Sullivan Village church of Christ, Lawton, Oklahoma: We want to welcome the Sullivan Village church of Christ to the House to House/Heart to Heart School of Evangelism. The congregation thirsted for the training and greeted us with great love and appreciation. During the event, many areas of congregations came, and some decided to enroll using our remote option.
Monticello church of Christ, Arkansas: Josh Walker (preacher) reports, “The congregation is becoming more familiar with the process and why things are done the way they are. We have had a couple of visitors from town, and the welcoming committee is working on the bags to give them. There is excitement now that there is a path forward.”
Foothills church of Christ, Searcy, Arkansas: Josh Alexander (preacher) reports, “Hayden was baptized Thursday. We had discussed it a month before; she was unsure if she was baptized for the right reasons. Now she knows she has been baptized for the remission of her sins. We are not giving up on Allen, though he does not want to study further. He was baptized in the Baptist church and believes that he is saved as he is. We will continue to seek opportunities to study with him. Jason, one of our elders, and I have a study this evening with Zach, who grew up Baptist but is not currently attending anywhere. We are praying that he is receptive to the gospel. We are still trying to schedule a study with Peyton and his wife. We are hopeful about them. I met his brother Nathan, who may be a good contact.”
Rison church of Christ, Arkansas (remote): Keden Shrum (preacher) reports, “We set up a booth today at Rison in the Fall, a local festival in town. We handed out much information and ended the day with 13 contacts.”
Glencoe church of Christ, Alabama: David Marker (elder) reports, “We are working with a lady who just lost her husband to an extended battle with cancer. She has received numerous compassion cards and has been encouraged by the acts of kindness and benevolent spirit shown to her. The cards have helped to cultivate the soil. We have taken food, spent time with them, and had prayed with her and her family. Hopefully, that will lead to a Bible study. Also, we have an ongoing Bible study with a lady who has completed the first book, and we want to schedule the next study. We have several members who continue to reach out to visitors. Our card ministry is ongoing and well-attended each week.”
College Avenue church of Christ, Enterprise, Alabama: Phillip Rabren (HTHSOE graduate) reports, “Our elders and preachers conducted an evangelism workshop this past week. We discussed who should make first visits to New Movers, when to go, and how to follow up. We discussed visitor interaction and the coordination of taking visitors out to eat. Our preachers are preparing to teach the congregation how to study the Bible with the lost. We reviewed card writing and made definite plans to be applied later. Training the congregation on the evangelism model is on hold until specifics are defined and implemented. Decisions are to be made about the continued use of the Evangelism Bookmarks, gathering congregational contacts, and how to prospect those contacts. Saturday, we had 14 members knock on 71 doors. Thirty-two people answered the door, resulting in ten good contacts. From door knocking, the congregation wrote 121 cards to nine of our contacts Sunday evening.”
Hatton church of Christ, Alabama: Chris Miller (preacher) reports, “We have completed several prospecting projects in the last couple weeks, including the addition of ramps to get in and out of the house since several who receive cards need handicap access. We are making plans for the upcoming Trunk or Treat, and we hope to collect names of those who attend so we can visit them.”
Sunset church of Christ, Nashville, Arkansas (remote): Zach Williams (preacher) reports, “We have been presenting more BTTB training on Sunday nights. I handed out a survey last night with this question: ‘If a prospect asked you for a Bible study right now, would you feel comfortable using Back to the Bible?’ The result: 82.7 percent said yes!”
Lake City church of Christ, Florida: Jim Flegert (elder) reports, “Our congregation rejoiced today with the news of two more babes in Christ. Last week, our minister, TJ concluded the BTTB study with these two precious souls and baptized them on Thursday. Several of our members are currently in the process of conducting BTTB studies with some of our prospects. Our greeter and mover teams added contacts from visitors and movers from this week to our spreadsheet. We praise God for the opportunities He has given us to help broaden the borders of His Kingdom.”
