Success Stories: January 1, 2025

Glencoe church of Christ, Alabama: Keith Ritchie (evangelist) reports, “The Glencoe church of Christ in Alabama has had an exciting year of growth and restoration. In 2024, Glencoe had seven baptisms and eight restorations. Currently, five precious souls are studying Back to the Bible. The elders presented the congregation with the plan of work for 2025. We look forward to this year with a plan for evangelism, benevolence, and edification! Pray for our efforts. To God Be the Glory!”

Canal Heights church of Christ, Demopolis, Alabama: Bryan Cook (preacher) reports, “By the end of the year, we gained three families. One of the young ladies decided to be baptized. These families were restorations. We are currently conducting three Bible studies with the lost and teaching a weekly evangelism class to six eager students desiring to know how to spread the Gospel. We now do a mixture of door-knocking and new movers one Saturday each month. We are excited about this coming year.”

Chase Park church of Christ, Huntsville, Alabama: Pat Cowden (evangelist) reports, “We have had a good year regarding Bible studies and positive responses from people who decided to put on Christ in baptism. Since my last report, we have had three more baptisms. One of them was the son of members of Chase Park. The other was the friend of several of our younger people who had been visiting regularly for a while. We are very thankful for our young people and their willingness to “let their lights shine” to their classmates and teammates. We also have several more of their friends who are visiting regularly. I have included a picture of Joseph Miller baptizing his wife, Leah. Joseph was converted almost three years ago and has been very evangelistic since then. He, along with his “cousins” Jamie and Beverly, have had almost continuous Bible studies with family, friends, and coworkers. They are on fire for the Lord, and we are so thankful for them. One of the ladies who was baptized earlier this year, Caroline Young, has been studying with her best friend, Michelle, and my wife, Maria. They are near the end of that study and probably starting another study with another of Caroline’s friends. She, too, is on fire and talking to everyone she can about salvation in Christ Jesus. At Chase Park, 2025 is shaping up to be a great year, Lord willing. We look forward to the evangelistic opportunities that will come our way.”

Central church of Christ, Saraland, Alabama: David Dixon (preacher) reports, “We ended the year on a high note here at Central. We added another soul to the Lord’s Kingdom. If we can get to 16 before March 2025, we will have doubled our yearly goal. The Lord is working powerfully, and His Word is never at rest! For 2024, we had 13 baptisms, at least five restorations, sent out 2,139 compassion cards, and handed out 10 visitors’ baskets. Without the House to House Heart to Heart School of Evangelism, most of those numbers would have been zeroes. This effort has changed the culture here at Central. Our eyes are open; our hearts are in it. We are not putting on a show for visitors or just going through the motions of evangelism. It is a real priority for us. It took a few months to adjust the program to fit our needs, but I believe we have reached a level of comfortability with evangelism that will not subside. Everything we do now is slanted toward being evangelistic.”

West Huntsville church of Christ, Alabama: Paul Owen (evangelist) reports, “We have had more baptisms in 2024 than any other year since 1997! We conducted our HTHSOE program in early March, and we have had 15 baptisms and four restorations in nine months. Recently, we have had three baptisms. Laura, a sister to one of our members, lives in Ohio, and she had been streaming our worship services for several months. Her brother asked if she would like to study the Bible, and he used Bobby Bates’ lessons. She was baptized into Christ and is now worshipping with a sound congregation in her area. Dylan is a co-worker of one of our members, Samuel.  Samuel invited Dylan to services and began studying with him, and after a couple of months, he became a Christian. This is the second conversion that involved Samuel; he knows both new converts because they work together, and both are named Dylan!”

Highland Park church of Christ, Muscle Shoals, Alabama: Andrew Myhan (deacon) reports, “Our congregation began the program in August. We have had a good response from our members. Training has gone well, so far. We have had four baptisms since August. Our goal for 2025 will be two or three baptisms per month. We appreciate all prayers for our coordinators, congregation, and young Christians.”

Hatton church of Christ, Alabama: Chris Miller (preacher) reports, “Hatton had a great week! Katie Jett and Debbie Dutton obeyed the Gospel. We have several studies going on currently. We give God the glory for all the good that has happened this year, and we are looking forward to continuing the work in 2025.”

