This Week in Boston

Thank You Lord,

The last several weeks have been difficult. An evangelistic Bible study ended without positive results. Several have missed their appointed studies without notification. Even our services on Sunday have not seemed to have the normal spark, and our attendance is not what it should be. Things seem to be a little stagnate right now, and I have been wondering why. Times like these greatly bother me. We did not come to Boston to simply pass the time, and when the ministry doesn’t seem to be moving forward, I get bothered. After another negative episode this morning, I was in a particularly melancholy mood as I made my way to an evangelistic Bible study at Northeastern University. The graduate student with whom I was meeting had already attended nine out of a set of twelve evangelistic through-the-Bible lessons. He came from China and has been in the United States for less than one year. The way things have been going as of late, I was halfway surprised when he showed up for the study.

Thankfully, the Lord has taught me to live by what I know to be true, and not to live my life based upon the way I feel at any given moment. Today was a day that I taught the lesson by faith with all the enthusiasm and ability I could muster. I thought to myself, “I want to teach this lesson like it is that last lesson I will ever have the privilege of teaching.”

At the end of the study, I told my friend that I was praying that one day he could put his trust in Jesus Christ. I was greatly surprised when he told me that he already had placed his trust in Jesus Christ and that one day he would like to be baptized. This is the second person to confirm their salvation within the last month and others have expressed great interest in knowing more about Jesus Christ and Christianity. It is also true that recently one of our disciples followed the Lord in believer’s baptism and several others have stepped up to more responsible places of ministry. These things remind me that soon there will be several people moving to Boston in order to serve the Lord with us. In a few minutes, I need to leave for a Bible study that is hosted by one of our disciples who came to the Lord through this ministry. He will be inviting several of his friends to study the Gospel of Matthew with us. These are folks who have never heard, and we have the privilege of being the first to explain to them the love of God. Oh yeah, it looks like I will be teaching city-church-planting as an adjunct professor at Bible college of like faith. And by the way, next week Deb and I will be in Hawaii for vacation. The trip will cost us a total of a couple hundred dollars. I guess things are not so bad after all.

Bill in Boston

This is a photo of some of our friends who came to the ministry home to celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival

This Week in Boston

Dear prayer and financial supporters,

A very busy month of reviewing and planning is over, and a year with great potential is before us. If we are to make progress in our global church planting plan endeavors, it will be because I communicated our needs to you consistently, and because you prayed for us faithfully. With this in mind, I hope to set before you plainly what we believe to be God’s direction for us in 2010. Hopefully, this will enable you to pray for us intelligently. Our church planting plan may be divided into five interrelated networks, as you will see below.

The International Baptist Fellowship (IBF), is the nucleus of what we hope will become a model for other world-class city church planting efforts. We want it to provide lessons in what to do and not to do. We do not think that we are the final word on city church-planting, but we are learning, and want to use what we learn to facilitate a church- planting movement. We believe this is the need of the hour and that our sovereign God has provided world-class cities for this very purpose. Our goal for the IBF is to do do what we do better—more professionally and more effectively. We have a Spirit-derived plan, and now need to implement that plan. Please pray that our Father will help the membership of the IBF to give themselves to this ministry, and pray for me, that I will be the kind of pastor that is worth following.

Building a local network is essential if we are to have any success facilitating other church plants. By local, I am referring to the Boston metropolitan area. Our prayer is that one day there will be a network including churches, an international village (including international student and retired missionary housing, office and warehouse space, and a bookstore/coffee house), and a Bible institute to train church planters and tent makers. Our Spirit-derived goal for this year is to begin teaching systematic theology and Bible survey courses in the fall. In order for this to happen, the preparation will need to be done between now and the end of August. Please pray that we are able to do the needed advanced planning and preparation.

The regional network includes the New England states. This network of churches already cooperates in several areas of ministry, and is an essential partner in our church-planting efforts. This network not only provides financial and prayer support, but also helps in a number of other ways (food showers for our hospitality ministry, household goods for our International Household Goods Giveaway, ministry teams for children and teen outreach, and construction teams for work on the ministry home). The goal for this year is to strengthen and to enlarge this network of churches. The way this will be accomplished is through contacting and visiting pastors and churches and communicating to them the potential for city church-planting, and the needs that we have. We hope to speak in churches (supporting or otherwise) at least two Sunday evenings a month. Please pray that we are able to strengthen this regional network.

