"Letters from America"

Hi people,

I hear that there have been some comments made by Andew Mein (the webmaster) that I have been negligent in my duties of updating my webblog. So, under the conviction of the Holy Spirit (and Andrew - which ever is strongest) I have logged on to up date it!!

There have also been an increasing number of Bardstown Baptist members discovering my blog and stating that I have not updated it - thanks Chris for your comments attached to my last entry.

Ok, where to begin. Well lets try to start from where I left off. Tracy and I had a great visit to Scotland and Washington DC in January. We were pleased to get to meet up with everyone in Aberdeen again, we always love being there, and are just sad that we never have long enough (but that is another issue...the ridiculous American policy of only permitting 1 week paid leave in a year...i'm sure that contravenes my human rights some how...I need to check that out with the European Court of Human Rights!).

I have since started my next Semester at Seminary. In a fit of complete lunacy I enrolled for five classes (one more than last semester). I am studying Old Testament, Biblical Hermeneutics (interpretation), Philospohy, Ethics and World Religions. I am loving all my classes but struggling to keep up with the work load. At least I don't have Greek this semester though, and I plan to put Hebrew off until the very bitter end!

As far as life at Bardstown Baptist goes, things are going great right now! I am currently preaching through a series on "Who is Jesus" focussing on the cross in the run up to Easter and in light of the Passion movie which came out here three weeks ago. We have seen increased attendance on Sunday mornings, I have performed two baptisms within the past two weeks, and our Children's ministry is just booming. We have around 82 actively involved in our AWANA club and 106 enrolled in the Upward Basketball league. We also have the new Youth Basement finished (The ROC) which is allowing our Youth Ministry to become more active. I praise God for his many blessings, even in this time of interim as we continue to search for a Pastor. There is a great sense of unity, peace and purpose right now which I have not experienced for a long time!

Well please pray for me over the next couple of weeks. I have my midterm exams. I am supposed to be studying right now so I guess I better get back to the books!

Take care everyone, email me or leave a comment just so i know that there is someone out there actually reading this!!

Matthew and Tracy

Merry Christmas

Hey everyone,

How are you doing? I trust you are all well and gearing up for Christmas! It is snowing today in Bardstown, our first snow of the year. It has put me well and truly in the mood for Christmas. Although I hope it doen't snow too much as then I will have to clear the drive way in the morning!

My semester is finally over. It has been a tough one as I have been trying to juggle full time ministry with full time studies. But I can take a break from the studies for a while. I had my exams last week, they seemed to go ok, I know I got 100% in one of the Church History exams, but not sure yet what my overall grade will be beacause I don't have the grade back from my research paper - which I did on Thomas Chalmers and the Free Church of Scotland. The Greek exam was not as difficult as I was expecting it to be, and the great thing is that is my last Greek exam!! If I pass that is....no more Greek! I have served my time of one whole year of Greek classes. I may not be able to speak fluent ancient Greek but at the very least I can read the Greek New Testament now - and that's what it was all about!

As for the church, things are going very well right now. We have just launched our Month of Incarnational Ministry. It is four weeks of outreach here in Bardstown. We sent out 8 large boxes of cards and gifts to troops from church families serving in Iraq. We have collected a truck load of clothes to give to needy families in the moutains of Kentucky. Tomorrow we are going to the nursing home to sing carols and give the residents Christmas gifts. On Friday we begin our "Life Nativity" which is eactly that! The church has an annual tradition (going back several decades) of setting up a full size stable in the church court yard on Bardstown's main street, and then going through the Christmas story, complete with camels, donkeys, sheep and cows! The animals arrive on Friday and I am thankful that they are not my responsibility!! It has proven to be a very good form of outreach over the past years as tracts are handed out and large crowds gather. In addition to that our Choir is performing their Christmas Cantata on Sunday night and on Christmas eve we will have a candlelit Christmas Eve service too. So, December is a busy month here at Bardsown Baptist Church, but it is an exciting one and I am praying that the Lord will use it to bring many to him.