Taylor Hughes (member) reports, “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?’ Then Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him” (Acts 8:35-38). My good friend Hogan and I have been studying the Bible. In doing so, we saw how God describes baptism, especially the method of how one is baptized. The word ‘baptize’ is translated from the Greek word ‘baptizo,’ which means ‘to immerse.’ When looking at the passages that speak about baptism, we read about Philip and the eunuch going ‘down into the water,’ and about baptism being a ‘burial,’ and finally, that it is ‘for the remission of sins.’ I am thankful for Hogan’s heart and desire to do what the Bible says. When he understood he had not been baptized the way the Bible describes it, he wanted to correct it. We all should have this mindset. When God’s way is different from yours, make changes!”

Petersville church of Christ, Florence, Alabama: Adam Richardson (preacher) reports, “Petersville finished 2024 with a renewed vision for evangelism and will continue to train members to put this passion into practice. There is great potential, but we still have room to grow. We had a baptism last night of one of our teens, which means there were six baptisms in 2024 and 18 restorations.”

Malvern church of Christ, Arkansas (remote): David Burruss (preacher) reports, “We continue to send compassion cards. Starting January 13, 2025, we will incorporate bi-weekly C.A.R.E. visits.”

Rison church of Christ, Arkansas: Keden Shrum (preacher) reports, “We have a Bible study that will begin this evening, Lord willing. We had five baptisms in 2024. We hit our 10 percent goal for the year!”

Windsor church of Christ, Colorado: Lucas Stephens (member) reports, “We had two visitors this week. We visited all eight of our compassion card contacts, but no Bible studies have resulted yet. We currently have five new compassion card contacts, and we will mail 50 cards to them this week. We had five baptisms this year, but no restorations. We finished our last training session in class this week.”

Margaret Street church of Christ, Milton, Florida: Troy Spradlin (preacher) reports, “Our evangelism ministry was on hiatus this past week for the holiday. We currently have 31 prospects, and we are focusing on them with compassion cards, benevolence, and grief ministry. We are getting more efficient with card writing, but we are still working out our logistics. We wrote 60 cards at our last session; we will start team rotations this next Sunday. We have also organized our Visitor/Pew Greeters teams and will implement that part of the ministry this week. Our one BTTB study completed Book 3. More studies will resume this week. We continued our ‘Congregational Coaching’ lessons during the evening service on the subject of ‘Invitation Cards, Door Knocking, and Community Events.’”

Lafayette church of Christ, Georgia: Jesse Teague (deacon) reports, “As we close out the year, it is good to look back at what we have accomplished. We considered what worked and what needs to be further refined. We saw nine souls obey the Gospel in Lafayette for 2024 and had one restoration. Our current monthly activities that support the program are contacting 45 new mover visits each month. Our Compassion Card teams meet on the first and third Sunday after worship to write an average of about 80 cards per month. We announce our evangelism activities, special meetings, and prayer requests. We also ask the congregation for contacts, hold monthly meetings with our evangelism teams and coordinators, schedule transition visits, plan community events to make more contacts, and incorporate evangelism into every sermon.”

Eatonton church of Christ, Georgia (remote): Roderick Coney (preacher) reports, “Last week, we sent compassion cards to three people. We just completed training the congregation on Chapter 5 of Growing in Christ (Prayer), and we completed our work on the latest New Movers list. Don completed
Lesson 2 of Back to the Bible with a prospect. The ladies have been putting together the new movers’ baskets. Lord willing, we may be able to distribute some of the baskets this week.”

Woodstock church of Christ, Georgia: Matt Amos (preacher) reports, “The WCOC congregation attended the Sunabella of Towne Lake Assistant Living devotional on Sunday. They had eleven non-Christians in attendance. We had six non-Christian visitors at our Sunday morning service. We had two Bible studies and one baptism.”

Cartersville church of Christ, Georgia (remote): Charles Harris (regional trainer) reports, “We enrolled into the school in June and have had six baptisms and five restorations. We are studying with two souls who are close to being baptized. Currently, we are planning a college/young adult ministry and also a Bible class for those in addiction recovery. Both of these works will be carried out to create contacts.”

