Monticello church of Christ, Arkansas: “We welcome the Monticello church of Christ to the House to House/Heart to Heart School of Evangelism. Josh Walker, preacher, was a student in Memphis whom we taught evangelism training. Upon graduation, he scheduled enrollment of the congregation. He is now ready to train the congregation on how to practice evangelism.”
Glencoe church of Christ, Alabama: David Marker (elder) reports, “We have been busy reaching out to our contacts. We had a good group show up for Transition Thursday. We made assignments in regard to our contacts and also went door-knocking in preparation for our gospel meeting. Some visitors attended because of those efforts. We are still very much engaged in utilizing our invitation cards and contacting our New Movers. We are pleased at the efforts of the brethren working together to sow the seed, and we continue in prayer that our efforts will be rewarded with a bountiful harvest.”
College Avenue church of Christ, Enterprise, Alabama: Phillip Rabren (HTHSOE graduate) reports, “Georgiana, a mother connected to our private Christian school, has been visiting with us, and recently she came to see our preacher, Caleb Cochran. Her husband, Pat, who visited our Tuesday morning Bible class, came with her as both wanted to talk about baptism. Caleb had already been talking to and sharing the gospel with Georgiana. After spending time with them, Caleb baptized both into Christ. That Wednesday evening, one of our teenagers, Harper, said she was ready to be baptized, and Richie Bell (elder) baptized her into Christ. We praise the Lord for these three souls! Our early training efforts resumed last Sunday. We showed the door-knocking video that morning prior to our adult auditorium Bible class.
Caleb Cochran gave the third and final lesson on John 4. He concluded by having everyone take out their evangelism bookmarks and spend one minute in silent prayer on behalf of the loss they had listed. He showed a slide to illustrate how a name on the bookmark would move to a contact card and then onto the congregational prospect list. This transition from the bookmarks to the congregational prospect list, along with the writing of compassion cards, will take place at some point in the future. The Evangelism Leadership Team has not met for the past three weeks due to our elders having to care for other matters. They will resume meeting next week. We wrote ten cards to each of our new converts on Sunday evening, and ten to a family that visited with us Sunday morning. James Baker (elder) and his wife, Melody, continue to work with Jamie and Christina who have visited with us the past several weeks. This picture is Harper baptized by Richie Bell (elder).”
Farley church of Christ, Huntsville, Alabama: Josh Taynor (preacher) reports, “Some awesome things are happening at Farley. We are on week three of our compassion card ministry. Next week we will begin our mission Monday meeting. Bible studies from previous weeks are ongoing and are due to wrap up this week. Training is on schedule, and we are beginning to plug people into their roles now.”
Hatton church of Christ, Alabama: Chris Miller (preacher) reports, “We recognized this week that we have been involved in the program for a year now. We added a whiteboard to our compassion card room this week so we can keep up with which contacts have been visited and which have been asked the three questions. We have already been doing this through a spreadsheet, but we think making the information available to everyone will ensure that each contact not only is visited but also is encouraged to accept a study.”
Chase Park church of Christ, Huntsville, Alabama: Pat Cowden (preacher) reports, “Since our last report, we have had four baptisms, two of which were teenagers at Chase Park. The other two were the son and grandson of two of our members. The dad had grown up in the church but had never obeyed the gospel. They studied with their parents/grandparents and then with Rusty Hills, our pulpit minister, and both decided to obey the gospel. It was a wonderful day for the whole family, one that had been prayed for literally for decades. We also had another Open Home Ministry meeting at our house and had 23 people come for dinner, which was wonderful. The folks that came were our Ohana or family from American Samoa via Hawaii. In addition, 17 people came to our Barnabas meetings in August. We talked about people on our prospect list and provided addresses so we could send compassion cards. We also handed out several New Mover baskets to folks who had moved into members’ neighborhoods.
“We are gearing up for the Nationwide Door-Knocking on October 7. We plan to use this opportunity to invite people to our Gospel Meeting with Wade Webster in late October. Lots of good things are happening. We appreciate all prayers.”
