Glencoe church of Christ, Alabama: David Marker (elder) reports, “We are preparing for a gospel meeting that will begin Sunday. We have eight opportunities to invite family, friends, and the community to hear God’s Word presented by Michael Shepherd. We will meet for Transition Thursday to deliver gift bags and personally invite our contacts to the meeting and fellowship meal to follow our morning services. While many in the community have received an invitation through our advertising in HTH, we also plan to meet and make assignments for a door-knocking campaign to make a personal appeal. We are praying for additional contacts and a bountiful harvest through this effort!”
University church of Christ, Montgomery, Alabama: Faires Austin (elder) reports, “To date, we have had eight more baptisms for a total of 46. These additional eight included three non-football players. Two were female students from our Music Department. The baptistery at the University Church of Christ is getting a workout. We have ordered extra towels. Currently, four Bible studies are going on with adults with our members. We have new visitor cards. We have a QR code on them so visitors can access our website, where they can fill out the short form if they do not want to do so in the pew. We had an Evangelism Committee meeting Sunday, and we look forward to sharing some new ideas. Those players who were baptized recently are attending Bible classes and worship services at a number of the area’s churches of Christ. The local college ministers and coaches are making sure of that. Many are attending the University church of Christ. We have over 100 college students in Bible class and worship. Faulkner has hired a New Spiritual Campus Minister. He and his family live on campus in a townhouse. He and his wife have already made a big spiritual impact on campus. In fact, every time I call him in the evening, he is in a Bible study with a student. They have placed membership at the University.”
College Avenue church of Christ, Enterprise, Alabama: Phillip Rabren (HTHSOE graduate) reports, “Georgiana has visited with us several times over the past few weeks. Caleb Cochran (preacher) has been talking to her and hopes to visit with her and her husband Pat this week. Pat has not been attending, but Caleb hopes to get better acquainted with both of them so he can set up a personal Bible study soon. James Baker (elder) and his wife, Melody, have been working with a couple, Jamie and Christina, who have been visiting us. They have taken them out to eat, visited them in their home, and have now scheduled to attend community events with them. James has given them a book, Churches in the Shape of Scriptures, and he is praying for a Bible study soon.”
Farley church of Christ, Huntsville, Alabama: Ed Linebaugh (elder) reports, “We continue to send compassion cards, and we are working to place members into various roles. We will start a new converts’ class called New Horizons. We had several visitors last Sunday, and one of our couples fed them lunch at home. I am including a recent picture of Tommy and Stephanie South, along with little Christopher and daughter, Jessica. Tommy and Stephanie were baptized a couple of days after the end of the HTHSOE seminar last month. We have at least two ongoing Bible studies, so we are excited. I think we are settling nicely into the evangelistic mindset.”
Winfield church of Christ, Alabama: Jerry Spann (member) reports, “We continue to mail 160-200 Compassion Cards weekly. Each Sunday night, 25-30 members fill out cards. We are having three to five visitors per Sunday from the community, which are turning into contacts. Greeters are working sections of the auditorium, welcoming and giving out visitor bags while collecting contact data. We had three baptisms last month. We are averaging three contact cards a Sunday. We are teaching the Back to the Bible lessons to all classes fifth grade through adults in mid-August. In addition, our elders agreed to participate in the door knocking campaign with HTH. Registration is in process.”
Hatton church of Christ, Alabama: Chris Miller (preacher) reports, “I just had the best lunch break ever! As soon as I got a text from Daniel, I knew something big had happened. On Friday, Phil Tuell was baptized into Christ. Phil is Daniel Rutherford’s boss. About a year ago, Daniel suggested that he would like for us to be part of HTHSOE. He and David Dutton (another employee and member of the church) had been working for two years to build a strong friendship with their boss, Phil, who was Catholic. Daniel and David would have conversations with him about salvation and the church whenever they had the opportunity. Friday, following their lunch break, Phil decided to obey the gospel. Since they work in Decatur, they contacted the nearby congregation where David worships, and they used the baptistery there. Phil is their boss, but more importantly, he is their friend and now a brother in Christ! Praise God! So many people have the One Mission on their minds all day long, with that focus guiding conversations with everyone they meet.”
Highway church of Christ, Benton, Arkansas: Steven Ford (preacher) reports, “We have had at least five baptisms this year. We sent out over 45 cards last week. Contact cards are going out with members to follow up on earning Bible studies.”
Lake City church of Christ, Florida: Jim Flegert (elder) reports, “Our recent Mission Monday shows promise from two of our card recipients. We pray that these two and the three recent movers will allow our BTTB team to conduct Bible studies.”