Honolulu church of Christ, Hawaii: Tagiilima Esene (preacher) reports, “Aloha from the Honolulu congregation! As we end this year, we want to first give thanks to God for His providential care over us. We are thankful for all prayers and all the work that is being done for the Lord. It is edifying to see the good news being preached and souls being saved. We continue to have a steady flow of prospects; we average one or two local visitors within a month. We continue to have Bible studies with six souls. We helped train the Waimea congregation on the Big Island by having the seminar on Zoom. Our new converts class is ongoing, and soon we will graduate another group of new converts. We have a total of 13 baptisms this year. We give all praise and glory to God for allowing us to serve Him in this capacity. We look forward to the new year prayerfully and with faith. There is much work to do on the islands of Hawaii. God bless you all!”

Collinsville church of Christ, Illinois: Jason Wright (elder) reports, “AMC came to Collinsville-Troy in June. We already had most of our coordinators in place ready to be trained. After the campaign, we hit the ground running. Once September rolled around, we felt like we had a good idea of what we were doing, but we continued to tweak the process here and there. We started our Servants for Souls Sunday training, and things really took off. From late September until now, we have had six baptisms. We visited 101 prospects, and 54 of them are still interested in the Lord’s church. We currently have six studies in progress, with more to start after the holidays. A few have stalled, but we continue to reach out and pray that the studies will continue. We have visitors each week, including five this past Sunday, as a result of compassion cards and holiday baskets. Our New Christian class is very exciting and well-attended. We look forward to reaching the lost in 2025.”

West Hammond church of Christ, Indiana: Robert Webster (preacher) reports, “Here are the figures for 2024. We had a total of 61 visitors since the seminar. We have conducted 27 Bible studies (some still in progress). We have mailed 73 cards over the past month, and our total baptisms are eleven for the year.  This means we have hit our 10 percent goal. We baptized Martina Davis yesterday at our evening service.”

Highland Village church of Christ, Bloomington, Indiana: Mark Stauffer (elder) reports, “We hosted the School of Evangelism in mid-September 2024. It has been a great blessing for us. We have been following the recommended training schedule, and we will have our first Mission Monday on January 13. In December, we had nine new prospects, sent 338 compassion cards, had 13 visitors for worship, and made six visits to prospects. For the year (since the SOE in mid-September), we have had 25 prospects, mailed 993 compassion cards, had 36 visitors at services, made 12 visits, conducted two Bible studies, and had two baptisms, plus one earlier in the year. We recently began reaching out to the wayward and unfaithful but have no restorations yet.”

Lagrange church of Christ, Indiana (remote): Wayne Poe (elder) reports, “We have had three restorations and two baptisms this year. We enrolled into HTHSOE in September. We are still working to assign some of the coordinators and establish routines. We are looking forward to the New Year and reaching the lost.”

Beloit church of Christ, Kansas (remote): Dustin Dougherty (regional trainer) reports, “In 2024, we had one baptism. One lost soul returned to the flock after being away for many years. The congregation was trained this year in the SOE curriculum, and parts of the plan have been implemented, with many more coming in 2025. We started using invitation cards and House to House Heart to Heart. We set up an evangelism table. I was able to travel and preach at four Kansas congregations besides Beloit many times this year, and many great friendships have been made. We are preparing many new things to implement in 2025 for congregational and personal evangelism. To God be all glory and honor.”
Madisonville church of Christ, Kentucky: Don Killough (deacon) reports, “We closed out the month of December by focusing on restorations and visitors. Three hundred cards were mailed in the last two weeks. A Back to the Biblestudy was concluded with a person who was brought up in the church; now in his 40’s, he was baptized. Since beginning this evangelistic program in October, we have had four baptisms and one restoration. To God be the glory!”

Central church of Christ, Paducah, Kentucky: Adam Faughn (preacher) reports, “Even during the holiday season, a lot of good work is going on in Paducah. This week, we had our fourth study (using the Visualized Bible Study) with Austin. The fifth and final video is this week, so we are praying for harvest. If she chooses not to be baptized yet, we have already indicated that we will continue the study, and we will use Back to the Bible. Also, this week, we began a study with Karen. We completed Book 1 of Back to the Bible, and that study is already going so well. The second study is scheduled for this week.

