October 2017
Dear praying friends:
With a
heart of thankfulness, we give you a brief report of what the Lord has done
lately. God has been faithful in motivating many of the church members to
action. This has been evident in our soul-winning visitation, and the
celebration of the 9th anniversary of Iglesia Bautista Central
(Central Baptist Church).
Last
weekend, we celebrated yet another anniversary at the church. Probably, what
blessed us the most was that the church members did most of the preparation for
this event. Some of the ladies prepared a delicious meal, some of the men
participated in the church service, and the guest preacher gave us a challenge
about taking time to meditate on God’s Word (from Luke 10:38-42).
Since the
beginning of the church, one of my goals has been to preach every book of the
Bible, verse by verse. By God’s grace, I have already completed 36 books, and
am currently preaching: Ezra, Exodus and Psalms. The blessings that have
resulted from this endeavor have been incalculable. Among these blessings is
that we are seeing God develop a group of stable believers who are properly
motivated to serve the Lord. Also, preaching through the Bible keeps us from
focusing on some of God’s principles at the expense of others.
One of my
biggest burdens (through preaching) has been to motivate believers to action out
of grace and gratitude. So many times, it becomes easy to pressure believers
out of guilt because we don’t need to rely on God with this approach, and because
(in the short-term) this approach seems to produce more visible results.
However, in the long-term, it does not contribute to a healthy church. As I’ve
preached the Bible (over the past 9 years), it has been with a spirit of
patience, and dependence on God. So, when we see many of the church members
showing up for soul-winning/visitation, we know that it is God’s grace working
in their lives.
Please pray
for our soul-winning visitation Saturdays. It has been our goal to knock on all
of the doors of the neighborhoods near the church at least three times this
year. Pray that God will continue to open doors not only to witness to people,
but to follow-up on those that have made professions of faith. Just recently, a
lady named Sonia received Christ as her Savior. Also, a lady named Patricia
rededicated her life to Christ.
Along with
the church anniversary, we celebrated Caleb´s ninth birthday. We enjoy telling Caleb the story of the
church´s first service. We thought maybe Caleb and the church would have the
same birthday, but he waited until the next day. It is always good to remember
how events unfolded nine years ago. Our
children are all doing well, and continue to have the best year we have ever
had health-wise. We are grateful for the health we all have enjoyed, and don’t
take it for granted after having had some struggles in past years. Thank you
for your prayers and support.
Yours
in Christ,
The
Cernas
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