Niceville church of Christ, Florida: Joe Palmer (preacher) reports, “This week we had our first baptism since starting HTHSOE. Alex Lynch called the church interested in being baptized. He said he had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Alex came to our Sunday night worship. Interestingly, I planned to show Rob’s lesson, “You Cannot Be Taught Wrong and Baptized Right” on Sunday night. Upon arriving, Alex was met by one of our veteran soul winners, Greg Murray. Greg taught him and baptized him after church. All this occurred while I was out with Covid and could not preach or attend. We completed the organization of our Compassion Card Teams. We had a team coordinator training to show each coordinator our card organization system. We distributed the team lists on Sunday, and the first meeting is Team 1 on September 10. We mailed 160 cards. I completed the lists of our surveys and have enough workers to get our Greeters Program better organized. This is huge because our deacon over this work has been saying we could not get enough people. I have to schedule a meeting and training for our Action Team. We will follow up with several names from sending Compassion Cards. We received two thank-you notes this week from people who received compassion cards. We had one visitor but no visitor bags. We had one Bible study and one baptism.”
Oak Hill church of Christ, Rome, Georgia: Matt Wallin (member) reports, “In 2021, some of us went door knocking. We made a contact. We added her to our compassion card list and started sending her cards. She visited for the first time yesterday—more than two years later.”
Woodstock church of Christ, Georgia: Greg Garner (deacon) reports, “We had 17 in our New Convert class. The Greeter Group reported that we had five visitors this week. We collected two contact cards to work on this week. WCOC had one Bible study this week.”
LaFayette church of Christ, Georgia: Jesse Teague (deacon) reports, “Group 1 met to send compassion cards Sunday evening with about 12 in attendance. One worker was Marie, our newest sister in Christ. What an encouragement for this new sister to be ready to work! She will start a new member Bible study with Karen and me next week.”
Carrolton church of Christ, Georgia: Dave Leonard (elder) reports, “We have been sending cards and making visits, and we have a couple of studies ongoing. We set up another study to begin next week.”
Honolulu church of Christ, Hawaii: Lima Esene (preacher) reports, “We were blessed to have the Griders with us. Barry preached and taught some important lessons for Christians, especially encouraging new converts. We have one ongoing study and two Bible studies scheduled to start this week. Our new movers group continues to visit and deliver bags to our new neighbors. My family and I just returned from Polishing the Pulpit and are excited to return to work. Our elders will discuss how we can help people in Maui with a spiritually focused effort. We appreciate all prayers.”
Jerseyville church of Christ, Illinois (digital): Jake Medford (preacher) reports, “We currently have two individuals in the Believe the Bible study series and potentially another family going into the Back to the Bible study. We have officially passed the 300 compassion cards sent mark. The cards continue to be our strongest asset. We will grab the old number board that used to show attendance numbers and converted it to show how many Bible studies, cards were sent, visitors, baptisms, and follow ups completed for the previous month. (We got the idea from PTP.) We have continued to update our list weekly and follow up. We keep on being intentional about evangelism, and it works.”
Beloit church of Christ, Kansas (digital): Dustin Dougherty (regional trainer) reports, “We had a busy day as we set up the rest of the cabinets we ordered for the resource and craft room. We will continue the BTTB Book 2 study Friday with Daniel, the young man who has been visiting. Two members with whom we had a meeting two weeks ago have been at services as work schedules allowed, and they are studying with Keith, a brother here. We will put more work into our compassion card program to get more on board. We have a lot of positive momentum going into the fall season. To God be all the honor and glory.”
Blanchard church of Christ, Louisiana: Pat Cella (elder) reports, “We gave out 12 new movers baskets Saturday and made some good contacts. There was no one home at one house, so we decided to leave the basket at the door and come back later to see if we could catch them home. A few hours later, we received a call from a very excited lady (the good kind of excitement) who just happened to be visiting the person who just moved into this house. This lady is a church member and lives in Dallas, Texas, and we are in Shreveport, Louisiana. She said she could hardly contain her excitement when she realized the basket was from the church. She was so encouraged, and of course, this was encouraging to us. We will follow up with the person that lives at the house. It is such a great blessing to do the Lord’s work. A young man we have been trying to restore visited on Sunday night.”
