of Judges 11 (Jephthah and the sacrifice of his daughter) and Judges 19 (The Levite and his concubine). Such scriptures stretch anyone to the limit! 

Joan Cartledge also spoke on 'Disability, Scripture, Inclusion and the Church'. This was good and what we already believe and practice. 

So this Conference was something good that came out as a result of the current pandemic. 

50 years

I am writing EAB/ACEV history in Portuguese and today reached our 50th anniversary in 1988. I wrote and published EAB's first 40 years back in 2012 in English. The Portuguese version is different as it goes into details interesting to Brazilians and irrelevant to overseas folk. So too many UK details are of no interest to people here. 1988 was the year we took major steps to reorganize the work in Brazil. We are today 82 years old as a Mission so I've got 32 years to go! 

Violence

I have just finished my third of 4 days at the London School of Theology's Summer Conference online and on top of more on Jeremiah and Daniel we had some particularly difficult Biblical passages involving violence such as Judges 11 and 19! Certainly forced me to think but I don't have any answers yet. Yesterday the woman speaker from the USA, Kimberley Alexander, was particularly interesting on Women & Scriptures. The message was the result of her own research and was excellent. 

The Men's Fellowship Group met last night on line and that went very well as did the prayer 'knees to the ground' meeting as it is called.

I walked for two miles yesterday afternoon at Green Pastures. It's important to keep fit in these difficult days. 

For to live is Christ and to die is gain

I preached on Philippians 1:12-26 last night and it went very well. It was the communion service with Philip & Louisa leading the worship and Philip conducted communion. 

The youth concluded their online Conference on Saturday night ending their 5 night event which was a real blessing with 90 to a 100 taking part each night.

I was up at 4:30 am today to take part in the first day of the 4-day London School of Theology Summer Conference. John Goldingay spoke on Jeremiah: the man and the scroll. Then Mark Cartledge spoke on Scripture, the Church and the Holy Spirit. It was a very interesting and blessed time. I found it very encouraging. It was good to be back at LST! 

I am now preparing for Thursday's Bible study working on Acts 8.

Acts 6 + 7

Last night's Bible study went very well as we covered Acts 6 and 7. This was followed by another session of the singing of older hymns and songs by Philip which went very well too. 

Today is Philip's 42nd birthday. We went out together for a nice walk together at Green Pastures to celebrate. We walked 4,5 km.

The Youth online conference is in its 4th night tonight and continues in real blessing. They are having about 90 taking part every night. At the other end of the age scale the seniors had another online session this morning which they love. 

I am glad to report that our pastor Nemias at Flores is better from the Covid virus as are his wife and son. His mother Nevinha is improving too. PTL! Thanks for all your prayers and support. 

I have read all John Goldingay's preparatory notes for his 4 lectures on Jeremiah next week in LST's Summer Conference and I have read all 52 chapters of Jeremiah. I will be attending the online Conference every morning next week from Monday to Thursday starting at 5 am each day. 

90 at Youth Conference

The first night of the 5-night EAB/ACEV Youth Conference had 90 taking part on Tuesday Evening and was a great blessing to all. The message by a psychologist was on the dangers of pornography in times of lockdown. Tonight will be dealing with the topic of domestic violence and male chauvinism. 

Last night the Patos Men's Fellowship also met online with 17 men taking part. Their Bible meditation brought by one of the men was in Acts 1. There was also an online 'knees to the ground' prayer meeting. 

I walked another two and a half miles this morning at Green Pastures. I enrolled in the London School of Theology's 'Summer School' when I got back. It will run from Monday to Thursday next week and is free online. John Goldingay will be the main speaker on Jeremiah. It will start at 9 am UK time so will be 5 am for me!