The continental network will consist of churches, Bible colleges and seminaries, and mission agencies of like faith, who see the need and potential of what we are attempting to do—facilitate a church planting movement in world-class cities. This network is potentially able to provide leadership and personnel for such an endeavor. As a movement, we (those who are in our orbit of fellowship) do not seem to have a vision or a plan to fully utilize world-class cities for the glory of God and Great Commission ministry. Deb and I want to be part of the remedy for this serious problem. We have already begun an internship program. The goal for this year is to teach a two hour course on city church planting through one of our fellowshipping Bible colleges. A college has contacted me about such an on-line course,and are in the process of evaluating my worthiness to be an adjunct teacher with their institution. Please pray that they will approve me, and that I will have adequate preparation time to do an excellent job.

The international network is beginning to grow as those to whom we are ministering begin to go home. This network will provide the church planters and tent-makers for world class cities globally. The goal for this network this year is to continue the discipleship process with those who are back in their home countries. The purpose of this web-based discipleship plan is to help each individual mature in Christ to the point of being able and willing to participate in church planting situations. Please pray as I have two individuals in mind to begin web-based discipleship, one in China and one stateside. Pray that I am able to successfully engage them in a long distance discipleship relationship.

I know this is a rather long letter and you may think that I am a little too optimistic. I don’t think so. Our Savior promised us that if we would surrender to Great Commission living that He would go with us. He also comforted us when He explained that He has all authority. To me this means that we should attempt great things for God. After all, it is His power that is able to accomplish it. Not ours. We think that He Will. Please pray.

Bill and Deb in Boston

Dear Friends,

This is much like Boston looked yesterday morning. Many churches canceled Sunday services, but we decided to have our normal Sunday morning fellowship, dinner and afternoon service. I expected that it would only be my family in attendance, but I was surprised that 17 people braved the winter storm to participate in our services. We were able to have our Christmas program and afternoon gift exchange. It was really encouraging that our core group had the desire and commitment to travel through such bad weather to be together for church on Sunday.

It is now time to take time to reflect on the love of God that sent the Savior into our world. Deb and I want to say thank you to each of our prayer and financial supporters. You are God’s gift to us and we greatly appreciate each of you.

Until next week,

Bill from Boston

This Week in Boston

Hi friends,

Sickness, weather, car problems, and finals limited the attendance in the Sunday morning fellowship meeting. Seasonal busy schedules will also limit the number of Bible studies that we will have until January. This is the time of year that administrative details are updated. These are important details that include: evaluating where our ministry is at in the relationship to the goals God has given us, making ministry adjustments based upon that evaluation, plan the ministry calendar for the next year, and finalizing a budget.

Our ministry, by design, is constantly saying good by to those whom we minister as they leave Boston to go back to their homeland. Wayne (picture) will be leaving for China and James will be leaving for Connecticut.

On the other hand, we have a number of new people becoming involved with our ministry: an Iranian, two mainland Chinese, and a person from the Jewish heritage. All of these were in the service today as we read and explained the historical account of Zacharias, Elizabeth, the angel Gabriel, and the birth of John the Baptist. It was wonderful to hear some of our new friends read the Holy Scriptures for the very first time.

More wonderful news comes out of the small neighborhood store across the street from the community building where we meet for church. I have told you about a family from Nepal with whom we have become friends (their son responded to the gospel in our summer vacation Bible time). This morning, before church when getting my morning coffee, I invited the father, who was working in the store, to a cantata at Trinity Baptist Church (our sending church in Concord, NH). He was very receptive, and will ask his employer to get off work early in-order to bring his family with us. Please pray for this family from Nepal.

I am working on another communication tool. I have had a website for a while but I have not developed it much until recently. It is a very basic website which we named Bill’s and Deb’s Website for Supporters. I will keep my weekly updates on the this website as well a wealth of other information. You are also able to access our church website from our supporters website. Hopefully this will help those who desire to stay current on the Boston ministry to do so. Please check it out.

From Boston,

Bill