We are enjoying having guests around this week who are a part of the Baptist World Mission family. Peter and Gail Tidd are furlough replacement missionaries on their way back from a furlough replacement in Spain. It's a joy to meet them. Brother Tidd is going to preach at our youth activity on Friday and take our services on Sunday. And so, we are going to have a missions emphasis Sunday with a luncheon.

Today the Tidds joined me as I went down street preaching. God gave us a great morning. A special blessing was the email to Katie during the preaching that said, "I don't know if you remember me.... I used to come to your church... I'm just sitting on princes street listenin to Ben. Wonderful. Truly wonderful." Praise God for reconnecting with someone and for hearing that they were blessed by the preaching this morning.

We don't get a lot of positive feedback from the street evangelism, other than what is happening while preaching. (fist bumps, hand shakes, thumb's up.... or encouraging words.) It's great to hear that God encouraged this heart this morning.

Thank you for praying for that ministry. God enables every time the opportunity is taken and I'm very thankful for your prayers.

Living in Scotland there are two things which we don't complain about that other's might. The first is global warming. Our temperatures in July averages around 66 degrees fahrenheit. We'd probably say about global warming, "Bring it on." The other thing we don't complain about is the lack of rain. Normally, that is because we have more than heart could desire. However, Britain is currently in a very unusual dry pattern for Spring that they says is the driest in nearly a century. We are enjoying the abundant sunshine from this unusual weather pattern.

With regard to our Sunday, today started as many pastor's "dread" with notices of who would be unable to attend. I think we knew of 6 entities that would not make it this morning. Thankfully, our morning service was still pretty well attended though we missed those who were not there. A young man from a sister church in Elgin visited with us this morning. It was good to see him going to church despite being away from his home area. We enjoyed getting to know him.

I preached this morning on, "The Happy Man vs. The Miserable Man" from Psalm 1. Interestingly, most people, and many believers, are looking for happiness in all of the wrong places. What's sad is that as believers, God has told us where to look. (Avoid them, enjoy Him, and Prosper.)

It was a busy ministry week. The ladies' meeting Monday night went well. The Tuesday day of prayer in Blair Atholl was a blessing. The Ladie's Afternoon Tea yesterday was well attended by our church ladies and a few other sister churches. Thank you for praying for God's blessings which were evident.

It's great to have Logan home from college. He arrived yesterday afternoon. His luggage thankfully arrived today.

He came in on our busy Sunday as we had our care home service in the afternoon.

God gave us a great day. Yesterday morning our visitors from last week returned. They intend to be here next week as well. Also, we had a couple from Australia visit our evening service. We enjoyed a good Bible study and fun fellowship with them afterwards.

I preached in the AM service on, "God or Idols?" from Isaiah 44. The main thought was, "What to remember when tempted to turn away from God." Sadly, God's people have historically struggled with keeping God first in their lives. 

We have some further special events going on this week. Tonight is our monthly ladies' Bible study. Tomorrow is one of our days of prayer for ministers. 5 of us meet for prayer up in Blair Atholl, Scotland. On Saturday our church ladies' are hosting a Ladies' Afternoon Tea. Other churches are invited and we hope to see some visitors from our area as well.

I street preached this morning, but found out my equipment was not recording. God gave a good outing. There was one man I spoke with before preaching and afterwards who may visit the church. He is a believer who was working nearby. Thank you for praying for all of the above. It is God's work. He is the person of power. We're just thankful to work with Him.

We had the special blessing this week of being contacted by a mum with two young children who wanted to attend our services. On Saturdays, we have been knocking on doors while a couple of our boys also put out leafletts. She had received a leafltet and wanted to come.

My wife found out at church that she was from Ghana and had grown up in Italy. We have another lady in our church with the same background and Katie mentioned that to her. The really fun part of the story is that they were friends as teenagers and hadn't seen each other since then. They knew they were both in Scotland, but didn't realise how closely they lived to one another. It was a happy reunion yesterday.

God gave us a good Lord's day. We're still praying about our attendance for ALL of our services, but we're thankful for those who faithfully attend at least one service. I preached on our theme, "Crucified with Him." This message was, "Crucified with Him, Unto a New Lifestyle." I shared a sad illustration which shows how corrupt evangelicalism is in Scotland. The church, formerly pastored by John Knox - which is also the High Church in Edinburgh, just took a homosexual who is "married" to a man as their minister. 

Please pray for God to awaken a nation that is in a drunken stupor of sin. 

We have been in Ireland for all of the time between our two ministry days, Wednesday night and this Sunday morning. My boys and I met Tommy at the airport at 4:00AM Thursday to get our flight. We got back last night (Saturday) at 11PM.