We had 29 guests from a local women’s recovery center this past Sunday night. We later learned that they go to various churches on Sunday and Wednesday nights, so we are going to do all we can to make sure we are on their ‘rotation’ (and hopefully, very regularly). The ladies were warmly greeted, and several filled out guest cards, so we can follow up with them. We are praying that some of these turn into Bible studies. There are open doors all around us in the Paducah area, and we pray for opportunities to walk through those doors!”

Samford church of Christ, Steele, Missouri: Kyle Imel (deacon) reports, “Samford had four baptisms and one restoration for the year. This means we hit our 10 percent goal!  We are sending cards to a family who has visited with us for a couple of weeks. We hope to produce fruit soon.”

La Plata church of Christ, Maryland (remote): Eric Sykes (regional trainer) reports, “We sent out 36 compassion cards. We completed Lesson 2 of Back to the Bible with two folks. We have an appointment on Thursday to study Lesson 3 with Brother Tony and one of his co-workers. We would appreciate prayers for this study, hoping she will obey the Gospel. We completed Lesson 3 of Back to the Bible with a young man named Ryan; he is a classmate of one of our new converts at George Mason University. We have also been studying with him via Zoom, using the BTTB PowerPoint slide presentation. He has gone home for Christmas break. He had agreed to be baptized this evening, but on the way to the Silver Spring church of Christ, his family members convinced him not to go through with being baptized. I spoke to him and found out that he was not confident with his decision. He understands that the baptism he received (pouring) is not in accordance with what the Bible teaches. He asked if we could get together and study a little bit more. We hope to meet with him tomorrow or Thursday and continue the Bible study. We will use Does it Matter?We hope this will give him a better understanding of what he needs to do to be saved.

I am truly thankful for the support the brothers at the Silver Spring church of Christ gave me on such short notice in trying to make this baptism happen. Six brothers attended the young men’s leadership training class. We are preparing them to take over area coordinator duties. We had eight folks in our New Converts training classes. We currently have five new convert classes being taught by several members via Zoom. Two classes are using The Beginning of Our Confidence, and three classes have advanced to using Growing in Christ. We had great training in our video of the week class by watching ‘The Truth about Christmas.’ Thirteen members attended. We had seven baptisms this year and one restoration.

I have been working with the Larule church of Christ, and they have had eight baptisms (six through Does it Matter and two with Back to the Bible). We trained the congregation on the evangelism model and taught several of the members how to conduct virtual Bible studies using the PowerPoint slide presentations Back to the Bible and Does It Matter?” One sister used the information to teach a young lady she met online, from the Republic of Malawi in Southeast Africa. She conducted the study online via Zoom; she used Does It Matter? We appreciate all prayers as we continue striving to spread the good news of Jesus in our community and beyond!!!”

East Flushing church of Christ, New York (remote): Clarence Jenkins (preacher) reports, “By God’s grace, we achieved our 10 percent goal of five baptisms on November 1, 2024. Glory be to God. Robyn was studying with her father, and last Sunday, December 29, she was baptized into Christ. We are rejoicing that God used us as instruments and that six precious souls were added to the Kingdom in 2024. We are looking forward to God adding to the increase for 2025. We are thankful for the encouragement and prayers throughout the year!”

New Concord church of Christ, Ohio: Terry Townsend (preacher) reports, “It has been a good year for the New Concord congregation, and optimism remains high as we embark on yet another New Year. I have preached a couple funerals in the last few days that have led to some contacts. That information is being gathered so that we can begin sending them compassion cards. In the last week, two of our 2024 visitors who have been coming to services regularly have reached out to me desiring to do what is right. We have tried setting up a Bible studies with them for a long time but to no avail. Now, for whatever reason, both have expressed desires to know and do God’s will. I have set up a time to study with one, and the other gentleman told me that one day this week he will be reaching out to me. I will post a picture of our number board for the year in this text. Next Sunday I have prepared a lesson that I hope will challenge and motivate the congregation to get busy reaching the lost! Our theme for 2025: ‘One Goal-One Soul!’”