Niceville church of Christ, Florida: Joe Palmer (preacher) reports, “This week, something unique happened in our ministry. We had a visitor stay after Sunday worship for our Compassion Card team meeting. Our team is doing a great job; the leaders are engaged, and food is abundant. One of our leaders invited two people to stay, and one was a new visitor. Also, a lady who has been receiving cards attended the meeting. She has been an off-and-on visitor for some time but has never placed membership. She got cards for a week and was in the meeting that week. Two visitors received gift bags, and we had a meal with one visitor. We sent out 50 cards this week. Our success with this ministry has resulted in a flurry of baptisms. We had two baptisms on Sunday. We had five returning visitors to the assembly. One of our returnees works with a Compassion Card team, and one who obeyed the gospel has attended our training meeting last week. This month, we have two outreach events: a fish fry and a Trunk or Treat. The fish fry is an initiative of a member who wants to help us reach out. Sunday night, we meet to discuss this work with Alex, one of our new converts.”
Fayetteville church of Christ, Georgia: David Gulledge (associate preacher) reports, “Dave finished preaching from John 4 on Sunday, and we passed out our first set of contact cards to start a prospect list. We started selecting coordinators for various roles, and we plan to implement the card ministry within the next week or two.”
Woodstock church of Christ, Georgia: Greg Garner (deacon) reports, “The Compassion Card group met and created 35 cards last night. Our New Movers group delivered four newcomers’ baskets to the area. They left one door hanger for those who were not home. The National Door Knocking campaign kicked off on October 7, 2023. WCOC had 40 members to volunteer. As a result of our door-knocking campaign, we had one visitor show up on Sunday morning asking for a Bible study. We expect more to come. We had 14 in our New Convert class. The Greeter Group reported that we had four visitors this week. WCOC had two Bible studies this week.”
Stafford Road church of Christ, Georgia (remote): Daniel Welker (preacher) reports, “Today, October 8, 2023, was a busy day at Stafford Road church of Christ. We talked more in detail of the Fall festival plans. Last week, I followed up with an insurance agent who seemed receptive to a Bible study. She was booked this week, so I will try to set a date soon. She is receptive because she has seen the dangerous path the Methodist church is going down. For several weeks now, recent convert Emily Tedder’s daughter, Mikayla, has been asking about baptism and the steps to salvation in Bible class with my wife, Jennifer. Bible class got so serious this morning, we had to bring Emily into the conversation. Our Bible class lesson was on Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. Between Bible class and worship, Mikayla and I had a conversation. I told her to listen to my sermon today, and then, if she still wanted to be baptized, to come forward. Mikayla came forward but froze up when the members were staring at her. We decided to study more that evening. We studied with Mikayla for a couple of hours, and she decided she was ready to become a New Testament Christian through baptism.”
LaFayette church of Christ, Georgia: David Paden (preacher) reports, “I have been thinking about a movie I saw called Hacksaw Ridge. It is based on a true story about a man who rescued individuals from a battlefield. Every time he would save someone, he would say, “Just one more.” Last night, we got one more. Curry and I have been studying Back to the Bible with Rashawn Porter, and we baptized him last night. He is on the left in the attached picture. What I love about this study is that several people have studied with Rashwan, but he did not see the need to be baptized, and he did not see any difference among all the different churches. However, when we carefully walked him through the Bible, he saw it plainly.
The lady on the right is Stefanie Rogers. She’s from the Baptist church. She started visiting with one of our members a couple of months ago and responded to the invitation one night, asking for prayers. The congregation flooded her with compassion cards. We invited her over for supper last Thursday night, and after supper, I asked her what she thought about the church of Christ. She said, “Oh, they are just the sweetest people I have ever met.” I asked her if she would like to learn more about the church of Christ, and she said yes. I pulled out Back to the Bible, and we had our first study; she loved it. We will study the second book next week. We appreciate prayers to help us get one more for the Lord.
