Hatton church of Christ, Alabama: We welcome the Hatton church of Christ to the House to House/Heart to Heart School of Evangelism. The congregation was hospitable and fervent in faith. We had a baptism after
Back to the Biblebook 3. Chris Miller (preacher) reports, “This morning I preached from Acts 17 about turning the world upside down. I asked all who could not be here this week to watch the lessons. We meet tonight with the elders to start the checklist and assign roles. We have already seen several doing what we talked about. Skye has set up a study. She was asked by a friend if we use instruments with our singing. Skye replied that she would tell her the answer if she would go through three studies, and she agreed). Lots of excitement this morning.”
West End church of Christ, Knoxville, Tennessee: On Sunday, the elders invited us to help them kick off their evangelism work. They are committed to a cultural change that focused every member on soul winning. We presented five total lessons. The interest level was off the charts. They officially began their work on Monday night. Since AMC, they have had five baptisms. I can hardly wait to read their first report next week.
New Union church of Christ, Manchester, Tennessee: Paul Fultz (elder) reports, “Charles Williams, our preacher, presented the second sermon on Lesson One of Back to the Bible Sunday. Following services, we had congregational prayer for the lost on our bookmarks. We added three more prospects to our Master Compassion Card List. Presently we are sending compassion cards to five families/individuals. On Sunday evening, Card Team 2 held their first card-writing session with over 20 in attendance. More than 70 compassion cards were written in about 30 minutes. The team collectively signed one card to be mailed this week. Doug Aaron, Card Team 2 leader, organized the list of prospects and pulled compassion cards for individual team members to write. The culture at New Union is changing. At every service, mention is made in public prayers for the lost or those on our personal bookmarks. The congregation is seeking more opportunities to add people to the prospecting list.”
Karns church of Christ, Knoxville, Tennessee: Terry Clark (elder) reports, “We rejoice in the baptism of two newly saved souls. A young man, Braden, was baptized on Monday (Labor Day). We give thanks to members who were instrumental in teaching him the gospel. Second, a young mother and regular visitor, Meagan, was moved by the discussion during our Sunday morning class where BTTB is being taught and responded to the invitation during worship. Three door knocking prospects are currently in Bible studies with several of our members.”
North Meadville church of Christ, Pennsylvania: Bryon Shultz (preacher) reports, “We are continuing to send out compassion cards. We have three regular visitors we are working to prospect. We began Back to the Bible with one visitor today. We got about half the way through the study. It went really well. We will be continuing our study next Sunday. We hope to go to lunch (or dinner) with another visitor this week. We continue to go through the Back to the Bible teaching classes in the afternoon.”
Sunrush church of Christ, Chillicothe, Ohio: Jeryl Webb (deacon) reports, “It was as an eventful day for the Sunrush Church of Christ. We began this evening by teaching our congregation how to do a Bible study using the Back to the Bible lessons. This was before our evening services. We also had several members stay after services for food and fellowship, and we talked about compassion cards and the importance of evangelism. One lady requested 20 contact cards and shared her experiences with doing a Bible study with her mother and her aunt. Two of our ladies worked for several hours to arrange our new evangelism room. We now have a cabinet there to store all evangelism tools.”
Covington church of Christ, Tennessee: Wayne Dalrymple (elder) reports, “We have more contacts to prospect this week. Rachel visited with us last Wednesday as well as Sunday morning. She has asked us to help her financially and to give her a ride to the doctor. I tried to study with her Sunday afternoon using Does It Matter, but she was mentally unable to focus. We postponed the study until later. Please pray that her health issues and mental state will improve so that we can study with her before her impending move to Foley, Alabama. Another contact is Brenda who visited with us Sunday. We think Brenda is an erring Christian who has not been attending anywhere recently. Don also visited with us Sunday evening. Don moved here from Colorado about a year ago to help his mother. He just decided to visit with us. Tonya visited with us again Sunday. We are ready to try to set up a study with her in the next few days.
“We met Monday evening to write cards to current prospects and to deliver some new movers’ baskets. We are trying to follow up on several contacts we made during AMC in June. Our new converts’ class continues Sunday mornings and is going well. We have registered for the annual Door Knocking Day. We plan to go out on October 1 (instead of 10/8) because of scheduling issues. One of the things we will do as we knock doors is advertise our clothing giveaway on October 15. We have had this giveaway for several years. It brings many people to our building so we can talk to them and set up Bible studies. God continues to bless our work. To Him be the glory!”
Parkway church of Christ, Fulton, Kentucky: Will Hester (preacher) reports, “We were blessed to have New Pathways for Children’s director, Ricky Burse, with us. The boys from NPFC did the devotional in the afternoon service. It was amazing to see the difference that these kids have experienced! We also have organized a food pantry to help us reach the community even more! Amazing things are happening at Parkway right now.”
