Success Stories: December 28, 2022

Editor’s Note: HTHSOE had its fiftieth Christian enroll in HTHSOE this year. The curriculum and graduation standards are designed to be both academic and actionable. Only six have reached the graduation mark. Dustin Doughtery, preacher for the Beloit church of Christ in Kansas, is one of them. He has worked hard to help this small congregation mature and grow. This past month, we recognized him as an authorized teacher of the HTHSOE model. He is helping area congregations learn how to evangelize.  Below is his report. As you can see, he is not only zealous to reach the lost, but he also has the courage to stand for the Truth and help those in sin to repent.  We commend him as an example of faith and thank our Father for all those who do the same.

Tonight, I had the privilege of baptizing a newlywed couple. The young man, his fiancé, and their young daughter had attended services a handful of times with his grandmother. I asked them a few months ago if they would like to know more about Jesus, and they agreed to a study.

We began studies using Back to the Bible. At the end of book 3, they both expressed the desire to submit to baptism, but because of their living situation, they needed repentance. I told them that their relationship and the living arrangements needed to be brought into alignment with God’s will before I would baptize them. They understood, and they decided to get married. They began planning and working the kinks out and set a date. They wanted to do a private ceremony to tie the knot and enter a marriage covenant. Keith Lyon officiated their vows, and then about 30 minutes after their marriage, I had the privilege of baptizing a new husband and wife for the remission of their sins.

It was so great to see them declare their love for each other and then turn around and declare their love for God. They publicly confessed that they believed Jesus Christ is the Son of God and were baptized. To God be all the glory, honor, and praise. We have had three baptisms just this month for a total of 20 since the beginning of 2020. Almost all of them have occurred from the use of Back to the Bible. My wife is the only one that I had baptized before we knew about and started using Back to the Bible early in 2020.”

Glencoe church of Christ, Alabama:  On Wednesday Brooks Boyd and David Marker are going to address the congregation and layout their vision for the congregation in 2023. They have been working hard to develop an evangelism strategy that will work for the congregation. We have met on several occasion to go over the HTHSOE model. We are excited to see what happens in the next year.

McKenzie church of Christ, Tennessee: Chance Steen (preacher) reports, “We have reached out to four other (somewhat local) congregations who have gone through the evangelism seminar with the hope of encouraging others in this work. We are looking forward to 2023 as we get started!”

Mid-Town church of Christ, Victoria, Texas: James Cammock (deacon) reports, “We continue to write compassion cards to our contacts. We are proactive with our visitors. We are grateful for the evangelism model as we look forward to entering the New Year with a real plan in place for evangelism!”

Fruitvale church of Christ, Texas: Carl McCann (elder/preacher) reports, “Work continues as we are making contacts. The New Converts class will begin on the first Sunday in January. We look forward to the New Year.”

Highway 95 church of Christ, Taylor, Texas: Benjamin Dossey (preacher) reports, “Things continue to go well in Taylor. Even though it was Christmas Day, we had a family visit us that had just recently moved to Taylor and received our mailer. They are not members of the church, so we hope to build a relationship with them by showing them the love of Christ.”

Central church of Christ, Martinsburg, West Virginia: Robert Veil (preacher) reports, “We completed the calendar year with a 2022 in Review sermon Sunday to remember the many blessings and advancements in the kingdom this year. It was almost unbelievable when all the events were compiled and presented together. That sermon is available at our website, as are our others. We had six baptisms this year, and our New Converts class and Fundamentals class are continuing. Next Sunday, we begin a new sermon series entitled, Answers from Acts, designed especially to reach the lost.”

New Union church of Christ, Manchester, Tennessee: Paul Fulks (elder) reports, “We continue to review the bookmarks with our personal prospects each Sunday morning. We pray for the individual prospects and those on our compassion card list. Members continue to submit four to six new contacts each week. Last week, we continued to make visits and phone calls to prospect those we have listed.”

East Main church of Christ, Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Brad Rowley (elder) reports, “I will give a summary for the year. The first year for our evangelism program was in 2022. We had our evangelism program in place by May. We held our evangelism seminar at East Main in September. Between May and December, we had 11 baptisms. We averaged seven new contacts each week. We wrote an average of 60 compassion cards each week. Last week we had four Bible studies. We still have a lot of work to do in 2023. We will start BTTB booklets in our teen class on Sundays. Our young people will also have the opportunity to be trained in the booklets at Bible camp (ICYC). We have some work to do in our digital outreach (Facebook and Website). We still need to revise our House to House magazine. We also want to understand the results from our new movers’ basket strategy. It is our prayer that we can get all members involved to utilize their talents. We desire to complete advanced training with those who are already involved. The Lord has blessed us with a hard-working team and plenty of opportunities. We are thankful for all of our members, elders, deacons, ministers, and administrative assistants who work so hard to spread the Gospel. To God give the glory!”