“Jesse Teague, one of our deacons, reports that almost 15 members participated in the new movers’ door knocking on Saturday. We had gift bags made by some of the ladies of the congregation. All the names were organized and grouped by location, with about five or six names per sheet. Our gospel meeting is this week, so we included flyers for the gospel meeting and had another good talking point with people we met.”
Honolulu church of Christ, Hawaii: Lima Esene (regional trainer) reports, “We have three ongoing Bible studies. We have several local visitors to prospect with cards and meal invitations. Our group covering our new movers sent out letters to all new movers to see if there is interest in a personal visit and gift bag. We started a program for children before worship service to encourage and teach them about God. This also has an evangelistic focus to it. One of our new converts invited her college softball teammates, who worshipped with us this past Sunday. We plan to follow up with them. We appreciate all prayers.”
Jerseyville church of Christ, Illinois (remote): Jake Medford (preacher) reports, “We had a great week. We had many repeat visitors who are being prospected currently. We have a Bible study scheduled with a young couple tomorrow evening and two events this month to create contacts. We are following up after cards are sent, which is a big help.”
Beloit church of Christ, Kansas (remote): Dustin Dougherty (regional trainer) reports, “I was able to travel to Coweta, Oklahoma, for the advanced evangelism seminar Thursday and Friday. I had an awesome time with fellowship and enjoyed meeting many new Christians. The lessons were great, as expected. On Sunday, I presented the evangelism lesson Quantity over Quality. It seemed to be well received by the members. Following the lesson, I asked the members if they knew anyone who is sick that might appreciate cards. Three people raised their hands. We will start sending cards to those individuals soon. Saturday, Lord willing, I will be with the McPherson Kansas church of Christ, teaching a seminar on how to use Back to the Bible. There is a lot of interest there, and I look forward to helping them jump-start their local efforts. God is great, and to Him be all honor and glory.”
Central church of Christ, Paducah, Kentucky: Adam Faughn (preacher) reports, “Sunday morning, we went through Part 2 of John 4 and gave more principles that Jesus shows us. These sermons are being well received. On Sunday night, we talked about Compassion Cards (or, as we call them, “Evangelistic Card-Writing”), and I preached six Proverbs that can help us know what to write. We also spent time in prayer for our contact lists. October 9 is our Mission Monday. We plan to spend part of the time organizing works in which we are already involved so that we are more efficient and effective for the Lord’s cause. We are grateful to have one Bible study ongoing. We had guests from our local community yesterday, and we will follow up with them throughout this week.”
Blanchard church of Christ, Louisiana: Pat Cella (elder) reports, “We sent out 16 compassion cards this week. We have also been studying with a lady on our contact list who has never been to our building. She called today and asked for a ride to our gospel meeting tonight. This is exciting to us.”
La Plata church of Christ, Maryland (remote): Eric Sykes (regional trainer) reports, “We visited two people on our compassion card list and delivered two gift bags. We have six open Bible studies. Four people have completed Lesson 2 of BTTB and are scheduled to complete Lesson 3 soon. We pray we can study with them this week. We have two others who have just completed Lesson 1 of BTTB. We pray they will complete Lesson 2 of BTTB this week. We had four returning visitors. We sent out 44 compassion cards. We appreciate all prayers as we strive to complete the six Bible studies on our list and implement the weekly congregational video training program here at the La Plata church of Christ. We have a couple of technical issues, but we pray that everything will be up and running soon. Our new website is currently under construction.”
Southside church of Christ, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Freddie Klein (preacher) reports, “We prepared for and attended the Trick-or-treat trail Saturday. We handed out hundreds of flyers on the church. We made 171 contacts in two hours. From those contacts, we had 27 more request information and ten correspondence courses. Sunday night, we had a visitor who had attended the event. We will use the contact information to fuel next month’s card-writing program.”
