This past month we experienced something amazing. After nearly 6 months of building relationships with Afghan-Muslim neigbors, we had several step into our Sunday gathering through the month, and around three who joined us for our thanksgiving dinner that our church holds every November. This month, many Muslims heard the Gospel and experienced the love of Christ through our church welcoming and showing hospitality to them.

I have asked another three of my Muslim neigbors(who were not with us in our gathering) if they would be interested in reading and studying the Bible with me. They have all indicated that they are open to this! I have a an afghan friend who is planting a church in OKC among afghans, and he has supplies us with Bibles in their language that they will be able to understand.

We are praying that as the holidays approach, we would be able to see and welcome more afghans, and the Lord would open their hearts to questions to ask, and the message we will share with them.

We are heading into year 6 as a church, and are so grateful for how the Lord has provided for us every step of the way. Pray that our ministry would be fruitful and that we would continue to be faithful in our desire to make disciples!

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This past Sunday, our Pastors and elder candidates wrote a list of new folks who have visited Grace Harbor and have attended more than three times and have indicated that they believe Grace Harbor is where they believe God is leading them. We identified 8 new families, several of which have children! Over the last few months, our efforts in sharing the Gospel and evangelism have deepened and we are surely seeing God give us greater desires. Thomas and I are walking through training with one of the men in our church, and it has been so helpful, and we are beginning to see others become interested and involved in these efforts!

The holiday season is always a great time as we serve homes in the Hope Is Alive organization, which is a program for those recovering from addictions. We are providing three meals for homes with around 10 residents, so please pray for our ministry and connection with them!

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We enjoyed being able to host the BMA Central Meeting at Grace Harbor earlier this month and being able to share how God has been faithful in providing for us this space. It really was a special time not only in opening our space for this but for being able to allow the other men of our association to see how God is working in our part of the city. 

We are having our 5-year birthday celebration in two weeks at Grace Harbor and can’t believe it has already been 5 years. We want to take time that day to look back on what God has done, and prepare ourselves to be obedient in how God continues to lead us. Just over the last few months, God has allowed our paths to cross with people from so many backgrounds, many of whom are not followers of Christ. We want to grow in our ability to reach them and share the Gospel plainly and clearly. As we shared with the association a few weeks ago, we would greatly appreciate and invite you to pray for those we are walking with in the Afghan refugee community, and that we begin to see Afghans come to Christ.

August was a surprisingly, unusually low key month. Typically as many of you know, August is when the busy really kicks in and things get rolling, but for us, it was a special month of our folks getting to connect with one another and practice hospitality with others and neighbors. We are currently preaching through the Lord’s Prayer, and our church is seeking to honor the Lord and draw near to him in prayer, and in fasting. We believe that these are things Jesus exemplified for us, and that the early disciples and the early church took very seriously. For some reason, this seems to be a challenge for many today, including us at Grace Harbor. These are the areas we spending time and focus on in this particular season of ministry, so that we may honor Christ, and know him more deeply.

We are praying that God will increase our passions and efforts in evangelism and seeing more people in our community come to know Christ.

Our community groups kick back off in two weeks on Sunday, September 11!

This month, we held our first Summer Club. Summer Club is our version of a VBS where we invite kids to join us for a few days of intentional teaching and connection with God and one another. We had 49 children attend and over 20 adults serve that week, and that was with no promotion and only word of mouth/personal invitations. 

12 of those 49 were our neighbors from Afghanistan who are living in OKC as refugees from the turmoil in their home country. The Bible’s teaching and our position at Grace Harbor is clear: God has sovereignly brought these neighbors to live where they live, when they live so that they may come to know God, and it is our hope to serve and love them well! That week, 12 grade school aged kids and about 15 of their family members heard the Gospel presented, though a very strong language barrier exists. At one point, we even had the kids repeating over and over “Jesus is Lord, God loves me.”

As I write this at 1:37am, I am in the waiting room with two of my Afghan neighbors as one of their family members is being operated on. They have thanked me over and over again for being her with them, and at one point became very apologetic. As challenging as it is to communicate with them on a basic level(much less finding ways to share the Gospel with them), there are certain times where it seems God is creating a unique moment for intentional conversation. Upon their apologies, I was able to locate a translation of the scriptures in their exact language. I found 1 John 3:11-18 and texted it to one of the men. I told him not to be sorry, that this was what Christ followers do. It was a surreal moment seeing a man who just 10 months ago had likely never met a Christian or heard the Gospel now sitting reading a large chunk of God’s Word in a text about Christ’s love right in front of me. 

Pray for them with me!

As is the case for many churches, June was a full and fun month. Summer has officially begun and events are in full swing. I just returned home from two straight weeks of travel. Last week, Grace Harbor took a group of 20 students and adults to Cedar Hills for BMA Kids Camp. It was a tremendous week together where many kids grew in their faith, and many heard the Gospel. We didn’t have any decisions made in our group, but our kids were greatly challenged, and we are praying for them to come to know the Lord. This past week, my wife and I traveled to Dallas for the BMA SOAR Conference. We didn’t take any students, but I had the opportunity to lead a breakout session at the conference. 