Stafford Road church of Christ, Phenix City, Alabama (digital): Daniel Welker (preacher) reports, “Yesterday we had eight visitors. Six were a family with four children; they are friends of our newest convert. She has been working on them for a while and will keep working. After worship, we took the children off their hands for a little while so they could eat pizza (always eat). We had great conversations with the children. One of our members stepped up and did a Bible class with the youngest child, and my wife included one of the younger girls in her class. Sadly, our teenage teacher could not make it due to illness in the family. I continue to strive to earn the study with my barber/friend; I am making headway in the relationship. My wife Jennifer is prospecting several people in the community. She is an amazing bringer. We plan to send cards to our visitors and prospects on Sunday. The goal is 30 cards in total.”
Highway church of Christ, Benton, Arkansas: Steven Ford (preacher) reports, “We have had at least five baptisms this year as we are following the evangelism model. We sent 14 cards this past week. We have one active Bible study. Members are working with contact cards to encourage additional studies.”
South Trail church of Christ, Sarasota, Florida: Ronald Doederlein (elder) reports, “Several months ago, one of our ladies set up a Bible study with a neighbor. She was a sprinkled Methodist. I do not think I have ever had a Bible study without at least a few questions. As this lady read the Scriptures in Back to the Bible, she never questioned one thing! I like to close with Acts 22:16. After I read the Scripture, I asked, ‘Would you like to do what Saul did by obeying the gospel by being baptized into Christ and having all your sins washed away in the blood of Christ?’ She immediately said YES! By this time, it was 2:00 p.m. I had already told Terry that I felt she would obey the gospel, and we arranged to use Terry’s baptistery at his house. I asked, “Would you like to be baptized right now?” She said yes immediately and added, “I might be dead tomorrow!” She said she had been going to her home in Ohio every summer for over 50 years. This year, she went home, sold her house, and cannot wait to return to her new forever family at South Trail! God is good! In addition, Marsha, our secretary, sent me copies of two visitors’ cards. I called on both this evening and have a Bible study set up with one young man who just moved to Sarasota and has a Catholic background. He loved Terry’s sermon and the worship service!”
Lake City church of Christ, Florida: Jim Flegert (elder) reports, “Our greeter teams received contact information and passed out gift bags to three couples visiting our worship service this morning. Our weekly team wrote compassion cards for ten newly added contacts to our spreadsheet. We had our second opportunity to deliver six baskets to recent movers to our community. Three of these have been added to our spreadsheet to receive compassion cards. We have now added a specially ordered evangelism tablecloth to our evangelism table.”
Niceville church of Christ, Florida: Joe Palmer (preacher) reports, “Team 1 met today. and Cory and Kirstyn Walden did a great job organizing their team. First, they called or texted every member who did not reply by an email or an announcement in the bulletin. They were selfless and very organized. We had pizza for the noon meeting. While several of this team were out of town, enough were there to write cards. Cory even put in two extra visitor cards in each card box, which luckily was exactly what we needed. We sent out 136 cards. We gave visitor bags to three visitors and added them as contacts. Our best prospect was a man who moved to Niceville three years ago and had fallen away from the church. He has been attending a denomination, hoping to find people to lead him to Jesus. The churches of Christ had turned him off when he attended with an inward focus. However, he realized his plan was not working, and he was leading his family into denominationalism. He arrived on the day we did our first Back to the Bible training, and he took a book for his wife. I got their contact information and part of his story, and I plan to have a meal with them this week, if possible. We had no studies this week. Our one new convert, Alex, has been attending and has been in a new converts Bible study.”
Woodstock church of Christ, Georgia: Greg Garner (deacon) reports, “We prayed for the prospects on our bookmarks on Sunday during our ACTS (Actively Caring Teaching & Serving) Evangelism Program.
The Compassion Card Group met and created 45 cards last night; we sent out 27 cards last week. The Community Visitation Group visited 22 from our local address list. Our New Movers Group visited two newcomers to the area. They left five door hangers for those who were not home. The Evangelism Application Class had five attendees. We had 18 in our New Convert class. The Greeters Group reported that we had three visitors this week. WCOC had five Bible studies this week.”
