ABIDE CHURCH

BETHEL PARK, PA

I hope your past month has been blessed. As I look back, we are so grateful for God’s faithfulness. Just when I think I have been have God’s faithfulness figured out, He humbles me more and more. Again this note is to say thank you for your prayers and support for Abide Church. Intentionally I am sending this late because I wanted to include the blessing of Bardstown Baptist Church, Bardstown KY in this letter.

MISSION TEAM

As you have been praying, on July 15th, 6 members of Bardstown Baptist Church from Bardstown, KY arrived as our first mission team. They made the term “flexibility” sound like a baby’s lullaby. On Monday, they toured our mission field and began prayer walking one of Bethel Park’s neighborhoods.

On Tuesday, our plan was we would do some painting at Faith Community Church in preparations for our PA/SJ state convention meeting then begin our sports camp in Bethel Park. So, at 230 pm we arrived to hold our sports camp, planning for dozens of kids, all prayed up and this is what happens….

No kids. No kids. Zero. We didn’t just have anyone show up on Tuesday but on Wednesday and Thursday we had horrific Thunderstorms that without lying, began at 230 and passed through by 6pm. The exact time we publicized our Sports Camp. However on Tuesday the temperature peaked at 104 degrees. We left Sports Camp with a full cooler of ice water seeking to find anyone we can give water too and pray for, when God let us stumble upon 3 guys playing deck hockey. They were just calling their parents to come and get them because they ran out of water. We showed up out of the blue and gave them water and prayed for them. Oh, how God’s plans are greater than ours.

We discovered on Monday night that prayer walking can be a hindrance to Church Planting.

I know your thinking that’s a typo, but make no mistake that statement is accurately stated. You see as we traveled through one of our neighborhoods we would drive then park and walk a neighborhood meeting with people who were in their yards. Only to find, that people would run from us or not have anything to do with us. We looked more like a cult than we did believers who just wanted to love our people through praying for them.

So, on Thursday night, we ventured out again only to shift our plans. We prayer walked a bit differently. We called it “prayer spotting.” We began out our municipal building which is the hub of our city. Praying for our city officials, policeman, fireman, emergency workers and the mayor. We also prayed that these people would give us favor in Bethel Park as we begin to share the gospel through Abide Church.

Next we moved to Bethel Park High School where one of the students from Faith Community took us in side and showed us around the gymnasium. She began to tell us about budget cuts, normal prevailing sin and so forth. Here, our city revolves around the life of our school system. So it was key for us to begin praying for our schools. As our group prayed, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a very hastily man moving toward us with a nice, glorious badge. I walked over to meet the security officer (his name is Gary). Gary asked us what we were doing and I told him we are praying for our schools can we pray for him? He began to tell me about his mom’s heart procedure,” she was 81 years old, we don’t know if she will live-So will you pray?” Right then we prayed for Gary. He is a Catholic (as we have found that

most people are). My hope is that the more we pray for people, the more our prayers will break down walls for us to share the gospel.

Finally, we moved to Bob and Sue’s house. They are members of our small group who just completed their Foster Parenting Training. While on vacation they found out they were going to be taking in 8 month old twin boys (this didn’t pan out). So, we went and prayed for them just hours before the boys were going to arrive. As I write this, they are preparing to bring home today a 3 month old girl. What we discovered is that God will bless our efforts if we pray with wisdom and strategically for our community.

The last major project that the Bardstown group helped me with was our flower garden. This was the before,

this is the after,

While helping us complete our Flower garden, the Mayor stopped by and took a picture with the group. During the morning we had at least 4 people 2 were police officers driving by thanking us for the hard work. If you look closely, you will notice this…..

Each flower pot represents a color of “salvation” that many of you have on your wrist or necklace. As stated before, we plan on using this flower garden as a discussion piece for us to share the gospel with our city. We are so proud and grateful for Karen Harper and her leadership in providing the vision for this garden.

We had a great week with Bardstown. They were an immense help for me as they helped me learn how to view my community and strategically reach them with the gospel.

If you are interested in taking a mission trip to Pittsburgh and help Abide Church we are taking sign ups now for vision tours this fall and trips next summer.

STUDENT MINISTRY

My Mentor, Tom Lemmon asked me to assist Faith Community Church in reaching students with the gospel. His church currently has between 30-40 students in multiple high schools including Bethel Park. So for the next 18 months I am going to equip some current student leaders on creating a “WORD” based student ministry that will disciple our students in Christ. We are hoping to begin providing a community wide student worship experience that will work with student ministries that are being provided within the high schools. Our hope is that this will help propel Abide Church in it’s infancy and creating a larger student ministry movement that can propel other church plants in the future.

This month I began working with the student ministry in planning, discipling and staying up all night at a lock-in (another thing, I promised God I would never do; I guess God got the last laugh). In September we are going to start meeting in small group bible study, walking through a 6 month theme called “REASON” (1 PETER 3:15). We want to help students understand what he believe as Christians and

articulate that to the world. So we will begin digesting essential doctrines of Christianity through our small groups while creating large events to illustrate such events.

For example, In November we are going to have a retreat entitled “Get Lost.” Where we will teach our students some high adventure and wilderness survival experiences in order to understand the necessity of God’s word and our need for Jesus to save us. Pray that none of our students stay lost, literally and spiritually.

SMALL GROUP

We hosted our small group this past month. We invited 5 of our neighbors (we have invited 8 for this week) to join us. 2 of those neighbors showed up. One of those couples are from the middle eastern country of Jordan. They came expecting me to serve as a Priest from the Roman Catholic Church. As we began our small group time I gave them the bibles that many of you donated. They didn’t know how to open the bible. As we were opening to our text, I simply asked each couple to share something about them thinking they would talk about their kids their jobs where they live, not knowing that each couple would share their testimony about Jesus. On that night, this middle eastern couple had the gospel shared with them and were introduced to the bible.

Thank you Lord for you work beyond my abilities and expectations.

FAMILY AND MISC…

As a family we are doing well. Becca has managed to get a job teaching music at a local studio. Her part time pay helps a lot. As a family for the first time we finally feel like we are home. We had to make a trip to NC at the end of June. We were gone for 8 days. When we returned we found our neighbors meeting us at the car as were opening the doors to get out. That’s fruit. We are discovering that where we live is a hindrance to planting in Bethel Park. We are going to eventually have to move to Bethel next year if we hope to continue ministry there. We are praying for God’s direction and provision as we seek His will. Sam is doing well. We know we have moved to where God wants us because for the past week, He has been begging us to “see snow.” Keep us in prayer as we are beginning to see Spiritual Warfare in the forms of fear and discouragement. In our quiet times, God has been resting our soul in the faithfulness of His word. With the assurance of God’s word on our side we stand without fear or wavering.

Thank you for praying and supporting us. Pray for us as we seek to discern God’s wisdom for sharing the gospel during our Community Day in September. We want to offer more than prayer….. hoping that our efforts to pray for our city will yield a great harvest of souls. Praying for the hearts of people to open up is the first effort to share the gospel in a community that is hardened to the word of God. So pray with us that is the Spirit of God is tilling the ground of people’s hearts so the seed of the gospel will take root and bring salvation. Again, we covet your prayers, they uphold our arms for the glory of Christ in Pittsburgh.