LaPlata church of Christ, Maryland (digital): Eric Sykes (regional trainer) reports, “We had three visitors this week, and we added three more names to our compassion card mailing list. We sent 44 compassion cards this week. We have 11 people in our new converts training classes. We plan to start a video of the week training class as a supplement to our New Converts training. Although it is geared towards new converts, it will be open to all in person as well as on Zoom. We will finish training another teacher on Lesson 3 of Back to the Bible this Friday. We have six gift bags to deliver this week and two open Bible studies; both entering Lesson 3. We appreciate all prayers.”
Southside church of Christ, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Freddie Klein (preacher) reports, “We continue to preach through the BTTB study guides. I attended the Calvin University church fair and passed out information. On Sunday, we had a visitor who saw us at the fair. Our card group wrote cards to the contacts we made at the school supply giveaway.”
Looxahoma church of Christ, Mississippi: Blake Hawkins (deacon) reports, “Following the afternoon service, we made New Movers deliveries for this month. We made several positive contacts to add to our compassion cards. Teams continue to write cards on Sundays, and we have received encouraging feedback from card recipients. We continue to make visits. There are Bible studies in progress, and the preacher is currently leading the congregation through Back to the Bible. We are in Lesson 3, so we have almost completed the study as a congregation. We pray that our members will feel confident using the study to evangelize. Several events are planned to provide great opportunities for the congregation to practice evangelism. For example, a ladies’ day is scheduled soon, and we have a gospel meeting planned for next month.”
Iuka church of Christ, Mississippi: Robert Wimbish (elder) reports, “We had 18 visitors at our Men’s breakfast Saturday. We are averaging two to six visitors each Sunday the past few weeks. Our Wednesday afternoon team meeting focused on door-knocking last week, with 21 members present. We decided to order t-shirts for our campaign, on Saturday, September 23. We have our invitation cards and door knocking HTH editions ready. Lance will give a sermon on door knocking and use the invitation cards next Sunday.”
West Hwy 160 church of Christ, West Plains, Missouri (digital): Marvin Hatley (elder) reports, “Two ongoing Bible studies continue after finishing Back to the Bible. One took a brief detour to study the Holy Spirit and will soon progress to Does it Matter. Another is introducing Muscle and a Shovel. As schedules allow, a third study will resume Book 3 of Back to the Bible with a coworker. A new study started and completed Back to the Bible Book 1 with a couple who has visited the congregation for several weeks. Lord willing, Book 2 will be covered this week. Compassion card group 1 prepared 58 cards for this week’s mailing. Members devote time and effort to preparing meals and continuing benevolent work for prospects. Congregational engagement in personal evangelism has been a much-needed boost to our stagnant past. We appreciate all those at HTHSOE.”
Foristell church of Christ, Missouri: Aaron Baker (preacher) reports, “We sent out over 100 compassion cards last week. We are working on visiting contacts and studying BTTB Book 1 with a young man who has been visiting. We had a Friends and Family Day Sunday, so we are visiting our visitors this week. I plan to attend Chamber of Commerce meeting this week to keep up to date on area housing growth, new construction, and new movers in our area.”
Fordland church of Christ, Missouri: Josh Romo (preacher) reports, “I love having wet shirt sleeves! We had three baptisms today and one Saturday! Jerry Wike and his twin boys, William and Jason, have been sporadically attending with us for a couple of years. Yesterday, Jerry asked if we could study this morning. After studying with them, they all decided to put Christ on in baptism! In the video, Jason is first, then William, then Jerry. On Saturday, Robyn Stufflebean was baptized into Christ. Her mom, Terry, requested that we put Robyn on our prospect list a little over a month ago. We have been sending cards to Robyn, and Terry has been studying with her. She lives a little over an hour away near the campground; one of our elders, Randy, and his family like to camp. Robyn found Randy at the campground and was baptized in Table Rock Lake.”
Samford church of Christ, Steele, Missouri: Kyle Imel (deacon) reports, “Samford started a new study this week. Kylie visited with someone who had received our compassion cards. We started Book 1 of BTTB with her last Wednesday. We will continue with it this Wednesday. We will schedule visits to those who have received several compassion cards over the past few weeks.”
East Flushing church of Christ, New York (digital): Clarence Jenkins (preacher) reports, “We had two visitors that have been coming consistently to worship services; both speak Spanish. One is going through the Does it Matterstudy in Spanish. The study is going a bit slower than usual, yet we thank God for consistency, understanding, and openness to the study. Compassion cards are consistently being sent every week. We focus on contacting the visitors who came to worship services and have yet to return. We appreciate all prayers.”
Carthage church of Christ, North Carolina (digital): Randy Chambers (preacher) reports, “The congregation mailed compassion cards to a contact in the hospital. We are setting up visits with two contacts who received cards for two to four weeks. Leaders continue to establish work teams as needed. We encourage and prepare the congregation for this great work each week.”
