Ray Family Update from March 2017

Dear Praying Friends,

Whom do you consider to be great? The psalmist said, “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness” (Psalm 48:1). In another place, the psalmist said, “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:3). A few psalms later, we read, “Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:5). Jeremiah resounded these truths when he proclaimed, “the Great, the Mighty God, the LORD of hosts, is his name” (Jeremiah 32:18). This is such a far cry from that of the Ephesians who said, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:28, 34). The reality is that somebody or something is great to you. Who or what is it?

The Month of March

I was honoured to preach at the 17th annual Bible conference at Faith Independent Baptist Church here in Knoxville. It was both enjoyable and touching as Pastor Hensley and Pastor Burris honoured the memory of Pastor Reagan. Pastor Hensley said he was truly blessed by the singing of our choirs and commented that it was just the way Pastor Reagan would have wanted it to be. It did me good to hear those words. It is not that my highest goal would have been to please Pastor Reagan, but I would definitely want him to be pleased with the direction of the church he faithfully led for twenty plus years.

Also in March, we were able to resume our local outreach ministries. We began with tract distribution at a local festival and in the weeks following, we returned to the street corners for street preaching as well as distributed invitations to a subdivision in our community. Our outreach attendance began slowly but seems to be picking up the last couple of weeks. We are extremely grateful for that and hope that more will see the need to get the word of God to the lost and dying people in our community. We need all the help we can get!

The Bible Institute classes are going well. We have enjoyed a decent attendance locally, but we also have a good number of students online. We just completed our eleventh of sixteen weeks and will be taking final exams the next time I write. We are blessed to have the videos of the classes online both through livestream at www.learnthebible.org/live and archived at www.youtube.com/c/antiochbaptistchurch. One of our online students missed class last week because he had the privilege to preach at the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. We count it a blessing to be able to instruct those who are faithfully serving in their communities.

We also moved forward quite a bit on each of the five projects mentioned in my last letter. We have now completed just over half the weeks of devotions of Daily Strength 4. Additionally, we are approaching 80% completion on the first year of our Sunday School curriculum and only lack the cover design in order to complete our first children’s book. My hope is to complete several of these before the end of June.

Looking Ahead

Since I wrote last, I have had a couple of brethren suggest I should lighten my schedule. I have always tried to listen to advice with this in mind—it could either be of God or from Satan. Knowing the heart and spirit of these men leads me to believe there is care and wisdom in their counsel. My hope (and prayer request) is that the Lord will help me get a good amount accomplished over the next three to four months so that I can move into August with a thinner workload over the same number of days. It would sure be a blessing if I could reduce five major projects at a time down to three. For those who fear I might become lazy, I assure you I will either work hard or die, but I do not want to die early from “hard” work.

Prayer Requests

* Pray for grace and wisdom to wrap up some of these important projects.
* Pray for God’s power and leading as I minister to the wonderful people of Antioch.