LaFayette church of Christ, Georgia: Jesse Teague (deacon) reports, “We had new movers door knocking this past Saturday, resulting in several contacts to add to our October compassion cards and future visits. We met this evening and discussed visits for the cards that were sent out last month. Several members at LaFayette have shown the love of God to people by providing transportation for things like doctor appointments. They are good people helping those in need—no chairman or committee—just love, compassion, and work.”
Honolulu church of Christ, Hawaii: Lima Esene (preacher) reports, “We have three Bible studies ongoing. We have our new convert’s class. We will be ordering invitation cards in the near future. We are working on the model and praying for God’s blessings.”
Jerseyville church of Christ, Illinois (digital): Jake Medford (preacher) reports, “It was an awesome day at the Jerseyville congregation. We added three new families to our prospect list; there were two new families as visitors and one individual new visitor. We collected all of their information and plan to follow-up soon. We had a baptism after the morning worship service by a man who “grew up” in the church but was never baptized when he left it nearly 30 years ago. He had contacted us and said it had been long enough; he knew he needed to be baptized. We talked to him, and he knew what was required; he said he would be laboring with us going forward. Though we are not sure how he found us, we do send HTH to his area, and we are glad to welcome him. His name is John Wilson.”
Beloit church of Christ, Kansas (digital): Dustin Dougherty (regional trainer) reports, “I started the John 4 sermon series yesterday morning. It seemed to be very well received. Following the lesson, I also reintroduced the contact bookmarks, and we will begin revamping and reinvigorating our evangelism programs over the next few weeks. Everyone seems to be on board with great hope for the future. I had a Bible study tonight with Daniel, a visitor who has been worshipping with us recently. We completed Books 1 and 2 in the last two weeks, so we set down for Book 3 this evening. As a result, he and I soon went to baptistery so he could put Christ on in baptism. He grew up in a denomination, and when he was in his early teen years, he became an atheist. After more than ten years of denying the existence of God, he saw a Christian apologist on Facebook. What the apologist said made sense to him, so after some research and digging, he left atheism and decided a belief in God was the better way to go. He came randomly to our congregation on a Wednesday night, so I began prospecting, getting to know him, and beginning my studies. We now have a new brother in Christ; we appreciate all prayers for him and his new walk. God is so good; to Him be all glory and honor.”
Blanchard church of Christ, Louisiana: Pat Cella (elder) reports, “We have enjoyed our training on the BTTB workbooks and should finish them Wednesday. We also delivered two new movers’ baskets last week, and we still have one left to do for the month. We wrote 40 compassion cards Sunday night as well.”
LaPlata church of Christ, Maryland (digital): Eric Sykes (regional trainer) reports, “We sent out 46 compassion cards this week, including 44 single cards and two cards with multiple signatures. We had two visitors. We have 11 people in the new converts Bible study classes and the video Bible study classes. We have two ongoing Bible studies. We delivered four gift baskets. We are thankful for all prayers and support.”
Southside church of Christ, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Freddie Klein (preacher) reports, “We wrapped up our lesson series on BTTB. There are several that are close to obeying the gospel. Our card group continued to shower our guests with cards from the school supply giveaway. Our church culture is starting to change as we had a member set up a new outreach event to make contacts for the month of October.”
Looxahoma church of Christ, Mississippi: Blake Hawkins (deacon) reports, “This week we received two separate cards in the mail to the church building from people in the community who have been receiving House to House with our information in it. They expressed gratitude for the publication, and we were very encouraged. We continue to visit those on our compassion card lists, and we have several new prospects thanks to new mover interactions. We are about one month away from our fall gospel meeting, so we will soon be knocking doors in the area after worship on Sunday afternoons to invite our neighbors and make hospitable connections. Through ongoing door-knocking efforts, compassion card writing, delivering baskets to New Movers each month, and making visits, we are hopeful evangelism is becoming more and more a part of the congregation’s culture. The preacher is close to finishing teaching Back to the Bible as a congregational class, which means even more laborers should be equipped to use this Bible study method to help others. It is purposeful, direct, and easy to follow; truly all Christians can use it as long as they are zealous and willing.”
