Wednesday, February 27, 2008

A week in Tbilisi

Hi gang, so it's Wednesday now, and its been a few days since I could access the internet, things are not quite as 'wired' here as in the states! (I am actually sitting in my friend Dennis' apartment, tapping into his neighbors wireless connection! Works fine in this one room. If I move 10 feet, no connection. too funny!)

So our week here has been good. We started the week out with a four-session series called "The Bible - The Word of God". In these classes I taught the students where we got our bible, how it came to be in it's present form, and most importantly what our bible means to us personally. It was really cool, because most people here, even if they grew up in the orthodox church, know almost NOTHING about the bible. The church discourages them from reading the bible, and then tells them a bunch of stuff that is nowhere near biblical. You would not believe that questions. But thank the Lord that I had an opportunity to give them truth and point them to the Word of God for their information!

Today I started on our topic for the rest of this week - "Our Identitity in Christ". Again, even though the students are all Christians, they have a very limited understanding about what it means to be a Christian, and all that God has for us. We have been covering a lot of scripture!

It is so fulfilling to teach the students because they have a huge hunger for things of the Lord. They are all so teachable, with every truth becoming another amazing realization for them.

So we have two more days of classes, and then the weekend. We are scheduled to go to an orphanage on Friday night.

We love all you guys, and miss you, and look forward to seeing you soon!

Pastor Clay, Brent, Carmen, Chandler

Sunday, February 24, 2008

We Made It!

Dear saints!

We made it to Tbilisi one one piece, praise the Lord! Carmen, Chandler, Brent and myself landed in Tbilisi at 4:10 am on Saturday morning (We left Thursday afternoon!) a bit tired, but not any worse for the wear!

We got checked into our quarters at the "Vasi" (the hotel-turned-into-a-school that we stay at), got a little sleep, then headed into town for some food and Turkish Coffee! After a day or so we should get our bodies re-tuned to the time difference (Tbilisi is 9 hours ahead of Wilmington).

Right now we are at Dennis's aprtment, and I am printing off my teaching for tomorrow, Carmen is checking her Facebook, Chandler is bugging me to hurry up because he wants to go back to the Vasi and sleep some more, and Brent stayed back to rest.

Tomorrow we start the DTS, and I'll be teaching the students a two day bible primer.

We love you guys, we miss you, and I'll keep posting here as the week progresses, which will be limited because they lost internet at the Vasi, so my access is restricted. VERY hard for a guy like me! Oh and did i mention that there is a 'hot water issue', which means very limited showers. I would complain but, the fact is, we in America are just spoiled! A little less showering never hurt anyone. Just ask my two boys... the'll tell ya.

Love and Peace,

Pastor Clay

I'll post some pictures on the next post.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Packed and ready...


So this is it, we are all packed and ready for our trip to Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia. Today at 12:55 Carmen, Chandler, Brent and myself will board the plane, returning March 3rd. I really thought that I was going to have to bag the trip; several of my family came down with this terrible virus a few days ago, we've been sick as dogs for several days now. But thankfully we have some really good prayer warriors at our church, and they ave prayed us back to health! We are going to visit Dennis and Korine Holt and their kids, who oversee a Discipleship Training School in Tbilisi. Brent and i will be doing some teaching, Chandler will help with the worship, and Carmen will be there for the young ladies that attend the school. We are excited to see what God is going to do - please keep us in your prayers! I'll post some updates on the blog to let you all know how our trip is going Pastor Clay

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Reaching the world around us

Simply put, as a church we need to ratchet up our outreach. And as the pastor, I am going to take the lead!

Our first step has already started; the Evangelism class that we held a few months ago has been completed and 10-20 people have come through it with a new knowledge and heart for sharing the gospel message. For those who took the class, there will be a follow up class. But more important are some things that we as a church are going to plan for the upcoming year.

This year CCW is going to organize some outreach opportunities to put what you have learned into action. Are you worried that you have never done anything like this before, or you won't know what to do? That’s OK, because the real key to outreach is SHOW UP and SPEAK UP! Maybe you are not yet comfortable sharing your faith one-on-one. Then just be a ‘support partner’, and be there to pray.

Here’s some simple things we can do right now:

First: invite someone to church. When was the last time you did? Don’t be intimidated, fact is if you love your church, so will they!

Second: When we hold an event – show up! Even if you are not yet comfortable talking, you can just go along and watch and pray. You can hand out door hangers, be a helper at one of the events – just smile and hand out coffee!

Part of the growth process is that after we come to Christ, God transforms our lives, and then we reach OUT to others. See, if we only focus on ourselves, our problems, our growth, then we are missing the great commission. We are missing a huge blessing of sharing the new life and victory that that we have through Christ with others who desperately need Him.

Bottom line – we are growing in the area of outreach, but we never want to rest on our laurels and not continue growing.

So – when the opportunity comes, SHOW UP! I guarantee you will be blessed, and you’ll do it again!


...till the whole world hears,

Pastor Clay

to listen to the "Going Forward in 2008" message, CLICK HERE