Day #5 - New Jersey

About two weeks before the Guyana trip, I was looking over my itinerary and noticed that I had a long layover of about 13 hours in New Jersey. I spent a few days after that trying to find a hotel conference room in the area where I could throw together a last-minute preaching event. Since I wasn’t sure what kind of turnout there would be on such short notice, I only booked for 100 people.

I arrived in New Jersey early that Saturday morning and met up with Pastor Mike Dinges of People’s Baptist Church in Clifton, New Jersey. I went to breakfast with him and several other church members, and we had a great time of food and fellowship. After breakfast, I had the privilege of going soul winning in the Bronx with Pastor Dinges. It was a Saturday morning, so it was their usual soul-winning time. The cold, snowy weather seemed especially frigid after having spent the last few days in Guyana and Trinidad where it was hot, so I was thankful that the soul winning took place indoors, inside a high rise apartment complex. Pastor Dinges and I had three people saved, so it was a fruitful morning.

About 150 people showed up at the hotel for the preaching service, and the hotel staff was gracious about allowing the extra people. I preached a sermon entitled "God, the Investor." I talked about how God gives us resources and abilities based on how much we do with what he has already given us.

Every household in attendance received three flash drives loaded with sermons from our Wednesday night Bible studies at Faithful Word Baptist Church. The chapter study flash drives I handed out included one on the book of Mark, one on the book of Zechariah, and one on Galatians and Colossians. In addition to the flash drives, everyone also received a Christmas CD.

About 15-20 people said they wanted to be baptized, but the hotel swimming pool was closed for the winter. I thought maybe we could book a suite with a jacuzzi or something to baptize in, but all the rooms in the hotel had already been booked. I encouraged people to show up the next morning at People’s Baptist Church to get baptized there, so hopefully a lot of them followed through on that.

Thanks to all who attended the event! It was good to see a lot of familiar faces as well as many new ones.

Here is the sermon on “God, the Investor.”