Cary church of Christ, North Carolina: Larry Fife (preacher) reports, “On Sunday, we started our new converts class with two people. On Wednesday, I will have a new Bible study; we currently have three Bible studies in progress. We continue to work the plan, and God blesses us.”
Coweta church of Christ, Oklahoma: Keno Shrum (elder) reports, “Yesterday we chose four people from the contacts we received last week. We said a prayer for them before I started my sermon. After services, we filled out compassion cards. One of the individuals is already a member who has fallen away. Our prayer is that he will recognize his need for God and for the church and return. He is dealing with the death of his wife, the death of his 15-year-old daughter, and the loss of his house to a flood— all within the past few years. We have a six-year-old who comes with his grandmother, a recent convert. The child has been diagnosed with a serious health condition. His parents are atheists, but we filled out many cards for them, hoping we can get a study and go through Believe the Bible with them. We filled out cards to be mailed to a friend of a member who recently had a baby and is dealing with postpartum depression. Finally, we wrote cards for a friend of a member who lost her husband a year ago and is having an extremely hard time dealing with grief and loneliness. We are going to shower her with love and hope to show her that God can give her the peace she longs for. We will start mailing the cards tomorrow; in ten days, we will personally visit each of these individuals. All prayers are appreciated!”
East Main church of Christ, Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Brad Rowley (elder) reports, “Our compassion card team number four wrote 114 cards. We had one service project completed by Avery Bayes, Sladen Wilson, Matthew Robinson, Hunter Rowley, and Ethan Hancock. We had three Bible studies last week. The eldership has decided to implement ChMeetings at East Main. This is a church software that will document evangelism contacts. We can add notes that will document the details. We can assign follow-up tasks (cards, visits, service projects, Bible studies) to our members. Once they complete the task, they can enter the results. This will eliminate a lot of man hours. We will continue to run trials and roll out the software to the congregation. The trials have proved to be beneficial for our evangelism effort. We continue to pray for the opportunity for new Bible studies with some active contacts. To God give the glory!”
McKenzie church of Christ, Tennessee: Chance Steen (preacher) reports, “Evangelism team D met to get card assignments for the week. Our new round of contacts will start this coming Lord’s Day.”
West End church of Christ, Knoxville, Tennessee: Adam Wilson (member) reports, “We have another sister in Christ! Nancy Kessler, a long-time visitor, was baptized Wednesday. After services Sunday, she asked Jeremy (preacher) if they could study about baptism. We are thankful for her obedience! We have two new contacts this week and a study with Oleg. Bob and Anita DeTorres (members) are organizing our visitation teams into small groups once a month with each group taking one week. Contacts will be the priority, but visits will also be made to new movers, the sick, and the shut-ins.”
East Ridge church of Christ, Chattanooga, Tennessee: Charles Cochran (preacher) reports, “East Ridge continues to reach out to others. Good Bible studies are in progress. Please pray for those who are seeking the truth. We have had a visitor the last couple of Sunday nights, and we plan to visit him. We continue our compassion card ministry. God is helping us. We continue Bible Correspondence Courses. Some have requested baptism, and we are trying to follow up on this. There are baptisms occurring in our mission works in Panama, Africa, and Nicaragua. For that we give God the glory! We continue to send out House to House. A family that came to VBS was contacted and a Bible study was arranged.”
New Hope church of Christ, Middleton, Tennessee: Cole Wade (preacher) reports, “Our meeting went well last week, and we are planning to help a lady who lives by herself. We had delivered a New Movers basket to her, and now, she has visited us for more help! We have discussed studying with her soon once we figure out how to help her in her current situation. We appreciate all prayers.”
New Union church of Christ, Manchester, Tennessee: Paul Fultz (elder) reports, “This week, we had six contact cards submitted. Card Team 1 met before Sunday evening services and wrote 89 compassion cards. Last week, members made eight follow-up visits and contacts, not counting phone calls and texts. Two Bible studies were completed last week. We are praying for a baptism this week from a completed study two weeks ago. Thanks be to God.”
Covington church of Christ, Tennessee: Wayne Dalrymple (elder) reports, “We restarted our new converts’ class Sunday. We had three in the class and are hoping for more next week. We revamped our compassion card groups, too. Members wrote over 60 cards to visitors and erring members. Jeff is still working on getting studies with Jake, Ryan, and Amanda. One or two others are close to a study as well.”