York church of Christ, Pennsylvania: Mark Raschke (deacon) reports, “We are starting to hit our stride with the HTHSOE program. We have had a steady stream of contact cards flowing in from members, and a number of members are sending compassion cards every week. Those cards are starting to pay dividends, as the responses are coming in from the thankful recipients. Doors are open for further contacts and probable studies! We will start the second round with our initial contacts early in the New Year. We pray that we will be able to report Bible studies resulting soon!”

Covington church of Christ, Tennessee: Wayne Dalrymple (elder) reports, “Last Wednesday, Becky had the second study with Nikki. They are going through Believe the Bible because Nikki has had little exposure to the Bible in the past. Becky said that Nikki seems to understand and accept the truths in the first two booklets. They will be going through the third book about Christ soon. Sunday morning, a man named David responded and confessed the sin of not attending worship services. He was not one of our members but had been a member in another place when he was young. He also expressed his desire to place membership with us. He came Sunday night. Jeff will be continuing his study with Tori next week. We plan to train the congregation to use Does It Matter? on Sunday evenings within the next few weeks. Please pray for us as we move into 2023. May we grow even more than we have in 2022.”

Greenfield church of Christ, Tennessee: Brent Arnold (preacher) reports, “We rejoice to announce that Westin Porter was baptized into Christ this week.”

Fayette church of Church, Alabama: Kaleb Hull (preacher) wrote, “We are working to make sure the School of Evangelism is an integral part of our work plan for the coming year. We currently have three ongoing Bible studies.”

Honolulu church of Christ, Hawaii: Tagiilima Escene (preacher) reports, “This year has been a fruitful year in evangelism. We have had 24 baptisms, doubling our average of about ten since 2019. Our church is moving in the right direction. God continues to give the increase where we have planted and watered the seed. The highlight of last week is the baptism of a member’s son. His mother has been praying fervently for him. Praise the Lord! Our plan in the new year is to maintain the course and do a better job at following up and encouraging our new converts. To God be the glory always!”

Highway church of Christ, Benton Arkansas: Terrel Milks (elder) reports: “This week, we started implementing our tracking feedback. We have four compassion card groups with about 20 members in each group. Each group takes one week of the month. This week, we let the leaders of each group know how many cards were written by their group in the month of November and how many members participated. We hope this will give the group leaders needed information to create more activity within each group. In the near future we hope to give similar information to those visiting prospects and those holding Bible studies. We want the eldership to be kept up to date on progress. We will share successes with the congregation because keeping evangelism first in everyone’s our mind is vital to achieving success.”

Woodstock church of Christ, Georgia: Greg Garner (deacon) reports, “Our congregation meets on Sunday evenings to conduct the Actively Caring Teaching Servicing (ACTS) workshop (i.e. evangelism). Last week, the Caring Compassion Cards group sent 20 compassion cards. The Service Group knocked on doors from the HTH list. Follow-up visits will be made. We welcome into the fold brothers William and Mathew Hestad. There were baptized by their father, Bruce Hestad. We are blessed beyond measure and more than we deserve.”

New Hope church of Christ, Middleton, Tennessee: Cole Wade (preacher) reports, “Our congregation has changed significantly from the beginning of this year. We are more mission-minded and more excited to serve people. Overall, we have grown in number and quality of faith. We had studies with several people, and even though some did not obey, others did. We are anticipating the new year and preparing for what needs to be done. We request prayers for the Lord to strengthen our congregation for the coming work in 2023.”

Rogersville church of Christ, Tennessee: Ethan Tate (preacher) reports, “This week, we hope to have a Bible study with a family we have been helping. Please pray that we can reach hearts and lead them to the Lord.”

Paintsville church of Christ, Kentucky: Zach Collins (preacher) reports, “On the first Sunday of 2023, we will present a theme to increase evangelistic efforts. The theme is, “One Another.” We will focus on strengthening our relationships inside the congregation to better reach lost souls outside the congregation. We hope this, coupled with the School of Evangelism, will be potent in winning souls! Johnnie LeMaster and I are preparing for our evangelistic campaign in Peru in January. We ordered many copies of Back to the Bible in Spanish to use in studies. Keep praying for us!”

Riverbend church of Christ, Georgia: Austin Fowler (member) reports, “This year was historic at Riverbend. We had 24 baptisms. It was an amazing year of growth and excitement. We plan for continued growth for 2023 as we reach out to the lost in Dalton.”