Greenfield church of Christ, Tennessee: Clint Monroe (elder) reports, “Current studies are ongoing. We continue to grow our contacts’ list. We are developing our evangelism/service groups. The first group plans to meet Sunday to send compassion cards and assign tasks. Pictured is our evangelism room and on the table are compassion cards ready to be sent. We are working on communicating with contacts between groups to ensure timely response to various needs. The elders are reviewing the survey sheet filled out by the members. The information gathered will be used to set up a Bible study class for leaders and a New Converts class, along with other tasks. In upcoming weeks, the other evangelism/service groups will meet.”
Fayette church of Christ, Alabama: Kaleb Hall (preacher) reports, “We rejoice that Rachel Rushing obeyed the gospel last Wednesday. She started thinking about baptism after the congregation did the Back to the Bible. I also preached on baptism for the month of August. We are prospecting numerous souls and looking forward to our first new movers list this month.”
Honolulu church of Christ, Hawaii: TagIilima Esene (preacher) reports, “Aloha from the Honolulu congregation. We continue prospecting local visitors. We have three ongoing studies (Jerry is finishing book one; Khristian is finishing book two; Richard is starting book two). A congregation we support in the Philippines (Pasuquin Church of Christ) had two baptisms Sunday. The Wahiawa church of Christ on our island had a baptism Sunday as well. We are waiting for our New Movers program to kick in so we can start on our baskets. Please continue to remember us in your prayers. Mahalo.”
Woodstock church of Christ, Georgia: Greg Garner (deacon) reports, “WCOC collected cards for twelve contacts so we can prospect this week. Our congregation is meeting on the second, third, and fourth Sunday evenings to evangelize. We have fifty cards to send out from last night. Last week we sent twenty-one cards. The Visitor Bags group created twenty-one bags. The New Movers group created nineteen new coffee station baskets for October and November. We have a total of forty coffee stations for September. So far in September, we have visited eighty-five homes on the HTHHTH list. Out of those eighty-five, five are prime prospects. We plan to work hard on them. We plan to revisit about 20 after sending them “What Must I Do to Be Saved” and “What to Expect When You Visit the Church of Christ” pamphlets. We made five visits last night and hope to make 20 new visits this week. WCOC will be participating in the October 8 National Door-Knocking Campaign for HTHHTH. We have eight Bible studies in progress.”
Aberdeen church of Christ, Maryland: Will Brown (preacher) reports, “This week we continued to build our contact list. Three studies are ongoing with Back to the Bible. We have sent over 100 cards. We are continuing to follow the process. We are working toward door knocking in October and plan to reach people in two counties. Continue to pray for our efforts.”
New Hope church of Christ, Middleton, Tennessee: Cole Wade (preacher) reports, “We had another baptism Wednesday night, which makes ten for the year. She came forward doing the invitation song expressing her desire to become a Christian. After services, we studied with her, making sure she understood what she was doing, and then we baptized her. Her name is Brittany Dawkins. We have had several youths become Christians in the past month, and we are excited that our families are creating an environment where the youth feel that Jesus is most important! Continue to remember us in your prayers!”
Warner Robbins church of Christ, Georgia: Dave Dominque reports, “Our minister led our renewal discussion with many from of our visitation/evangelism teams. In summary, we are finding a place for each of part of the body to contribute to saving souls. Elders will conduct weekly shepherd visits, each of the four visitation teams will conduct monthly edification visits, and the evangelism teams will visit new prospects and conduct Bible studies. Additionally, the fourth Sunday PM services will emphasize evangelism with hands-on practical exercises in saving souls. We are using many great suggestions to make our work more effective.”
Highway church of Christ, Benton, Arkansas: Steven Ford (preacher) reports, “Another good week in the books. We recently visited a woman from the local community who called for benevolent help. We took supplies to her home and helped her with a utility bill. She came to worship and was warmly greeted. She has already received cards of encouragement. Now she will receive more, thanking her for visiting. We will follow up with another visit and take BTTB booklets with us. Our new converts class is going great. With nine in attendance, many questions are being asked and answered. This coming Sunday, we will have another training day. We will cover all facets of the system and tie up loose ends. ‘I thank my God upon every remembrance of you’ (Philippians 1:3).”