Iuka church of Christ, Mississippi: Robert Wimbish (elder) reports, “We had another good week at Iuka. We hosted our annual fish fry Saturday afternoon, and it was a huge success. As a result of presenting invitations during our recent door knocking campaign, we had over 75 visitors come to the fish fry. Our total attendance for the event was about 175, making it the largest gathering at our congregation in over ten years. Our prospect/contact list grew considerably as a result. Everything we do now is for the ultimate purpose of evangelizing, and the results are stunning.”
West Highway 160 Church of Christ, West Plains, Missouri (remote): Marvin Hatley (elder) reports, “The congregation currently has twelve active prospects. There are three ongoing personal Bible studies; two are using Back to the Bible, and one using Fishers of Men. Congregational efforts continue to focus on benevolence with several of our prospects. We are preparing and delivering meals, mowing yards, and offering home maintenance. We continue to be blessed with a sizable group of members who faithfully participate in our Transition Thursday every other week. We pray that God continues to bless our efforts.”
Samford church of Christ, Steele, Missouri: Kyle Imel (deacon) reports, “Seventeen of us knocked on doors Saturday. We knocked on 81 doors and got 19 contacts! It was a successful day. Evangelism team 1 met last night and wrote compassion cards to the 19 contacts. We will begin sending those out on Tuesday. We have three active studies. We hope to meet with Randi, go through Book 2 this week, and continue studying with two others on Wednesday night.”
East Flushing church of Christ, New York (remote): Clarence Jenkins (preacher) reports, “Though it was raining and even pouring at times, we had a fruitful day participating in the 4th Annual Brotherhood-Wide Door Knocking Day. Eleven members participated. They knocked on 55 doors, spoke to 10 people, and left the HTH door-knocking issue with them. Only one person refused a copy of House-to-House. We have one complete contact. We left door hangers at houses where no one answered the door. We were encouraged and have decided, Lord willing, to go door-knocking at least once a month. To God be the glory. We appreciate all prayers.”
Carthage church of Christ, North Carolina (remote): Randy Chambers (preacher) reports, “This week nine members went out and knocked over 132 doors. The community was very receptive, and we were able to talk with several people. We signed up eight people to receive HTH. We met one family that was moving in during our door knocking. We offered to help and gave them our information to call if they needed or wanted our assistance. We tried to deliver a New Movers’ Basket after service, but no one was home. We will go back this week. We continue to train, pray, and encourage the program so that God will give the increase!”
York church of Christ, Pennsylvania: Mark Raschke (deacon) reports, “We have continued to go through our regular cadence of sending compassion cards to contacts each week and then visiting some of those contacts each month. We have had some visitors who have become regulars, and we are working to set up Bible studies with them. However, we have not yet had any prospects agree to a Bible study.”
East Ridge church of Christ, Chattanooga, Tennessee: Austin Fowler (regional trainer) reports, “Saturday, we had 22 door knockers who went out. We knocked on 153 doors, talked to 61 people, and collected 14 contact cards. We hope to follow up with some excellent contacts. One man said he reads every issue he receives from House to House; he showed us his collection. One person asked for prayers regarding some serious personal issues. My mom and I met one person who requested prayers for a sister-in-law who has cancer. The wife asked, “What church do you go to?” I said East Ridge church of Christ. She said she has already received a ton of cards. I can tell that she appreciated the cards. We are excited about these contacts. One member has a Bible study coming up, and we request prayers for it.”
East Main church of Christ, Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Brad Rowley (elder) reports, “East Main had 41 people to attend the national door-knocking event on Saturday. We knocked on 520 doors, and 140 doors answered. We are so thankful to our members who took time out to attend the door-knocking event. We pray for opportunities from this effort. We received nine contact cards from the door-knocking activity. Our compassion card team wrote 92 cards on Sunday. We had four Bible studies last week. Later this month, we will have a discipleship meeting to regroup and include our new converts. Our new convert class starts next Sunday.”