Shertz church of Christ, Texas: Jay Stewart (elder) reports, “This week we decided to continue HTH to the same two areas for another six months. We are also revising our door knocking plan for March. In 2023, we are looking strongly at participating in the new movers’ program. We had a small number of visiting Christians with us this weekend but no non-Christians.”

East Flushing church of Christ, Flushing, New York (virtual): Clarence Jenkins (preacher) reports, “The gospel of Christ is the power of God to save. Glory be to God because two precious souls were added to the body of Christ Saturday. Francesca was baptized in the morning and Nina in the evening.
Francesca had been studying BTTB for several months. We met Nina last Sunday when she came by the building after worship and set up an appointment to have a Bible study. On Tuesday she completed book one, Wednesday book two, and Saturday book three. By God’s grace, this brings the
total number of baptisms to 12 this year. We are thankful to God for HTHSOE, the commitment of the Whitacre family, and the efforts of all the churches of Christ seeking to save the lost. Please continue to pray for us. We are praying for you all.”

Monroe church of Christ, Georgia: Charles Harris (preacher, HTHSOE graduate) reports, “We had plenty of visitors Sunday. We look forward to officially kicking off the congregational evangelistic work next Sunday AM. Evangelism Model cards have been given to the church. Sunday I will preach a sermon concerning the contacts part of the model and will pass out bookmarks. My plan is to go over the bookmarks after every morning worship from now until the Lord comes back.”

Carthage church of Christ, South Carolina (virtual): Randy Chambers (preacher) reports, “We had two BTTB classes conducted last week as well as cards mailed to contacts. We had the pleasure of a visit during worship from a family that we had tried to visit after our fourth week of mailing compassion cards to them. We had good fellowship and made plans to have them over to our home as soon as they are available. We continue to train, encourage, and teach HTHSOE principles. We appreciate the Lord for the privilege of working with Him and the brethren.”

Coldwater church of Christ, Kentucky: Luke Puckett (preacher) reports, “We are following up with contacts who have received our cards. Our teams are sending Bible materials and making calls and visits to those who showed interest in spiritual things at our Thanksgiving giveaway. We had two visitors yesterday, and we will send them cards.”

Rabun County church of Christ, Tiger Georgia: McKinley Pate (preacher) reports, “We continue to explore different avenues in our community to show compassion. This past week, members showed love to a local family by purchasing gifts for them this holiday season. Our next step is to send cards of invitation to church services as well as making an in-home visit. The congregation is embracing the idea of evangelizing with everything we do. We continue to have studies with two individuals. The studies are steadily moving forward. We continue to have repeat visitors from the community along with our weekly out-of-town visitors. Many out-of-town visitors are members of the church, and they love what we are doing. Many have stated that they want to talk to their congregations about House to House School of Evangelism. To God be the glory!”

Sorrento Hill church of Christ, Florida: Vanessa Chapman (member) reports, “We have had our first baptism using Back to the Bible. The lessons are so easy and clear. We can hardly wait to use them again. Pease pray for Nick Peters as he begins his new life in Christ.”

LaPlata church of Christ, Baltimore, Maryland: Eric Sykes (member, HTHSOE Graduate) reports, “About a year and a half ago, I had a Bible study with David Williams. He started attending worship services at the Suitland Road Church of Christ and was baptized this past Sunday. It took him a little longer to make his decision. I had stayed in touch, checking on him occasionally, and I took him and his brother Bennie out to lunch a few times. I also studied with his brother and sister, and they were baptized after we completed lesson three. I thank God that Bennie and Joyce (his sister) were finally able to convince David to attend worship services. We can finally call him ‘;Brother Williams.’”

Killeen church of Christ, Texas: Lee Fisher (elder) reports, “One of the studies mentioned above has resulted in God’s increase. Sean Maldanodo was baptized into Christ this past Thursday.”

Central church of Christ, Paducah, Kentucky: Adam Vaughn (preacher) reports, “Amanda visited with us recently at the invitation of her neighbors, who are members at Central. She has a nominal background in a denomination but has not been attending anywhere for years. She was struck by the worship and wanted immediately to be baptized. She studied some with her neighbors who brought her and received encouragement from one of our new members. Last Sunday night, she responded. Amanda is a recovering drug addict, and it was beautiful to hear her mention how she realized that baptism is what truly makes ALL of her ‘clean.’ She was immersed for the cleansing of her sins, came up out of the water, and said, ‘I feel amazing.’ Amen!”

NOTE: These reports are from Christians and congregations enrolled in the House to House/Heart to Heart School of Evangelism. These emails are sent to teach and provoke one another to remain focused on the mission of Christ. Each week, we share several reports and highlight one with more details. We hope you enjoy reading them.