Ray Family Update from February 2024

Dear Praying Friends,

We live in strange times! This is what comes to mind every time I have interaction with lost people. The truth is that many of us preachers spend so much time ministering to saved people that we lose touch with the spiritual condition of people in the world. Although we have our own struggles with sin and deal with others who share the same or similar struggles, it is nowhere near the eye-opener of dealing with the lost. My dealings with such people has been oddly refreshing. Perhaps it is because it is a reminder of from whence I came, or perhaps it is because it validates everything that God said about the natural man.

One area of interaction has been in response to our YouTube shorts. The comments received have exposed how much people hate God and His word. Even those who claim to love God often argue hatefully against the teachings of His word. Another interaction has been that of pedestrians who pass by in our time of street preaching. Three weeks ago, a man approached arguing that he used to believe in God until he was enlightened that aliens control the world. He went on and on until I said, “Forget all that, Christ Jesus died on the cross for your sins.” Immediately, he became irate and paced back and forth, telling me that he was trying to help me. I informed him that I was trying to keep him from hell. He angrily stormed off. Then last week, I had a man inform me that he died and came back to life. He further told me that he met Michael, the archangel, and that Michael protects him. Oh yeah, and Gabriel rebelled and is no longer good. All of this reminds me we have to GO INTO THE WORLD and communicate God’s truth!

On other fronts, we have some wonderful news of interest to share with you. First, this year’s Bible conference is set. It will be held on June 3rd-5th with a theme of As Good Stewards. The preachers include Pastors Noah Broughton, James Knox, Brent Logan, and Adam Summers. To help us with planning, we ask anybody who plans to attend to register at your earliest convenience. We trust the Lord will help this to be a great meeting. We have much to learn about the broader subject of stewardship! On another note, we have some new digital books for purchase that have been listed on our publications site. We truly hope these resources will be helpful to God’s people who seek to know and teach the truth.

Before closing, I want to take a moment to give God thanks for blessings He has bestowed upon our church over the last few months. The overall attendance is up for worship services. (We just had a precious family join and others are visiting with us on a more consistent basis.) The participation in outreach is up (whether it is for door-to-door outreach, street preaching/sign holding, or the ministry at Heritage Assisted Living). The music in our church has never been better (whether it be our orchestra, our choir, or our congregational singing). We just had a family return from a mission’s trip and they are already looking at their next trip. We have had ministry doors open to get Bibles in places where we have never been or ministered before. We have a good number of students joining us for Bible Institute classes, both here in the United States and all over the world. We are reaching more people through our YouTube channel and other online ministries than what we have reached at any other point in our church’s history. We received the funds to complete our Phase 2 building project and that work has begun with hopes of being completed over the next couple of months. We could go on and on! God has been so good to us!