West Hwy 160 church of Christ, West Plains, Missouri (digital): Marvin Hatley (elder) reports, “The congregation continues benevolent outreach in working with prospects. Their God-given talents, abilities, and blessings have been put to work this past week. We have mowed lawns, repaired automobiles, and houses and prepared and delivered meals, engaging many members as cultivators. Four active Bible studies continue at various stages, and a couple of new Bible studies will begin this next week, Lord willing. The congregation’s compassion card Group 2 prepared sixty-four cards to mail this week. We continue to be blessed with members who are willing to be bringers, teachers, and keepers. We ask for prayers for our ongoing efforts in personal evangelism and especially for the souls of those willing to study God’s word.”
Foristell church of Christ, Missouri: Rod Jackson (elder) reports, “We continue to send cards and follow up with a family from a recent funeral. The compassion cards are helping to provide comfort and soften the soil. We will make several visits this week as we have completed a round of mailing cards. We appreciate all prayers for our outreach! Also, we will begin showing the HTH training videos at our evening service time so that the congregation stays informed and coordinated. It is work, but the kind of work that draws us together as we labor in His vineyard.”
Fordland church of Christ, Missouri: Josh Romo (preacher) reports, “We are still excited about the four baptisms we had just over a week ago. We continue to send out cards to all of our prospects. We will also be starting a gospel meeting with Todd Clippard on September 24 that will focus on evangelism to keep the fire burning.”
Samford church of Christ, Steele, Missouri: Kyle Imel (deacon) reports, “Samford is currently in the process of completing several visits based on compassion cards sent. We pray those visits are fruitful. We are studying with two visitors on Wednesday nights. We are planning our evangelistic gospel meeting in November.”
East Flushing church of Christ, New York (digital): Clarence Jenkins (preacher) reports, “Every Lord’s Day, we have some visitors who are consistently returning and other who are attending periodically. Our Spanish Does It Matter study is consistent. We have several ongoing Bible studies. We are connecting with our visitors by having meals with them. Compassion cards are being written and sent out every Lord’s Day after worship service. We are now focusing on preparation for the fourth annual brotherhood-wide door-knocking day. We appreciate all prayers.”
Carthage church of Christ, North Carolina (digital): Randy Chambers (preacher) reports, “This week the congregation is scattered; most of the members are traveling, and it really affects the work of a small congregation when the majority of the members are away. We continued one Bible study, and it went well. We had a family of four visit again; they came last month, and we put our visitation plan into operation. They seemed to like the visit and said they would come back. We met with the coordinator here to discuss the training, the work, and how to get all the members involved. We continue encouraging and preparing the whole congregation for this great work.”
Cary church of Christ, North Carolina: Larry Fife (preacher) reports, “Things continue to go well for Cary. Last week I had a Bible study that resulted in a baptism. We will reach out to several new movers in the coming weeks as well as follow up with compassion card contacts.”
Coweta church of Christ, Oklahoma: Keno Shrum (elder) reports, “Today we filled out compassion cards for four more people on our contacts list. We will start mailing them tomorrow as we continue mailing cards for last week’s contacts. We also had a visitor today who is not a Christian but came with a member. We will send him compassion cards in hopes of gaining a Bible study. As we get all the cards mailed out in a few days, we will start contacting last week’s contacts with in-person visits. We also are prepping for the nationwide door-knocking on October 7. We are going to knock doors in a new neighborhood where approximately 100 homes have been completed and occupied in the past year.”
York church of Christ, Pennsylvania: Mark Raschke (deacon) reports, “We continue to send compassion cards to our contacts each week. We had our monthly visitation meeting yesterday to discuss assignments for our upcoming visits to our prospects. This week, we sent 24 cards to two contacts.”
