God is at Work

Dear friends in Christ,

During this week when some of you are discouraged about the PC(USA), I want to remind you that God continues to use Presbyterians to turn the world upside down.

In the last 55 years the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, our Presbyterian partner which also includes Lutheran synods, has grown from 50,000 believers to 6.4 million believers. They continue to reach out to share the Gospel with their neighbors, and now the EECMY is sending missionaries to other countries.

In 1852, American missionary Rev. Royal Wilder began sharing the Gospel at Kolhapur, India, a city in the southern part of Maharashtra State in western India. The first baptism took place in 1857. Wilder was a Presbyterian, and his work became part of the American Presbyterian Mission in 1870. Now independent, in the past 15 years the Kolhapur Christian Council has grown from 43 churches to 66 churches and 140 house fellowships. Today, they believe that God has called them to plant a church in each of the 1300 villages of the Kolhapur District by the year 2020!

This Sunday, in the face of extraordinary pressure and new violence, the Presbyterian congregations in Basrah, Baghdad and Kirkuk, Iraq will gather for worship. They are bearing faithful, winsome witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. Through their relationships with friends, radio ministries, and children’s ministries that bless the children of Muslim neighbors, these Presbyterians are sharing and showing the love of Jesus.

There are more Presbyterians in Ghana today than in Scotland, more in Kenya than in the United States, more in the East Indian state of Mizoram than in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas and California combined. And these brothers and sisters are disclosing God’s glory and grace in ways that are changing lives and transforming communities.

God is at work in amazing ways through Presbyterians near and far who know that the only thing to do with good news is to share it and that the Gospel is the best news of all.

Know that you and your congregations are in my prayers.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. (2 Thes 2.16-17)

Rob Weingartner
Executive Director of the Outreach Foundation
www.theoutreachfoundation.org