Thank you for taking the time to pray for Refuge City Church. Hopefully these letters encourage you.
Last weekend the team was in Dayton. One of the members of Koinos flew John, Luke, and I on his four-seater plane. The flight made the trip so much easier on us.
Most of the team stayed with me at my parents’ house. Mom blessed us by cooking breakfast. The weekend was filled with meetings and familiarizing the team with Dayton and the areas we will be focusing on in the beginning. We were able to be witness the first baptism for one of the churches that started just recently.
The city of Dayton is trying to renew the city by building programs, artsy décor, bike paths, and other such things. Refuge City believes that for city renewal to happen, Gospel renewal is necessary. These efforts of the city will be temporary, however Jesus Christ is not temporary. It is our prayer to renew the city with sharing the saving message of Jesus Christ and a regenerate relationship with Him.
Your time at Koinos was amazing. A couple people came up to me commenting on how they were sad to see John and I leave back in 2004. But when they heard John and I were coming back to plant a church in Dayton, they were excited and eager to find out how they could help. Others welcomed me with a hug and encouraged me, not only in regards to the church plant, but also telling me about the ministry John and I helped them start back in 2003 and how it has changed over the years. I thoroughly enjoyed being around Jonathan Newman, the pastor at Koinos, his humbleness and love for people is a joy to be around.
John Pope is preaching at Koinos November 22, and it looks like he will be flying with his wife. This last trip, because of Jack flying us on his plane, we were able to stay longer and could focus on the task at hand, instead of the eight and a half hour drive.
The team is reading some books together over this next year. The reading is about one book a month. I am also reading through some books and revisiting some old material I wrote a couple years ago. Through this personal reading and rewriting material, John and I hope to have discipleship material to take people through parts of the Bible and then to reading the Bible in a year. While John Pope and I worked on the syllabus for the teams’ reading I began to understand why I have been teaching these past five years. I’ll share more on that next month.
Ephesians 3:7-8