Coldwater church of Christ, Kentucky: Luke Puckett (preacher) reports, “This past week was promising with a couple of contacts. We are hoping they will soon turn into a Bible study. One is a contact that has been a prospected for some time. He has cancer and has been receiving treatments. We have helped him financially over this time period. He has finished treatments, but the blood count is not where they would like it to be. We have stayed in contact with him and his wife, and they are impressed with the love the church has shown them. He wants to know more about the church. We are trying to work out the best way to study with his condition. We have been mentioning visitors we have had for almost two months. They are at services every Sunday morning. They have declined to go out to eat, but I was able to sit down with them last week and talk. I am trying to build a good relationship with them. Hopefully, this will lead to a study. Overall, the number of our contacts who need cards is down. We continue to focus on our bookmarks and are praying that we can get more prospects that will lead to Bible studies.”
Rogersville church of Christ, Tennessee: Ethan Tate (preacher) reports, “This week we began to reach out to those who came to the recent Gospel Meeting. We had one soul respond to the gospel! Mark has been attending Rogersville for a while and never questioned his salvation until he kept studying after we had finished Back to the Bible a few months ago. He listened and studied through the Gospel Meeting on “Why Be a Baptist?” and said, “I do not believe I am saved like the Bible says to be saved!” So, we helped him solve that problem. Now we have three people in our new converts’ class! God is awesome and the Word is powerful! Prayers for our new brother as we begin to help his family to find the truth and continue to help others in the community do the same.”
Schertz church of Christ, Texas: Jay Stewart (elder) reports, “Last week our congregation completed a quarter-long study of all the HTTH Bible study tools (Back to the Bible, Believe the Bible, and Does it Matter). The Wednesday night class was informative and included members of the Schertz and Randolph churches of Christ. Additionally, we had another successful visitors’ group fellowship meal. Three more visitors attended, and we are actively working to get a Bible study with our return visitors. Finally, a Christian lady who moved to the area placed membership with us.”
Northern Oaks church of Christ: Mel Hutzler (elder/preacher) reports, “We are having a lot more visitors and sending out a lot more cards. We have had several who have placed membership in the past few weeks. We are awaiting to get some names from our New Movers’ Program. We have a few studies going. More training is always needed due to a few glitches here and there. Our ongoing HTH mail-out continues. We also have visitors who we take out and prospect.”
Paintsville church of Christ, Kentucky: Zach Collins (preacher) reports, “This past week, two opportunities have arisen for us to study the Bible with families that are lost. One of the opportunities extended from a consistent visitor to our congregation. The other arose from a family in need. They needed financial assistance and agreed to three Bible studies. Pray that God will give the increase to the seed we are sowing and watering!”
Canal Heights church of Christ, Demopolis, Alabama: Bryan Shultz (preacher) reports, “Friday we had our weekly eldership/preacher meeting. Later we met with our evangelism team (picture attached). One of our ladies has stepped up to take the place of Marie Collins who passed away and was such an integral part of the organization. Slowly our systems are taking place and people are participating with consistency. Our monthly door knocking got rained out, but we are looking forward to the nationwide door knocking next month. This week we set our focus on those who are supposed to be in our pews but are missing. Our prayers and efforts are going to reach them. These next few weeks, we will focus on getting visits out of our newly tilled soil. Continue to pray for our efforts as we pray for you all.”
Hampton church of Christ, Virginia: Ben Phillips (preacher) reports, “We have not given an update in a while, but we have been busy with evangelism. Our card ministry has continued in earnest, reaching out to those struggling to keep the faith and to those who have been visiting. This has been a source of blessing as we multiple people who have received cards and told us that the cards have been a blessing. We are continuing to cultivate these contacts.
“We had an especially encouraging couple of weeks with visitors at services. We had a visitor during VBS with whom one of our members began studying. Their studies have progressed well, and we are praying for her obedience. We had another visitor walk in from the street after dealing with some difficulties. An elder and his wife took this visitor under their care and are working toward a study. We also have a young man who visited with a member recently. We are coordinating a date for our first study. Finally, we also had a couple visit from our community whom we met by door knocking. They apologized for taking so long to visit! We have sent them the first batch of cards and will be following up again soon. It was a blessing to visit with Rob and his family at PTP. We are working to put more organization into place with new materials provided following the AMC at Karns, and we look forward to seeing further progress.
“Finally, we did have our first annual Area-Wide Door Knocking in August at the Smithfield congregation. Using the approach of seeking prayer requests to open the door, we were able to speak with several members of the community. The end result was 15 contacts, with nine of them being strong contacts that the congregation has continued to cultivate. Two members from area congregations who had never door knocked joined our effort. They were encouraged by the effort and indicated that they cannot wait to get out and door knock some more!”
Riverbend church of Christ, Georgia: Austin Fowler (member) reports, “Yesterday, group two had an excellent number who stayed to write cards. After writing cards, Jason Duggin, one of our elders, and I visited a few contacts. We had a good visit with one who has stage four colon cancer. He was encouraged by our visit. We had prayer with him, and we will be back to continue to the prospecting stage. We attempted to make two more visits. One was someone who received House to House and wanted more information. This person was not home, so we left the door-knocking edition and our business card. We plan to visit again. I have a Bible Study Wednesday with a co-worker of a member. We have several other studies going on. It is an exciting time with all the ongoing efforts.”