Canyon Lake church of Christ, Texas (digital): Jesse Stuart and Raoul Ferris (evangelists) report, “Several months ago, a pipe burst in the church building, causing damage that required restoration. Many members helped with painting and fixing various parts of our classrooms and fellowship hall. These are key as we have begun to have visitors from our door knocking. On Sunday August 27, we had four visitors from door knocking. One was a neighbor who came because she witnessed the kindness we showed her neighbor by writing compassion cards. We visited five families from our mission Mondays. We could make a follow-up with one of them in a few weeks, and another family said they would want a Bible study when they visit us. This concludes our first month here at Canyon Lake.”
Southwest church of Christ, Austin, Texas: John Garza (regional trainer) reports, “We have multiple studies going on right now, with a new study started yesterday. One study ended with a negative response, but we understand that we have shown them the word of God. Yesterday, I preached a sermon on evangelism to keep the fire burning in our members, and we are planning to start another training session on personal evangelism soon.”
Granbury Street church of Christ, Cleburne, Texas: Ryan Cowan (deacon) reports, “Thirteen Bible studies are currently in progress. Sunday, Cody Grinnell and his wife Angel, both members, met with a man who had originally contacted Granbury Street requesting help with his overdue electric bill. Before the elders provided financial support, Cody and Angel reviewed Does it Matterwith the prospect. This is the fourth study that Cody and Angel have taken part in since we hosted AMC. Clark Lehtinen and his wife Deborah met with a prospect who had received about 40 cards. My wife and I visited a woman who had received about 50 cards. Our prospect was so excited about the cards that they took us to her bedroom to show us the stack of cards she had received. Both prospects are now involved in a study! One of our greatest challenges is having enough workers to follow up on all the prospects receiving cards. Hopefully our next Mission Monday will allow about 40 visits to be made or scheduled over the coming weeks.”
North Jefferson church of Christ, Mt. Pleasant, Texas: Kris Groda (preacher) reports, “We have a lot of prospects right now. We are training members and sending cards. We have Bible studies preparing to start and ongoing. The desire from the core of the congregation to reach the lost is strong.”
Northern Oaks church of Christ, San Antonio, Texas: Mel Hutzler (elder) reports, “Great News! We had baptized Jonathan on Saturday evening; then we baptized Ryan on Sunday morning. Anthony studied with them. We had Archie and then Michael who came forward this week requesting prayers for their challenges. The great news continued when we had a wonderful family place membership with us on Sunday. The Rodriguez family added four more to our congregation. This Saturday, we have door-knocking for our upcoming Gospel Meeting with Mike Bonner. We have Jesse helping us train for it on Wednesday, and Raoul and Jesse are helping us to train and prepare before we go out Saturday morning. We will have more baptisms and those placing membership in the future.”
Bridgewater church of Christ, Katy, Texas: Doug Suggs (member) reports, “We are working to get more prospects from our members. Last week was a fifth Wednesday singing night; we also showed a couple of the training videos from Rob. On Sunday evening, our preacher was not here, and I was allowed to speak to the congregation. I talked about the program in progress and encouraged members to search for more prospects. I showed the training video on “Three Important Questions.” A couple of our recent converts are studying and growing in their faith. We are making progress and seeking prospects to hear God’s word. We will meet on Sunday evening to sign compassion cards.”
Graceton church of Christ, Diana, Texas: Johnny Willeford (elder) reports, “Sunday morning, we enjoyed a good sermon from Scott Dykowski as well as a good Bible class lesson. Each first Sunday, we share a meal after services. This allows us to invite others from our community for the meal and fellowship. This Sunday, we had eight visitors, and two of the families stayed and enjoyed the meal with us. After services, Group B met to sign compassion cards, and one of the ladies who visited will receive cards this week. We signed 114 cards for eight individuals. Our attendance numbers are continuing to grow each week. We realized the need to provide good mentors to new comers, so we are providing more training. We need to add more mentors as we expand this part of the evangelism outreach. We pray for all involved in evangelism.”
Charles Harris (HTHSOE Regional Trainer): As a gospel preacher, most of my Bible studies came from meeting visitors at services and being introduced to friends and family of brethren. Recently, I have stepped out of pulpit work. Sunday after worship I prayed, asking God to help me be able to continue reaching the lost while in my new role. A few hours later, I received a phone call concerning Linda Parker being hospitalized. I have tried to study with Linda in the past. My wife and I visited Linda today, and she and her husband Tom, who is a Christian, want us to come for supper and a Bible study after she is released from hospital. God wants His children to teach others about Him. If we keep our focus on serving Him, He will provide.”
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