From the Pastor’s Desk (279) My wife has been teaching ESL at a local university where there are tons of Muslims from various nations. She loves to share Jesus and house church whomever she meets and builds relationship with. Last year, she invited several of her students to our Game Night. I think about four students came and enjoyed the evening. When she asked if they wanted to visit a house church, three accepted the invitation and came. She also invited other students and connected them to another house church. They also came and visited. About a year later, one is still coming out to house church. She and her dad were living in Houston ...

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From the Pastor’s Desk (278) (The following is what I sent to your shepherds on Monday. I want you to do the same that I am asking your shepherds to do.) Shepherds and wives, Good morning! I am calling all of you to Early Morning Prayer in the church sanctuary! "Without prayer we will slowly but surely die!" If prayer is a declaration of dependence on God and sign of humility before Him, then prayerlessness is a declaration of independence from God and sign of pride before Him. A life that is independent of God will end up in disaster. You have experienced this in your own life and have seen it happen in the lives of your ...

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From the Pastor’s Desk (277) We are having lots of babies these days, and it is an exciting thing. And God told us to be fruitful and multiply, so we are also doing the right thing. I love seeing babies being born in our church. However, raising children in this day and age is not an easy matter. In fact, it is a daunting task to raise our children based on biblical principles because the world is getting increasingly more evil and there is so much opposition against Christian faith. Therefore, we need all the help we can get in raising our children. In order to help you with your parenting, we offer Parenting 101 and Parenting 201 taught ...

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From the Pastor’s Desk (276) Last Sunday, New Life hosted another blood drive. Before we began to host it regularly in our fellowship hall, I had given blood multiple times, especially when there were specific needs from those whom I knew personally. I honestly am not fond of giving blood because I am fearful of a big needle going through my veins. However, I do it because it is a loving thing to do. Love always requires sacrifice doing the things that we don’t want to do. I would like to share with you a few thoughts I have on giving blood. First, I truly appreciate those who have been working faithfully to make the blood drive happen in ...

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From the Pastor’s Desk (275) I would like to ask all the house churches to change their names to make them more appropriate according to these new guidelines. The ones that fall under these guidelines don't need to change their names. (This hypothetical scenario is used to show the principles that we will use going forward.) Let's hypothetically say that it is 1997, and New Life starts out with six house churches. And we will use the nation of Russia as an example to explain the principles of naming our house churches. 1. In choosing our house church name, we will first use the name of a nation where the missionary is serving to show ...

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From the Pastor’s Desk (274) When God spoke and convicted me about my less than passionate heart towards our House Church Seminar for Pastors in 2012, I repented and responded back to him by saying, “God, I am so sorry for not taking this House Church Seminar for Pastors seriously. Going forward, as long as outside invitations for speaking engagements don’t conflict with my already penciled in church schedule, I will go anywhere to do whatever you want me to do to help pastors and churches understand the New Testament church and do it well.” It's been more than 10 years since I prayed that prayer. And I think I have been faithful in ...

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From the Pastor’s Desk (273) I have been thinking and praying a lot about our next youth pastor candidate ever since the previous one resigned, which was June 2023. These are the criteria or qualities that I believe are very important for our next youth pastor to possess. So, for the past several months, I prayed and asked God to provide us with a person who have these qualities. What are those qualities? He/she must be a person of good character/integrity. He/she must be respectful towards the senior pastor and humble and teachable. He/she must be a team player working well with the existing pastoral staff members. He/she must ...

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