Update July 2012

Dear Support Team,
I hope all of you are well, and are enjoying the summer that God has given us! My summer has been busy. I have been traveling to visit some of you, meeting with others of you in Blacksburg, scheduling appointments, catching up with family, and surviving a week without electricity and water.

However this summer have been a good summer so far, in large part, because God has used it to remind me of the privilege it is to partner with you in the re-evangelizing of England and the rebuilding of the church there! It has been a blessing to meet with several of you this summer and share face to face what God has been doing in Gateshead over the past year, and I look forward to meeting with many more of you before I return to England in mid to late August.

As you know, when I go back, I will be continuing to work for Gateshead Presbyterian Church in the various ways I did last year, but will also be attending seminary classes several days a week. The reason for this is that I strongly believe that God is calling me to church planting in the UK. God’s plan for evangelism has always been through the local church, both in churches sending out missionaries, and in those missionaries planting new churches, which then proclaim the gospel to their communities. This biblical strategy of church planting, in order to re-evangelizing England, is very important to the EPCEW (Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales), the denomination I am associated with in England, and it is this vision that God is calling me to be a part of.

Many missionaries have to spend a few years in language school after raising their support and before they reach the field. I don’t have the do that, but going to seminary in the UK will prepare me for ministry there in a way that it would be hard to replicate in the US. The truths of the faith are not in any way culturally bound. We hold to the Faith once for all given to the saints, but coming under care of the EPCEW Presbytery and letting them guide me along the path towards church planting, is a much more respectful way of approaching it, if one has that option, than simply coming along fully trained. Furthermore while I am doing this, I will be continuing to learn how to live in British culture, and at the same time be continuing the ministry I have been doing at Gateshead Pres.

To this end I would greatly appreciate your prayers in regard to two things:

a. I am waiting, to hear back about my visa for this coming year. Please pray that the process would be swift and successful!

b. I am about 75% raised at the moment, with about a month left till I, Lord willing, return to England. I need $360 more in monthly support and more $1,800 in one time support. Would you please pray that God would continue to raise up people to partner with me for the gospel in England!

In Christ,
Benjamin