McKenzie church of Christ, Tennessee: Chance Steen (preacher) reports, “We are starting a new cycle of card mail-outs for October. We have two new contact cards. We plan to include in this month some of the new participants in our Community Kitchen food giveaway in late September. Our group leaders are planning a meeting on October 15 to encourage and give some thoughts toward maintaining our group’s effectiveness. An emphasis was placed on the message on the card. We also are handing out visitor bags, a wonderful tool to show our love and appreciation for being with us. Sometimes we are so involved in greeting the visitor that we forget about the bag. We continue working on the program and sowing seed for the cause of Christ. May our Lord bless our efforts.”
New Hope church of Christ, Middleton, Tennessee: Cole Wade (preacher) reports, “Sunday, we had someone come forward for prayers, and we were able to offer prayers and support. Our card writing is frequent and consistent. We are executing this during our Bible classes, and it has been so helpful! We are also reorganizing our work with New Movers, and we have many who want to help!”
New Union church of Christ, Manchester, Tennessee: Paul Fultz (elder) reports, “We have added evangelism door hangers and business cards containing QR codes from World Video Bible School to our Evangelism Table. We also keep extra copies of HTHHTH on the table. We have congregational prayer specifically for our prospects. We had five contact cards submitted. We had five families with six visitors from the community Sunday. Four of the visitors were high school students. Greeters continue to record names and addresses of visitors and hand out visitor bags. Greeters add each local visitor to a contact card so compassion cards can be sent. We schedule a member to visit a visitor during the week. Card Team 2 wrote 57 compassion cards. Last week, members made nine follow-up visits and contacts, not counting phone calls and texts.”
Covington church of Christ, Tennessee: Wayne Dalrymple (elder) reports, “This week, two precious souls repented of sin and asked for prayers for strength. Last Wednesday, our newest convert, Daniel, asked for strength to make the needed changes in his life. Then Sunday evening, one of our young adults, Andrew, confessed sin and asked for prayers. We rejoice that the grace of God extends forgiveness. On Saturday, twelve of us participated in the annual Door Knocking Day. We decided to use this day to attempt to deliver some New Mover baskets. We knocked on 40 doors, talked to 19 people, and delivered 17 baskets. We pray their hearts will be cultivated to receive the seed of the kingdom. For the second week, a couple who had not attended services in over a year were both present. They returned after receiving compassion cards telling them we missed them. Sunday afternoon, we wrote compassion cards to several prospects. We hope to schedule Bible studies with two of these prospects this week.
Wheeler church of Christ, Texas: Garrett English (preacher) reports, “We passed out the bookmarks and urged the congregation to have ten names by next week. I preached on the importance of looking for souls from John 4 and bringing others to Christ from Mark 2:1-12. We’ll continue next week with praying for those on our bookmarks, and then we will compile a list of teams for compassion cards.”
Canyon Lake church of Christ, Texas (remote): Jesse Stuart and Raoul Ferris (evangelists) report, “Today was a fantastic day as two beautiful souls were added to the Kingdom of God. Today Eric and Kayla Tealer were married and added to the body. We met Eric and Kayla during our door knocking campaign, and Kayla immediately said that she thinks she is living in sin by not being married and that she needs to be baptized. We said those are two wonderful questions and deserve an answer from God in a Bible study. We studied Book 1 of Back to the Bible with them the next day. We continued to meet on Monday nights for the next month while spending time together as families by going out on the lake and developing friendships. Satan hindered us many times and put many roadblocks in the way, but nothing stopped them from obeying the gospel. They want to have a nice wedding ceremony soon and be able to invite friends and family, so we will try to help by arranging a small wedding. Eric just got laid off from his job and is looking for work, so they cannot afford much right now. Please keep them in your prayers as they are babes in Christ; we will continue to meet on Monday nights and start a new converts class. To God be the glory.