Coweta church of Christ, Oklahoma: Keno Shrum (regional trainer) reports, “As we wind down another year, we are already gearing up for 2025 in Coweta with plans to dig in and evangelize harder than ever. We had nine baptisms in 2024. Opportunities abound, and I pray we will take advantage of as many as possible. I am still studying with Ethan and feel he is very close to accepting the Gospel. Robert is still working with Phillip. However, it has taken a bit as Phillip’s schedule is busy. I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting numerous congregations around the nation this year, helping them kick off their remote enrollments and refreshing some that have stalled. It is encouraging to see the church fulfilling its mission. I look forward to working with more congregations in 2025. Remember, if you need help, Regional Trainers are a call away. May God bless you all for your labors!”

Union church of Christ, South Carolina (remote): Terry Hale (preacher) reports, “We had six baptisms and two restorations in 2024. The last training session was very encouraging, with a good atmosphere of willingness to go and teach. We hit our 10 percent goal!”

East Ridge church of Christ, Chattanooga, Tennessee: Charles Cochran (preacher) reports, “We had a young lady, Erika Hughes, baptized Sunday evening. She had some questions about her previous baptism.  She wanted to make sure of her understanding. She is very sincere and comes from a fine family.  We believe great things are ahead for all of us in 2025!”

East Main church of Christ, Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Brad Rowley (elder) reports, “To God give the glory!  East Main worked very hard to save souls in 2024. We had 152 new contact cards. Our card teams wrote a total of 1,785 compassion cards. We had 97 new and 186 ongoing Bible studies.  East Main had a total of 30 baptisms, of which some were restorations. We remodeled our evangelism room, built a new website, and utilized our church app for communication. We installed a monitor at the evangelism table to improve communication. We greatly improved our new mover basket strategy. We trained some of our members to write cards, deliver baskets, make visits, and knock on doors. We taught some members to lead Bible studies. The seed was planted through many different strategies. We just completed our plans for Community Outreach for 2025. We will have an event every quarter, including a health screening, improved VBS, a career development workshop, and a first responder meal. We are so thankful for our hard-working members!”

McKenzie church of Christ, Tennessee: Randall McAdams (elder) reports, “We had a great previous two weeks in that we had two baptisms. A new couple from a nearby town began worshipping with us a month or so back and culminated with the husband being restored and his wife being baptized into our Lord.  Also, last week, one of our sisters decided that she wanted to be baptized again. She was concerned that she might not have fully understood what she was doing when she was baptized at an early age. Last Sunday was the final week of our card mailouts for December, and we will be working up a new list. We are thankful for all dedicated members of the Lord’s church. Happy New Year, and God bless.”

New Union church of Christ, Manchester, Tennessee: Paul Fultz (elder) reports, “We had a great year for 2024. Due to our evangelism efforts, we had four baptisms and five restorations. Our biggest gain was due to our New Movers ministry. This provided us with fifteen new members. We are looking forward to continuing this good work in 2025.”

Cookeville church of Christ, Tennessee: Jonathan Medley (deacon) reports, “We are continuing to develop the process for compassion cards, and the congregation is adjusting to it. We took some feedback this week from our membership that will help make the card-writing process more efficient and easier to understand, and we are working to implement those changes. We also started the process of registering for New Movers. A lady has visited our Sunday morning service for the last three weeks.  She would walk to the church building from some apartments across the street. During her first two visits, she was very hesitant to talk to anyone or give more information than just her first name.  She would not fill out a visitor card, and she always left as soon as services were over. However, this Sunday, she came back yet again, and this time, she filled out a card and indicated she would like a Bible study. The fields are white for harvest, and the Lord simply needs harvesters! Our total baptisms in 2024 is nine, so we hit our 10 percent goal.”

Ocoee Street church of Christ, Copperhill, Tennessee: R.E. Vann (elder) reports, “Like many congregations I imagine the holiday season brings challenges and opportunities with our evangelistic efforts revolving around family travels and illnesses circulating. Yet in seeking lost souls we press on and sent 32 compassion cards out to our two prospects. We also had 23 visitors during the past 2 Sundays, including one local we’ll add to our prospect list. Our latest training session covered Contacts-The Unfaithful, and everyone was encouraged to include our prodigals on their Love My Neighbor card (Bookmark) and continue in prayer. We are praying for the work everyone is doing. To God be the glory.”

