Gil and Denise Thomas
August 2021
In our last letter we asked for prayer for The Roots of Faith classes (Old Testament and New Testament) we were to be teaching in June. Thank you for praying! We had two great classes with excellent participation from a good group of 49 missionaries, pastors, and church leaders.
The week after The Roots of Faith we traveled to Florida to say good-bye to a longtime friend and supporter of ours and of Good Soil, Larry Madrid. God called our wonderful friend home, but what a blessing he was over the years and what a God-honoring service we had the pleasure of enjoying! We continue to pray for his dear wife, Connie.
Then, in July, we had the privilege of teaching Good Soil Evangelism & Discipleship with our newest Good Soil missionary, Danil. Danil & Alla Tereshchenkov and their four children joined ABWE in March to go to Thailand to make disciples there and train others. We are excited about this talented, passionate couple. Please pray for them as they get ready to go to Thailand soon.
The end of July brought 50+ people to the training rooms for Essential Mission Components. What a joy it was to teach eager missionaries about the major functions of church planting, reproducing, and multiplication. Pray for these new missionaries who are excited to get out to their fields and apply principles they have learned. Pray that they will remember and apply what they were so hungry to learn.
It was especially exciting for us to have Pastor Mário with us from Portugal to help facilitate the teaching and to have another new couple in the training who is headed to Portugal as church planters. Rob and Angie are pictured below with Pastor Mário and a couple who will be their neighbors (serving in Western Europe as well).
Well, we didn’t work all summer! We had the privilege of teaching a section of the Good Soil seminar in Grand Rapids, MI, at Highland Hills Baptist Church and while we were out there, we visited with Denise’s mom and brothers and sisters. We visited lighthouses on Lake Michigan, too, and enjoyed some sun, sand, and blueberry picking along with a lot of other fun, family events.
Last week our latest book became available: Gaining Ground as a Truly Evangelistic Church. The book begins with a story of four pastors who discover and implement the essentials to leading a church to become TRULY evangelistic, and not merely evangelical. Then the book continues with chapters devoted to each of these essentials, all embedded in a logical visual model: Evangelistic Pastor, E-Team, THE Mission, Local Focus, Congregational Warmth, Equipped Congregation, Basic Discipleship, Peer Accountability, Evangelistic Praying, Shared Rejoicing, Strategic Simplicity, and Relentless Pursuit The book is the result of the collaboration of four members of the Good Soil Team (Wayne Haston, Randy Southwell, David Levy, and Gil) with a total of approximately 150 years of missionary, pastoral, and leadership training experience.
Go to Gaining Ground as a TRULY Evangelistic Church | Good Soil to order yours. Thank you for your faithfulness in praying and supporting our ministry!