“We continue to have regular visitors, and our Sunday morning attendance is growing. We completed Book 2 with the charismatic young man. He struggled with the issue of not using musical instruments during worship, but he was completely on board with the remainder of Book 2. We assisted in spraying his home for ants, and he spent Thursday evening with us in San Antonio at a Bible study hosted by the Northern Oaks church of Christ. We completed Book 2 with another family, and hopefully, we will have them over for dinner and celebrate the teenage daughter’s birthday. We were able to set up a follow-up study with another person after a week of silence. We found out that he is dealing with alcoholism. We will have to address this issue. We trained three members here to deliver new movers baskets, so we collected five contact cards. We are organizing our door-knocking event, trunk or treat, and Friends and Family Day.”
Southwest church of Christ, Austin, Texas: John Garza (regional trainer) reports, “We have four studies taking place. We have one more confirmed study to begin Sunday. We continue to improve and evaluate our progress. When things slow down, we return to the website and add additional tools!”
Granbury Street church of Christ, Cleburne, Texas: Ryan Cowan (deacon) reports, “Danielle Santos attends the Sunday Foundations class regularly. This has been an excellent arena for her to ask clarifying questions about instrumental music. My daughter, Kaitley, spoke with a member of our youth group whose mom was recently baptized. Kaitley and Karolyna will begin Book 1 soon! Unfortunately, a study I had personally been involved in fell apart in the middle of Book 2. My contact has been added to my bookmark. I am praying that his heart will soften to God’s Word. Though there has been some turnover, ten Bible studies are currently in progress. The congregation is using bookmarks for the first time. I will regularly remind them of the warm contacts who need salvation.”
Northern Oaks church of Christ, San Antonio, Texas: Mel Hutzler (elder) reports, “We have wonderful news to report. Ross Phillips was baptized Friday evening by Anthony, who studied with him. We are thankful for his decision to put Christ on in baptism. Lord willing, we should have several more coming this month. It is great to see more members getting involved in evangelism. Our congregation has seen a great increase in baptisms and those placing membership. We hope to continue these things by prospecting those we contact and sharing God’s Word with the lost through Bible studies.”
Natalia church of Christ, Texas: Jim Word (elder) reports, “Kathaleen has been coming to worship. After worship yesterday, she went home and thought hard about the sermon. She called me and said she needed to be baptized. She met me at the building before worship, and we talked about her spiritual state and her denominational baptism. Last night, Kathaleen Elrod was baptized into the Lord’s church. She agreed to complete the studies with my wife and me in a few weeks. We are thankful for all encouragement.”
Graceton church of Christ, Diana, Texas: Johnny Willeford (elder) reports, “Compassion card Group A signed forty cards for four individuals. We continue to work and train. The group members of our new mover’s outreach area hope to evangelize the Diana community. The ladies’ class has welcome baskets for our members to deliver to new movers. A new family visited Sunday morning, and they accepted an invitation for lunch. Zach and Kimmy took them out to lunch and got their contact information. They have six children, and all said they enjoyed the lesson and Bible classes. Our next family game night is in two weeks, and plans are to have it at the home of one of our deacons for outside yard games, burgers, and hot dogs. I taught a lesson at the evening service on being doers of the word and not hearers only from James 1. I tried to encourage the congregation to work together to reach the lost. Continue to pray for our congregation as we pray for all of God’s families.”
Bridgewater church of Christ, Katy, Texas: Doug Suggs (member) reports, “Card team 2 met Sunday evening to send cards to prospects. One of our recent converts, Torie, was there to help. The materials on our evangelism table have been used, and we provide the tools needed to teach souls.”
Charles Harris (regional trainer) reports: “Last week I started working a secular job. As a new hire, I am going through training with several other new hires. During training, we were asked to introduce ourselves to the class. I mentioned that I am a gospel preacher, hoping it would open the door to further conversations about spiritual matters. It has helped as I get to know my co-workers. One man mentioned that he has been looking for a church. I request prayers as I take advantage of these opportunities to lead souls to Jesus.”
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