Hebron church of Christ, McMinnville, Tennessee: Derrick Stiles (preacher) reports, “What a wonderful year for Hebron church of Christ. We have recorded seven restorations and 10 Baptisms. Since our last report, we have mailed 120 compassion cards and entertained some for lunch. Our goal is to begin follow-ups in January with those who have received cards in the last several months. The future looks bright for the church of Christ at Hebron.”

Rivergate church of Christ, Madison, Tennessee: Doug Tooley (preacher) reports, “In the past two weeks, we had 12 visitors at Rivergate. We had two baptisms last week. That put us to 27 total baptisms for 2024. Also in 2024, we had 10 people who came forward asking for prayers for restoration. We are praying 2025 will be better than 2024. We recognize that we need to make sure we stick to the basics and continue to train and encourage our members to stay the course.”

White Oak church of Christ, Chattanooga, Tennessee (remote): John McGiffin (preacher) reports, “We have no baptisms to report for the year, but we can report two restorations. We have had one Bible study this past week with a visitor. The second is yet to be scheduled. We had some visitors who just moved into the community this past Sunday. We are working on a community outreach calendar that should lead to some contacts. We plan to organize one event per month to attract and gather contacts.”

Hillcrest church of Christ, Springfield, Tennessee: Tim Taylor (associate preacher) reports, “We had four baptisms this week! The first three pictures are Tommy, Stephanie, and Josh Belcher. They have visited with us for several weeks. One of our deacons, Glen Doss, studied with them and baptized them Saturday morning. The last picture is Wesley, a coworker of another of our deacons, James Slate. James studied with him and baptized him Sunday morning at Bellevue church of Christ, where he plans to attend, as it is closer to his home. We also had a second food giveaway on Saturday morning. We had a much greater response this week, as we invited everyone back from last week and were able to share on the local social media community page. We served 42 families last week and 114 this week. Of those, we have 45 who asked for prayers, and we are following up with them by sending compassion cards. I need to verify these numbers with Johnny, but I believe these are accurate: seven baptisms, sixteen restorations, and 14 who placed membership.”

Mountain Creek church of Christ, Chattanooga, Tennessee: Michael Tomshack (elder) reports, “We have a new sister in Christ! Her journey to Christ began on October 20 when she walked into our building. I have reported on the progress in the update several times. I have included a photo of the baptism and a photo afterward with the study team: Ali Hagemann, Carley, myself, and Sydney McClure. At this week’s Sunday assembly, a young woman who visited us as a child walked back into our worship assembly. Several people remembered her, and she remembered them, which gave her the opportunity to ask for a Bible study. She agreed, and we will begin a Bible study today. It will be a modification of Back to the Bible by breaking it up into smaller time frames due to her work and childcare responsibilities. For 2024, ten were baptized, and three were restored. This hit our goal of 13 combined baptisms and restorations.”

West Fayetteville church of Christ, Tennessee: Steve Jefferson (elder) reports, “Happy holidays from the West Fayetteville congregation. We are very thankful for the School of Evangelism and how it has helped us work together to reach the lost. We only enrolled a couple of months ago. As we close out 2024, we have four prospects on our transition list that will receive visits at the first of the year. We also have two Bible studies that will be continuing through January. We have already had a baptism and restoration! We recorded five baptisms and seven restorations, so we hit our 10 percent mark of growth.”

Covington church of Christ, Tennessee: Wayne Dalrymple (elder) reports, “The Covington church ended the year on a great note. Sunday morning, a brother in Christ named Chris Huggins came forward to confess sin and express his desire to repent and to be forgiven. We prayed for him right then. We rejoice that a brother has come home. The elders, deacons, and ministers met in September to discuss the work for 2025. One of the things we decided was to have a theme for the church in Covington for 2025. That them will be ‘A Common Love.’ One area we will emphasize is a common love for the lost. We will focus on ways we can work together to reach lost souls. We know evangelism has to be a congregational effort. We will provide many ways for our members to help us reach the lost. We had nine baptisms and eight restorations. We look forward to a fruitful 2025!

Blackman church of Christ, Murfreesboro, Tennessee (remote): Brian McCord reports, “We have had two Bible studies this year that resulted in two baptisms for 2024. We will begin soon with the suggested sermons and bookmarks. Time to get to work!”