We are still in consistent fellowship and communication with our Afghan neighbors, and I am weekly in one of their homes sharing a meal with them. They have recently been able to purchase a car and have begun attending a Mosque for weekly worship on Fridays. I have been able to share with them, despite great language barriers, that I pray to Jesus Christ and that my sins have been forgiven by Jesus. When sharing the Gospel with Muslims, the greatest and simplest truth that resonates with them is that sins can be forgiven. I’ve been successful in sharing with them this statement: “Jesus Christ forgave my sins.” It is amazing how simple and profound the basic and most essential truths of the Gospel are. 

I am praying that this simple, life-changing truth will be one that is able to stick in their hearts and will lead to many, many more conversations. 

May was quite an exciting and eventful month. We welcomed 4 new covenant members into our church, and baptized one lady at our Family Sunday service.  Last weekend, we hosted our annual Summer Park Event in the local park, and saw around 100 folks come through. Prior to this event, our folks went through a night of training and encouragement in sharing their faith with the lost and praying for the needs of those we would come in contact with at the park. At the event, several folks had the opportunity to share the Gospel with people they came in contact with.

Another really exciting development is that we have been able to come in contact with a community of Afghan Refugees living in very close proximity to our church. There are about 5 Afghan families that we have the chance to meet who were forced to flee from Afghanistan in August of 2021. Each of these families have several children. I have personally been able to spend a lot of time with each of them, both in their homes(in a nearby apartment complex) and in taking them to the park and the grocery store. There is a language barrier that makes communication a challenge, but God opens doors both through allowing technology to help communicate, and one of their 10 year sons having a familiarity with the English language. Each of these families are devout Muslim families, and it is clear that our mission with them is to find ways to speak and share the Gospel with them. They are incredibly generous and hospitable, so there are doors being opened!

Grace Harbor had a great day celebrating the resurrection of Christ this past month. We had several first time guests, with a few who have since returned for visits. Two weeks after Easter, we had a family Sunday where we welcomed 4 new covenant members to our church body, welcomed one new baby, and baptized one young lady who began following Christ a few years ago at Grace Harbor. This past month, we also began a financial course that one of our folks is leading, with a desire to equip people in our church and community with the tools they need to understand and utilize money. We have a group of men on Wednesday mornings who continue to meet for discipleship in studying God’s Word together. That has now been going for two years and we average about 8 men per weeks.

Later this month, we have our Summer park event that we do each Summer. We are shifting our focus and energy this year to a intentional and focused opportunity for evangelism and prayer. We are hoping to have an individual come facilitate an evangelism training class for our groups who will then be equipped and prepared to share the Gospel at this park event. We are praying to see folks come to know Christ, and I am eager to share an update from that one month from now!

March was a very busy month, for great reason and challenging reasons. I’m sure I am not alone as a pastor or church member who currently feels the weight and reality of the heaviness many of our folks are experiencing. This may be something I have written on before, but it is hard not to as God has called me primarily to be an under-shepherd for the flock he has gathered at Grace Harbor. We have many who are personally walking though prolonged seasons of illness, as well as those who are directly involved with caring for family members who are dealing with intense illness. As challenging as this is to see our folks having to endure, our church has just been so wonderful in caring for one another. Not all of the opportunities to serve are because of illness, but also because of new babies being born(we have had two additions in the last two months). 

On a more positive note, we had several visit us in the month of March. We have had roughly 15 folks visit in the last month, and nearly half of them have been with us multiple weeks since their first visit. We have 4 new covenant members joining our church at the end of April, and are praying the Lord continues to add to our number. 

As most pastors and church members are keenly aware, the holidays and January brought so much illness to our people. This season in particular has stretched and challenged us in ways we haven’t ever experienced, and I don’t say that on my own testimony alone as a young pastor, but by testimony of pastors who have been at this much longer than I have! It seems easier and more likely to grow discouraged, but my prayer for others and for our church is that we would live lives in full submission to Jesus. 

At the end of Jesus’s sermon, Matthew records in chapter 7 that the crowds were astonished by the teaching of Jesus, because he was teaching with authority and not in the way that their leaders had taught. I challenged our church on Sunday, that while it took the whole sermon of Jesus for the crowds to come to this realization, it is a realization and conviction we must come to today. It is right for us to say yes to Jesus(or surrender ourselves to him), even before we hear and understand all of the things he commands of us. I’ve heard one person say that we are to “put our yes on the table”. If Jesus truly is the king and the authority, we don’t get to judge whether or not his words are worth following, we simply submit to him, and understand that “wherever he leads, I’ll go.”

This is uniquely challenging for many right now. We are prone to allowing other things to lead us, and direct us. But we must follow Jesus at all costs. 

We are holding a “Family Meeting” (aka Business Meeting) this coming Sunday with all of our members and regular attendees to share with them about what it looks like for us as a church plant to be moving towards coming off of outside support, and how this is an exciting thing for a church to be doing. If I am honest, it brings some uncertainty. But more so it brings an opportunity to trust God and not be anxious. Our church is really seeing growth and it seems that each month, we are adding to our number of folks visiting and staying with us. Yesterday we had a neighbor who lives in our community visit our church who is not a believer. He is from India and really seems to be seeking and open to the Gospel. After church, he attended one of our home groups and spoke so highly of the way he felt welcomed. We are praying for him and are sharing the Gospel with him!