East Main church of Christ, Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Brad Rowley (elder) reports, “Last week we received four new contact cards; some came from new movers’ baskets. Sunday evening, our Card Team 2 wrote 120 compassion cards! We had 26 folks present for Mission Day, including several new people: Marzee Woodward, Jesse Pugh, Philip and Carrie Shivel, Kathy Owens, and Hugh and Stephanie Campbell. We set a record for 16 follow-up visits assigned! We also brainstormed possible dates for Mission Day this fall. The overall suggestion was to follow a Sunday morning worship with a meal. It was also suggested that we make the new mover baskets and follow-up visits available for anyone to pick up during the entire month. Angela Weeks came up with an improvement idea to organize our new mover baskets. We have a new Bible study set up for this Wednesday evening with a couple we met by distributing new mover baskets. To God give the glory!”
McKenzie church of Christ, Tennessee: Chance Steen (preacher) reports, “New names were selected to receive cards by mail for September, including one from contact cards. The first group handed out contact names yesterday. We sent five cards to elderly/shut-in/sickness, two cards to delinquent members/regular visitors, two cards to new converts, and one card for compassion reasons. We had our monthly fellowship meal last Wednesday night, and our evangelism teams chose names for visiting from our contacts who had received the cards.
East Ridge church of Christ, Chattanooga, Tennessee: Charles Cochran (preacher) reports, “We have had two baptisms at East Ridge recently. We continue to have good visits and Bible studies. We have tried to visit those who come to our services. A Bible study has been set up with a visitor. We continue a compassion card ministry. We follow up on new Christians and have Bible studies with them.”
New Hope church of Christ, Middleton, Tennessee: Cole Wade (preacher) reports, “We have met this week to discuss how we can send more welcome baskets to the community to continue that ministry. Also, we have reviewed the cards we send; that ministry has been going well! We continue to receive visitors frequently and maintain great relationships with them. I am also communicating with some members about Bible studies with our guests! We appreciate all prayers for our efforts to save souls!”
New Union church of Christ, Manchester, Tennessee: Paul Fultz (elder) reports, “This week we had one contact card submitted. We had four visitors at the Sunday morning service. One couple went out to eat with two elders. Card Team 2 met before Sunday evening services and wrote 61 compassion cards. Last week, members made four follow-up visits and contacts, not counting phone calls and texts.”
Covington church of Christ, Tennessee: Wayne Dalrymple (elder) reports, “This week has been busy for Covington. Last Wednesday, we agreed to help one of our members who is in need financially. This person has been away from the Lord for a while, but he wants to return and repent. On Sunday, we had several visitors once again. We are continuing to prospect them. A couple of the visitors indicated they are interested in learning more about the church. We are jumping on that now. Another of our visitors requested a visit, so I went to his house Sunday afternoon. After that conversation and another one over the phone Monday afternoon, we scheduled a study for tomorrow (Tuesday). We will use BTTB Book 1. On Sunday afternoon, we also wrote around 80 compassion cards to visitors, erring members, and two prospects in need of encouragement. We appreciate prayers for open hearts.”
Canyon Lake church of Christ, Texas (digital): Jesse Stuart and Raoul Ferris (evangelists) report, “We are beginning to see some of the fruit of our door-knocking efforts. We were blessed to have two visitors, Laura and her daughter Samira. Samira requested a Bible study. Please pray we can connect with her. We continue with our Mission Mondays, making every effort to visit all those we wrote compassion cards to or visitors. Concerning door-knocking, we took Ken Burris along with us, and we were able to meet Kayla, Eric, and their three children. We were asked to return with a Bible study at their home, where we shared a meal that Kayla cooked for us. We completed Book 1 of BTTB. We have a follow-up study with them this coming Monday. We appreciate prayers for our continued study and efforts.”
Southwest church of Christ, Austin, Texas: John Garza (regional trainer) reports, “At the Southwest congregation, we continue to grow in number. The growth is about more than the number of souls added to the Lord’s body in baptism; many members have shown more desire to work with the congregation. It has been encouraging. Concerning evangelism, we have two new studies that began on Sunday, and it seems that their hearts are soft as they are receptive to the truth. Additionally, we are working to get studies with a couple of prospects. Finally, beginning next week, I will be teaching the first-year students to be effective evangelists and members of the congregation while they are in school. I plan to utilize every one of them to teach one person the gospel each year and teach them how to be disciples of Christ while they are with us. I am looking forward to this class.