Chapel Hill church of Christ, Tennessee: Matt Jones (deacon) reports, “It has been a great year, and we thank God for the opportunities to serve His Kingdom. We had 10 restorations this past year and 19 souls added to the Lord’s church through baptism at Chapel Hill. We look forward to 2025 and the many opportunities the New Year will bring. To God be the Glory!”

Rome church of Christ, Lebanon, Tennessee (remote): David Oxley (elder) reports, “We continued our study of the Back to the Bible series on Sunday Morning, starting Book 3. We are currently working on two prospects. We have worked on a total of six contacts. Only one has shown interest in a Bible study; we have tried several times to schedule it, but we are still working on it. We have had a total of nine baptisms this year.”

Fruitvale church of Christ, Texas: Carl McCann (elder) reports, “This past week, we were able to do some follow-up work. One of our contacts took a few of us fishing at his private lake, and we were able to set up a Bible study with him. Fishing for men sometimes can be done by fishing for fish as well. We have been doing Book 1 of BTTB with Linda Moon. We are progressing slowly with a good study. We have also been able to reestablish a study with four contacts who studied Back to the Bible last year, so we are studying Searching for Truth to use a different lure in our tackle box. We currently have two visitors getting a ride to worship with one of our members every Sunday. We had a new visitor this past Sunday who was a contact by Raoul who helped her change a tire on the side of the road. We continue to work on the model. Currently, we have seven active Bible studies. In 2024, the congregation has had five baptisms, and we look forward to 2025.”

Free Will church of Christ, Gainesboro, Tennessee (remote): Andrew Scott (preacher) reports, “Here is our final report for 2024. What a fantastic year for the church of Christ at Freewill. Our ten percent baptism goal was five, and we exceeded that goal with eight baptisms. We had 16 restorations. This year, we mailed out 585 compassion cards and thousands of copies of House to House monthly. We are ready to hit the ground running in 2025. I will present additional training lessons on creating contacts this Sunday morning and continue for the next three Sundays. We will be passing out all the training cards. It was terrific to see yesterday that the husband of one of our new converts, who has not yet obeyed the Gospel, has been uplifted and encouraged by the sound preaching he has heard. He told me yesterday that he had learned more about the Bible in the last few weeks than he had ever had in his life. He has been inviting his family members to services! We already have a Bible study planned for the New Year with him. God bless you all! To God be the glory!”

9^th and Main church of Christ, San Angelo, Texas: Bryan Braswell (elder) reports, “We have had an amazing year, and we thank God for the evangelistic work being done. Our 2024 totals are 14 baptisms, three ongoing Bible studies, and three prodigals who came home (restorations).”

Roanoke church of Christ, Texas: Caleb Rutherford (preacher) reports, “On Thursday, December 19, we opened our fellowship hall to our local police department as a space for them to use to wrap the hundreds of presents that had been donated for less fortunate children in our local community. From that opportunity, we were able to gain seven contacts. Stephen Haschke (deacon) and I are both active members of the Citizens Police Academy, and we plan to be more evangelically driven. On Sunday, December 22, I finished the series of sermons on John 4, and Stephen H. delivered a training session in the evening on ‘Transition Visits.’ We also began to pull names from our bookmarks, starting with the names of our unfaithful members. We plan to prospect them first. We took a break this past Sunday, December 29, from any SOE sermons/training other than once again asking for more names from our member’s bookmarks. We plan to do a full training session on the compassion cards on January 5, then roll out the actual compassion cards along with our new card writing groups on January 12. We are excited to get up and running! We appreciate all prayers.”

Colleyville church of Christ, Texas: John Garza (regional trainer) reports, “As everyone is busy during this time of the year, things have slowed down a little, but Bible studies still have taken place. We look forward to the new year of 2025 to implement more of the program in our work here in Colleyville. Since Rob came in mid-November, we have had three baptisms. We have multiple studies taking place, and we have several prospects.”

Howe church of Christ, Texas: Aaron Alsbrook (preacher) reports, “We kick off the lesson from John 4 on January 5th and will be putting in place the three people into the key roles. The Eldership has asked me to be in the administrative role, and I am asking two other brothers to lead in education and communication. Thank you for your encouragement and your work for HTHSOE.”

