Tuesday, October 16, 2012

October 16, 2012

Lots to think about today. Steve is full bore into writing a paper for the group of pastors associated with the church here in Uganay. I have begun typing and editing it for him with cut-and-paste Bible verses from Bibleworks. We will then use Google Translate to translate it into Russian. We hope to present it on Friday to the pastor (Michael) who pastors both the church here in Uganay and in Nakhodka (to the south). I referred to this in an earlier blog. Both the church and the associated Bible school have declined from numbers of say 150-200 in the church and 20-22 in the Bible school since 2004 when Steve first came. The moral failure of the church's pastor (A.M.) in 2008 no doubt played a major role in the decline. Steve's paper probes the nature of the decline and how a church must respond to decline through prayer, humility, repentance, and sound Biblical doctrine. Steve explores the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 to note the variety of church's failures and God's response to them.

We look ahead to tomorrow night (Wednesday) where we will teach in the Bible school. I had come prepared to teach a litany of lessons, but we will have fewer sessions in the Bible school than we assumed. Thus, my Christology course will focus on the atonement as central to our Christological thinking. Parsing this stuff down can drive a man crazy... :)

Had two great classes at FEFU tonight. Very easy to engage Russian students on a variety of topics. We described the upcoming presidential election and how we analyzed the candidates. This was our first time with this group, so we set them up for the Gospel next week. 

I want to throw out a warm hello to the young children of GBC Taylors: Jaxon, Grace, and Eli Clint; Matthew Holmes; Marquis Jordan; Charlotte, Elliott, and Caroline Sanders; Ethan, Isaac, and Liam Simpson; Maria Smith. Pray for Pastor Steve Graham and I as we try to spread God's Word here in Russia. See if you can find where we are on a globe. Hint: We are close to Japan, China, and North Korea.


Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. Pastor SelphOctober 17, 2012 at 9:59 AM

    Yo, Mark,

    Had an excellent elders meeting last night. Yes, you were missed. You can put on your calendar our next elders meeting - Nov 13. We were going to have it on Nov 6, but we thought better considering you will have just returned on Nov 4. Thought to give you a week to get your feet under you again. (More for Cheryl's sake, really.) The next Membership Immersion - Dec 7-8.

    Of course, the longer you are there, the more you see that can be done, that needs to be done. Oh, for heavenly wisdom to know how to invest time in the best/crucial things and not just in good things. Isn't that all of life? Just want to mention Jesus. Isn't He amazing?! and worthy of all our praises?! Especially to be declared to all around us today?! Check out Isaiah 12...a song of praise, really a doxology of praise, a climax of all the prophecies of Jesus in Isaiah 7-11. Worthy to be memorized and mentioned regularly in our prayers of praise and in committing ourselves each day to trust God and not be afraid.

    Love ya, bro,

    Bob Selph

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kristen HatfieldOctober 17, 2012 at 10:22 AM

    Praying for you and rejoicing with all that God is doing through your faithfulness. Much love to you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownOctober 17, 2012 at 1:15 PM

    Miss you and praying for you, Daddio! Hope you feel better soon!

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownOctober 18, 2012 at 11:47 AM

    We are praying for you, Mr. Hatfield, from Matthew

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)