Fall Ahead, Not Back!

        Now that fall is here, I’m getting busier, which is the way I like it (and the way the Lord likes it).

University Outreach

        We’ve had two college student visitors at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh outreach so far. The visitor who came last night may return next week and bring some friends with him. We had a nice encouraging discussion with him. Plus, since next week is the final installment, we will put a bigger push for it and distribute more flyers advertising it. That is not bad since we have no campus sponsor, advertisement, or help. Hopefully we’ll have even better news to report about this next week. Please include that in your prayers.

Home State

        We had our second Creation Sunday at Bible Baptist Church of Winneconne (WI) this month (Pastor Robert Hatch). BBC-W is fairly new church trying to get a foothold in the area. They have been meeting in the modern auditorium at the local Middle School for free, which has been an obvious blessing. But the school is starting to enforce their policy to keep the doors locked, which is counterproductive to a church trying to draw people in. So the Lord may be closing the door (literally) on that meeting location. Pray that the Lord opens a door somewhere for that church.

While you are praying for that, a good friend of mine, Bro. Rich Wilson, was recently installed as pastor at Victory Baptist Church in Oshkosh, WI (two blocks from my house). I knew Victory as a solid church when Charles Bonner was the pastor, but it has dwindled in the years since he left for a church in  Washington state (I actually got to visit him there when I toured Mt. St. Helens and ministered at two churches out there years ago), and is currently down to one service a week, running less than 20 in attendance. Bro. Wilson has just reinstituted the Sunday school class, and will work on mid-week and Sunday PM as they are able. It’s rare to see a good church fizzle – and then be restored, but Bro. Wilson has a life testimony of exactly that and is just the right man to bring that church back to viability.

Ohio Meetings

        I just got back from some superb meetings at Anchor Bible Baptist Church in West Alexandria, OH (Pastor Darren LaRue). We had one session Friday evening (“Fresh Fossils”). On Saturday we had two workshop sessions. In the morning I did a demonstration with my scale model of Noah’s ark. In the afternoon I discussed several of my fossils, castings, and artifacts and took questions from the audience about them. In between we had lunch on the grounds. The cake you see in the photo below was a dirt cake with a white chocolate depiction of a dinosaur skeleton made by Mrs. LaRue. It was so cool we didn’t want to cut it up. 🙂

On Sunday I presented how evolution has handicapped science and society for Sunday school (if you have a livestream account you can view it at http://livestream.com/accounts/10816293/events/4416545 for the next 30 days) and “Jesus Saith … I Am the Truth” for the main service. In the afternoon I did my “Creation and the King James Bible” lesson. At that service we had a group of about 50 visitors from Charity Baptist Church in Dayton (Pastor Patrick Murphy). They seemed to like it and there’s a good chance I’ll be doing a presentation there in the future.

Several years ago I did a presentation for Pastor Tom Melton’s church in Dayton. Pastor Melton was involved in their local cable access TV channel and I taped several hours of material to air on Dayton’s local cable station. I have no idea how long or often it was aired. I also went fossil hunting in a river bed in Dayton. I found a real nice and sizeable trilobite fossil (and some less impressive sea life fossils), but it was on a rock far too large to keep (and I had no tools available to chip it out).

Coming Up

        I have a trip upcoming to New York (for two different churches) at the end of October as well as some meetings in various churches/schools in Wisconsin. Pastor Joseph Barnhardt is starting a new church (Weston Biblical Baptist) in Scofield, WI (near Wausau & Weston) and I will be doing sessions for him on a Sunday in November. I plan to continue my monthly visits to minister at Door Bible Baptist in Brussels, WI (Pastor Mark Englebert). That church has been a repeated blessing to my wife and I.

I have several events on the docket for next year. I could use a few meetings during the winter. If you’re considering setting up a meeting for your church or school, this winter (and late fall) would be a good time. I’m from the northern Midwest. I even go to cold places in the winter where others fear to tread 🙂