Wheeler church of Christ, Texas: Garrett English (preacher) reports, “We had two baptisms in 2024. We sent nearly 800 cards. My wife and I plan to make visits in the next couple weeks to widows who received cards from the church recently. We will keep training the elders and the congregation on having an atmosphere focused on soul-winning efforts.”

Crosby church of Christ, Texas (remote): Jon Wheeler (elder) reports, “For the year, we ended with twelve total baptisms, nine onsite and three at another church that were taught by one of our members using the BTTB series. We have prospects that are active, with one awaiting to be baptized after recovering from an illness. A lady recently baptized has joined our new converts’ class. We have already had one meeting to brainstorm ideas that will improve our 2025 evangelism work, and we will meet again to prioritize, assign action items, and finish up. We got some great ideas from the weekly congregation reports. We are excited to begin 2025 with the continued move-ins in our community. We will need more participation in the congregation and will take action to get it!”                          

Bridgewater church of Christ, Katy, Texas: Doug Suggs (deacon) reports, “One of our card teams met Sunday evening to address cards to three prospects. In 2024, we had four baptisms and about ten responses to our invitation asking for prayers. Also, our convert from China had to return home as his visa was about to expire. We are trying to get him back in some way to continue to strengthen his commitment to Christ. Thank you to everyone who had prayed for us this year, and I ask prayers that David might be able to return to the US in the very near future.”

Killeen church of Christ, Texas: Lee Fisher (elder) reports, “We have had ten baptisms and five restorations for the year. God has blessed us with a lot of high school seniors this year and last. That being said, we would like to keep them with us because they are strong workers for Christ, going out and inviting their friends for a Bible study or to worship.”

West Side church of Christ, Salem, Virginia: Jeff Durham (elder) reports, “We ended our year on a very positive note as a young lady was baptized after class on a Wednesday night!  She had been studying Back to the Bible (and other materials) with several of our members for the past few months.  Our youth group welcomed her during their activities and encouraged her during their Bible classes.  Since we began implementing the Congregational Evangelism model in June, the Lord has added five souls to the Kingdom here at West Side!”

Culpeper church of Christ, Virginia (remote): Dave Calvert (elder) reports, “We finished showing the last half of the final evangelism video this past Sunday during the Bible class hour. With the remaining time, our minister asked for feedback from the members. There were a lot of very good questions about how this program will address specific situations. The members were assured that this program is designed to help reach out to anyone identified as a contact, a prospect, someone who has fallen away, or even someone who may have been disfellowshipped. I love our congregation and their awareness and desire to help others. One of our members requested prayers for a family member. A couple of our members learned that the family member was waiting in a car in the parking lot and went and met him. One of our families coordinated an effort to solicit help for this family during a difficult time. Enough money was donated to pay off their bills and buy some needed items. As a result, the family member waiting out in the car has worshipped with us the past few Sundays. Glory be to God!”

Peninsula church of Christ, Hampton, Virginia: Ben Phillips (preacher) reports, “We have had a good few weeks since the last update. First, Ari was baptized into Christ on Sunday, December 22. She is the friend of one of our younger members and is pictured in the middle of the attached photo. Second, we have also had some return visitors who have expressed thanks for the cards we sent. This is encouraging to us! Third, we have had some new visitors from the community. We have started prospecting them and will see where it leads. Finally, we continue to follow up with previous contacts. Some have proven difficult to access, while others are receptive to the visit but are noncommittal. We just keep working on the plan and know God will give the increase. In total, for the year, we had six baptisms. All of those were between early July and now. We have had one restoration, but we have also seen growth amongst several of our members because of the fundamentals class. We are stronger now than when we started the year and pray for God’s blessings to continue into 2025 as we work our AMC campaign contacts.”

Williamsburg church of Christ, Virginia: Jim Bishop (elder) reports, “This week, Williamsburg church of Christ conducted three Bible studies and are in the process of scheduling a follow-up with Book 2 of Back to the Bible. These Bible studies are the three children of a recent new convert. We have been blessed with two families that visited again this week. One family recently moved to the area and are members of the church. Compassion Card Group 3 prepared cards for mailing. We look forward to our next-door knocking on January 18th and have been contacting this effort.”