Ray Family Update from June 2019

Dear Praying Friends,

We can officially say we survived conference week 2019. This would not be true if it were not for the Lord and the saints who laboured to pull it all together. As we tend to say each year, this year’s conference was our best yet. The combination of sound Bible teaching and convicting preaching is just what we needed. As always, the congregational singing, the food, and the time spent with God’s people were great companions to the preaching.

Answered Prayers

In a world filled with bad news, I am happy to report God’s faithfulness in answering prayer. With God’s help, I have completed nearly half of the Philippians broadcasts and they have been received with joy among the saints. I was also able to complete my work on the draft copy of a joint work with Brother Knox. As soon as he is satisfied, it will go into proofing.
While these are certainly answers to prayer, the greater joy is that the Lord seems to be giving us some fruit among the unchurched. This month, we had a man enter the service who had been walking the highway. As he passed our driveway, he said something told him to go back and go in. As I preached about the emptiness of man apart from God (no joy, no peace), he said it was as though I described his life. That night, he asked Christ to save him! Unfortunately, alcohol has a strong grip on him. He, his wife, and granddaughter were in church last Sunday.
One other great answer to prayer in the matter is that my dad, who lost the battle to alcohol for many years, gave this man his phone number on Sunday morning in case the man needed him for encouragement. The man called my dad this week and dad gave him sound advice and told him the battle would only be won by trusting God and yielding to His help. You have no idea what that did for my heart!

While We’re at It

Our church has a great work to do for the Lord and yet the sad truth is that we are tremendously undermanned for the tasks at hand. We either need God to multiply the efforts of those who are already in our ranks or we need God to send us some more labourers. While Knoxville is filled with Independent Baptist churches, very few are willing to knock on doors, distribute gospel tracts at public events, and preach on the streets. This is just one aspect of the work we seek to accomplish for the Lord. We also desire to expand our outreach on the internet and other avenues of local outreach. Will you pray for us and with us that God will use our little flock to do His bidding among a world in desperate need of fellowship with Him? Will you pray that God will stir the slothful and uphold the faithful?

Prayer Requests

* Pray for the man who trusted Christ for salvation, but needs God’s help to break the chains of bondage in his life.
* Pray for more labourers.
* Pray for more opportunities to reach the world with Christ’s gospel and Bible truth.
* Continue to ask God to give us fruit among those who are unchurched or underchurched.