Jacksonville church of Christ, Alabama: A few weeks ago, Jared and Hannah began studies with Brian and Heather. They are clients of Whitacre Lawncare. The studies are progressing well. Brian and Heather are in their 60s and have a Pentecostal background. It is taking them time to understand and absorb the truth, but progress is being made. Keith Ritchie (preacher) reports, “We had two responses at Jacksonville Sunday. This Tuesday we will study lesson 2 of BTTB with Steven Hillman. At the close of lesson 1, Steven commented he had never learned so much in one study. We have at least nine outreach efforts we will be striving to implement for the end of this year and for 2023 to get those contacts we need for studies and conversions.”
Corinth church of Christ, Tennessee: James Parker (elder) reports, “I have a study tonight. We are studying on the life of Christ. A family with two young children visited with us for the last two weeks. We have sent cards to them, and they attended yesterday!”
University church of Christ, Montgomery, Alabama: Glenda Williams sent this report: “Doug and I visited a neighbor whom we had never met. We moved to this new neighborhood in Montgomery on June 1. Her name is Donna Williams. When she learned Doug was a preacher, she asked what church we attended, and we answered church of Christ. She said, ‘My mother is a member of the church of Christ.’ She asked where we go and we told her the University church. She said, ‘I get that little paper,’ meaning House to House, and she said that it is a wonderful publication. She said, ‘I’m Baptist.’ I learned early on that people will say that, thinking that will stop the conversation. I then asked, “Where do you go to church?” She hung her head, and as I suspected, ‘Well, I haven’t been going lately.’ I said, ‘Good, then you can go with us.’ She said she would! We have her lined up to come Sunday morning to worship with us. Tonight, we have Senior Servants monthly meal and speaker, and I sent her a text inviting her. She kept on about how much our visit meant to her, that she had been depressed lately and even talked with her doctor about it the day before. So, another door has opened, and thank God for HTH/HTH.”
Cowetta church of Christ, Oklahoma: Keno Shrum (preacher) reports, “This past week, we wrapped up a study with a great guy named Deuey. He has led a rough life working the past 40+ years on some of the biggest ranches in the country, often spending 30 days or more in a tent by himself as he carried out his duties. He recently moved to Coweta. Originally, I was under the impression we would have to break BTTB down into about nine studies due to his health. However, once we started lesson 1, Deuey could not get enough. We went through Lesson 1 Tuesday. By Wednesday afternoon, we were well into Lesson 3. He mentioned several times that he had been baptized in the past, but he never “felt” anything. He said no light shined down from heaven. God did not speak to him. He did not know what should happen or what he should feel, but he felt the same after baptism as before. He said every night he goes to bed scared he is going to die and go to hell.
“By the time we were two thirds through Lesson 3, he was ready to answer the questions, ‘Would you like to be baptized, and if so, when?’ He said, ‘Right now!’ So, we stopped the study and headed to the building. I warned him that Satan will not be happy, so he should be prepared. He confessed his Savior and was immersed for salvation. When he started out of the water, he became emotional and said, ‘I felt that!’ I cannot tell you how proud we are of Deuey. Please keep him in your prayers as he starts his journey with Christ.”
Southwest church of Christ, Austin, Texas: John Garza (preacher) reports, “In the past few months, we have had a total of seven baptism as the result of using Back to the Bible and Believe the Bible. Currently, I am studying with one person using Believe the Bible, and it is going well. We do have two other ongoing studies. All of our new converts are studying through Growing in Christ.”
Beloit church of Christ, Kansas: Dustin Doughtery (preacher) reports, “I have a Bible study tomorrow with the young couple. We are praying for a fruitful study. One other study finished Book 2 last week.”
Eisenhower church of Christ, Midland, Texas: Allen Weakland (preacher/elder) reports, “Another contact was brought to our attention. David and Shelbe Maass are a young couple and friend with two young families here. We learned that they are about to have a baby, but the baby has Gastroschisis. As soon as the baby is born, surgery will be required to place the baby’s intestines back into the body cavity. Pray for the well-being of the mother, baby, and their eternal souls.”
Deerfoot church of Christ, Birmingham, Alabama: Richard Harp (preacher) reports, “Jeffrey Howell is having a Bible study with Alex Taylor, and now his son Wes is joining him. We are praying this will be a great blessing. I know of no other Bible studies going on currently. There are also two women in the work release program who want to be baptized; they have gone through the Back to the Bible lessons.
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.
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