Granbury Street church of Christ, Cleburne, Texas: Ryan Cowan (deacon) reports, “One of the cool things that I have witnessed since we hosted AMC is the opportunity for ‘family evangelism.’ Currently, we have at least three couples who are working together in Bible studies. Another example of ‘family evangelism’ is when a mom, dad, and kids participate in Mission Mondays. We learned that a family visiting together has a greater chance of success when knocking on someone’s door than a single person. I have witnessed this firsthand! Selfishly, I have enjoyed the extra time spent with my daughters as we follow up with prospects. We update the brethren on Wednesday nights and in our bulletin about our evangelism efforts. Those who write cards are encouraged to take the prospect list home with them to pray for those souls daily. This coming Saturday morning, our elders, deacons, preachers, and other key men who have been most active in our efforts will meet and discuss where we have been and where we are going. Great things continue to take place as we work together for the Lord.”
Northern Oaks church of Christ, San Antonio, Texas: Mel Hutzler (elder) reports, “We had another baptism this week after two last week. Robert was baptized into Christ on Friday evening. We have several more who are in Bible studies. We have a wedding coming up next month with the possibility of two more baptisms after that. We also had door-knocking before our Gospel Meeting. Jesse Stuart and Raoul Ferris had a class on how to door knock along with mock door knocking from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. on Saturday. We hit the streets and knocked from 10:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. We had 50 people knocking on doors. We knocked a total of 237 doors; 70 people answered the door, and 21 of those gave us their information about wanting to receive HTH or asked for prayers or was a new mover. We immediately went to the building and started writing compassion cards to the 21 contacts. By the time we departed the building, there were already 114 cards written, and people still writing cards. The church will make plans to follow up next month and deliver new movers’ baskets soon. We are thankful to a few others from other congregations who helped us out with door-knocking. We appreciate the deacons, members, and elders for their work. Also, we value the help of Jesse and Raoul. We had another person place membership this week with others who did so last week. We have more who will also place membership this week and more baptisms in the future. We appreciate Jesse’s lesson on Wednesday night about knocking on doors and also at our monthly preacher’s meeting. Things are going very well; I know the Lord will continue to work in our community and congregation.”
Bridgewater church of Christ, Katy, Texas: Doug Suggs (member) reports, “On Sunday evening, one of our compassion teams met and signed 40 cards. We have ordered invitation cards for the members to give out, and they will be here soon. We continue to have visitors. We talked with a woman at a restaurant recently, and we have her name and address. We will follow up with her.”
Graceton church of Christ, Diana, Texas: Johnny Willeford (elder) reports, “It was so wonderful to wake up on the Lord’s Day with cooler temps in East Texas. We have been averaging 105 to 110 in attendance for the last four weeks at Sunday morning worship with about 80 staying for Bible classes. Yesterday we had three families visit. One had received compassion cards a few months ago after the passing of her husband. Our new converts class is going very well on Sunday morning. This week we are adding a Wednesday evening new converts class using the workbook on Acts by Bobby Bates. Last evening our Group C met to sign compassion cards for ten people. They signed 102 cards. Last Saturday morning, we held a men’s breakfast to discuss planning for our congregation and training on leadership. Scott preached two sermons on how to approach those who are erring brethren.”
Timberville church of Christ, Virginia: Mike Gantt (member) reports, “I have good news to report.The Lord has added another soul to his church! Sheena Rhodes has been attending all of our Sunday services, Wednesday evening Bible study, and Friday evening Bible study for the past few months. This past Saturday, we opened Back to the Bible, Book 1. Not wanting to rush Sheena, I asked her when she would like to study Book 2. She immediately said, “Tomorrow!” This is exciting when we see someone who has this type of desire to study God’s word. After a break on Monday, Book 3 was completed on Tuesday, and Sheena was immediately baptized into Christ! We have had three baptisms in the last four months using Back to the Bible.”
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