HOU ART GOOD, and doest good; teach me thy statutes” (Psalm 119:68). Thanks be to God, who “performeth all things” for us, and who “will perfect that which concerneth” us. As a church-militant for the gospel, we are always marching forward with the earnest expectation and hope that, one day, we will have cause to everlastingly rejoice with the heaven-assembled church-triumphant.
The Future Spiritual Leaders
We have been serving in Uganda continuously for nearly 4½ years (with only one brief furlough of a month in April 2022), and now that the foundations of the first church plant (Bible Baptist Church) are, in the words of scripture, “strongly laid” (Ezra 6:3), we are setting our sights firmly on the future of this ministry. We are persuaded God has a continental plan for our lives, and that he will be pleased in his good timing to bring the gospel to all of Africa, and to extend the dominion of the Savior over the African hearts “from sea to sea” (Psalm 72:8), from the Indian to the Atlantic.
We have, therefore, become intentional in our training of spiritual leaders. Though we do not have a formal training institute (at least, not yet), we have implemented two measures to begin developing the most zealous men (a couple dozen or so) of the congregation for leadership. Not all (perhaps not even most) will become future pastors and evangelists, of course, but without hands-on involvement, it is almost certain none would. African culture is quite different from American, and the basic steps one would take to become a leader are almost entirely ignored in the absence of external guidance.
The first measure is the Leadership Accountability Club we have begun. In this club, the men involved are assigned a book to read over the course of a month (concerning something on the subject of leadership), and a profitable preacher to listen to. At the end of each month, we gather together to discuss the book in a dialogue format, and also to communally keep track of (and encourage) each person’s individual learning (like extra-biblical book reading/listening).
The second measure is the Bible Study. In this study, the core of a few men who have explicitly expressed the desire to be church leaders are being taken through a weekly learning and discussing of the book of Ephesians. This is helping to teach them how to fruitfully study the scripture, and to prepare expository sermons from those studies, such as we model routinely in our verse-by-verse preachings through the Bible in the church.
Evangelism and Baptism
One of the unique things about Bible Baptist Church is the level of participation every member has in fulfilling the Great Commission. We praise God that here, it is next to impossible for someone new to come to church for more than a few weeks and not have begun to go out sharing the gospel with others. The intense-involvement of every believer fostered in this ministry is one of the secrets of its survival—and even its success—despite unreceptivity and infidelity of the engaged communities around the church. Many romanticize Africa as a land where people throng to hear the word of God, but, sad to say, this is an incredibly deceptive stereotype: Africans are predominately zealous for fables and lies (see 2 Timothy 4:3-4), and are not valiant for the truth upon the earth. It is the only the abounding grace of God that softens their hearts to the gospel.
Knowing this fact helps to highlight the accomplishment of God—to whom be glory—it truly must be to see a consistent Sunday morning attendance of 140 people at Bible Baptist Church. These church-
attendees are overwhelmingly sheaves reaped from evangelistic and follow-up efforts of the soul-winners of the church. Across the months of October and November, the church saw a collective 1,462 individuals profess faith out soul-winning (718 in October, 744 in November), and at least 70 of them began attending new-believer lessons and church services.
Now that we have our own permanent baptistery in the church property, we have begun baptizing on a regular (almost daily) basis. Across this period of time, we had 36 baptisms. Though we will save the official report of December’s total baptisms for later, we have already seen over a dozen more baptisms within the first week of December too!
It is somewhat humorous how people become soul-winners now without us (John and Jesse) even knowing it, as it was for two, Isaac and Paul, even before October, that we recently learned about. And we are informed that three more became soul-winners as recent as November: Mary, Martha, and another Isaac. This is a good sign that the ministry, at least in its evangelistic aspect, continues and expands almost independently. One man put it well: “From the earliest days of the work, the missionary should be planning on working out of a job.”
Prayer Requests
God does nothing but by prayer, and everything through it. We may devise our way, but the Lord must direct our steps (Proverbs 16:9). We have many exciting events on the horizon this December, and big plans for the future. We encourage readers to hold a weekly prayer meeting for this work in Africa with their church, if possible. Your prayer can change Africa! Please join us in prayer about the following:
1. Jesus Conference. In the middle of this December, we will be holding our first ever conference at our church property. From December 11th-17th, we will have week-long, all-day evangelism of every available soul-winner of the church (there are about 75), and a series of revival-style sermons about Jesus from Friday-Sunday. The details will be made available through a video on our YouTube channel chronicling the event. Pray for many salvations, baptisms, and transformed-lives.
2. Leader Training. As discussed, we have just begun intentional leadership training, and ask you to pray that God would raise up and equip wise and talented spiritual leaders for the sake of the planting of new churches and further evangelism across Africa.
3. International Mission Trip. We have been praying about opportunities on the international front, that the gospel may spread to other countries in Africa. Pray that God would open to us a door of utteranance in the year of 2024, to tangibly bring the good news to other countries in Africa besides Uganda (e.g., Kenya).
We cannot thank the helpers of this ministry enough, who assist to make this work go fast on by supplication and donation. We hope this letter encourages you that much fruit is abounding to your account, and that none of your labor for the Lord is in vain. May God be with you all.