Pastor Craig Ledbetter organises a men's camp in Ireland. He does a great job and we commend him and his church men.  I had the privilige of preaching one of the service as we studied the life of Job. My assignment was to preach on, "Why do the righteous suffer?" This morning I enjoyed sharing that message with our church. 

We had the special blessing this morning of having twin girls in their 20's visit who are believers. Please pray for wisdom for them as they seek God's leading for a church family. We enjoyed having them with us.

Thank you for praying for us. God is blessing in answer to your prayers.

Happy Resurrection Sunday! We rejoice today in our Resurrected Lord and His victory over sin, death and the devil. We thank Him for being the Man of Sorrows who took our damnation from the hand of God and drank it completely to purchase our salvation.

God blessed us with a good morning. Our SS attendance was down, but our Sunday AM was pretty good. We had a visitor for whom we have often prayed. It was great to have them in church this morning with us. 

I teasingly said to Katie this week, "I think I'll preach on the resurrection." She thought that would be a pretty original message for Easter Sunday. The actual text I preached from was Acts 13 as I preached Paul's message which was originally preached in the synagogue. The heart of the Gospel AND the great proof of the Messiah's identity, is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. 

We enjoyed our time in God's Word this morning. We also enjoyed a fellowship meal following the service. This past Monday, was our monthly ladies' meeting. It went very well with a visitor joing that meeting as well. Thank you for praying for our family and ministry. May God bless your time with your church and your family on this special day.

This is our busy weekend of ministry as we had our care home ministry yesterday afternoon and tonight was our monthly ladies' meeting. Both events went well.

A teenage girl, a lady from our church and our family ministered at the care home. I preached on Zacchaeus and we sang three hymns together. We started this ministry last month and so, it was good to reconnect with the residents. We'll enjoy going even more once we begin to remember names and faces.

The Lord gave us a good Sunday. A lady whom we have been praying for was able to attend for her fist time. She enjoyed coming and we hope to see her out again in the near future. 

I preached on Isaiah 53 with an introduction and conclusion from Acts 8, the Ethiopean Eunuch. On Sunday evenings we are doing a verse by verse study through 1 Corinthians and were in chapter 4 last night.

Katie just returned from the ladies' meeting and said that it went very well with a total of 8 ladies' present with one visitor. Thank you for praying for this ministry.

Well, it's always a blessing when you have beautiful weather on the Lord's day and we did. On top of that, the flowers are looking wonderful in the flower bed as people enter into the church property. 

We enjoyed in SS looking at the story of Peter and Cornelious. He was defending himself before his Jewish brethren from their accusation that he ate with the Gentiles. Praise God, they agreed with Him after he shared how God had opened the door of the Gospel to the Gentiles.

In the Sunday AM, I enjoyed going back to our theme, "Crucified with Him" and preaching on "Living for Christ" from Colossians 3:1-4. Interestingly, we can think we are living for Christ, because we know that is the right answer. But, if we evaluate our life, the facts may contradict our conclusion. We had a good time in God's Word.

It was a joy to have a Christian family of 4 visit. The young couple in this group will be married in July. Please pray for God's leading for them as to a local church and also His guidance as they prepare for marriage.

It was also our joy to add a young family to our membership. They have come for a couple of years, but it was good to see them take this important step. They have two young children. 

Thanks for praying for Southside Free Baptist Church, God is working in answer to your prayers.

God has blessed us with a great building and has allowed us to build in quality sound and video. However, until today, we have not been able to use it. We're still working through bugs, BUT we livestreamed today to our church sermon audio account. Lord willing, we'll be multi casting (sending the live feed simultaniously to our facebook: freebaptistlothian and our youtube page: @southsidefreebaptistchurch) in the very near future. We're working on it.

We used amplification today for the first time in several months, which also allows us to have sound to our baby cry space, cre'che (nursery) and directly into our video feed. Praise the Lord. I'm very thankful as this increases the ability of other's to tune in to what God is doing at our church and to do so conveniently. (We've had an echo on our video's because we didn't have a direct line in for our sound.)

It's mother's day in Scotland and I enjoyed preaching a message on Abigail, "Of Good Understanding." (1 Samuel 25) If' you'd like to hear and see the progress, please click on the link above. Today was also the beginning of British Summer Time. I'd like them to change this to Saturdays instead of Sundays and for our mother's sake, chose and earlier date. Mum's ought to get a "lie in" on Mother's day. 

It was a very good day. Tim Prentice, a believer from England, is up to help us sort all of our sound and video issues. We praise God for all of His help. Please pray that God will help us to get EVERYTHING sorted before Tim heads back home on Tuesday. Thanks for praying.

Thank you for your prayers for our street evangelism. I was down in the heart of Edinburgh preaching this morning. The Lord gave beautiful weather and liberty to preach His Word. Thank you for praying for this ministry.

Here is a link if you are interested in seeing the street preaching.