This is also the month which Sothern Baptist Church place their focus on Internatinol Missions. As a church we are about to adopt a local couple who are planning to head overseas to serve in Africa. We will be hearing from them and praying for them at our service next week. We have set a goal to raise $5000 to give to missionaries serving overseas by the end of the year.

Speaking of Missionaries serving overseas, our plans for taking a team from our church to Scotland next summer are almost complete. We have twenty on the team, ten youth and ten adults, we will be working with Aberdeen Christian Fellowship in July 2004. In addition to doing a Children's Club we will also have a Youth Outreach and park ministry in Aberdeen. Please continue to pray for our team members, for most of them it is their first time overseas!

Tracy and I are spending Christmas in Bardstown this year, it is our first Christmas together, and will be rather quiet and lowkey. We plan to go to a church families for lunch and then have invited some others over to ours for the evening. On the day after Christmas (Boxing Day) my brother arrives!

We will be leaving for Washington DC on January 4th and should be at the evening service that night at CHBC if our flight is not delayed and we can get there ontime. We leave DC for Aberdeen on the 5th and will be in Scotland until the 15th. We will spend one more night in DC (Thursday 15th) before leaving for Lousiville on the 16th.

I will be preaching at IBC on Sunday 11th January at both services. I am really looking forward to seeing you all again!!

Well I trust you all have a great Christmas and may you make the most of this season to share with others about the love of Christ!

Take care everyone!!! Merry Christmas,

Matthew and Tracy

Has it really been that long?

Wow! Has it really been nearly two months since my last entry??? I really am getting bad at this! I will try to do better. As most of you are aware my life has been a little hectic over the past few weeks, not only am I full time at Seminary and at the Church, I also had to take some days off both because my Grand Mother unexpectedly passed away at the beginning of the month. We had a close relationship, and I have some very fond memories of her, so it hit me hard when I heard she had died. By the grace of God she was a believer, and I have great hope that she is with the Lord who she considered to be her saviour. Tracy and I flew back to the UK to attend the funeral, while we were over we also took the opportunity to go up to Aberdeen, I got to preach at IBC, go to SNAC and hang out with friends from my home church! It really was a great time, and even though it was under difficult circumstances I enjoyed the break!

Things at Bardstown Baptist Church have really taken a turn for the better! I had my first Baptism here at Bardstown this past Sunday, a rather tall and large man! And our church has a very small baptistry pool. I was nervous the whole time about either banging his head, or him dragging me under with him! It went very well though!

Last night we had our Hallelujah Party, which is our alternative to Halloween. It was a great night, we had over 120 kids show up, most of whom were not from out church. It was a Children's party, much like a fare, with different booths, and games, and inflattables, and lots of candy's, hot dogs and popcorn! The trick now is to visit each unchurched kid and share the gospel with them. Tonight we have the Youth Party, which is a Lock-In, we are expecting 100 youth to show up, so its going to be pretty scary!

Daniel, Mum and Dad came over for a week a couple of weeks ago, and we had a fantastic time with them! Tracy and I loved taking them around the Kentucky sights, it was as much a vacation for us as it was for them, we got to see more of this area than we had seen since we have been living here!

Well I am in my office and have some work to do in preperation for Sunday. For all my Washington DC readers - Tracy and are planning to make a visit to DC on January 4th because we are flying out to Scotland on the 5th from Dulles Airport! Hopefully we will get to see most of you then! For all my Scottish readers, that means we will be in Aberdeen from the 4th thru to the 15th January!

Take care everyone!

Matthew and Tracy

Happy Labo(u)r Day!

Hi folks,

This is Labor Day which means it is one of those RARE days off work that Americans get. So both Tracy and I are off work...yippee. I am bunkered down in our basement trying to translate 1 Thesalonians Ch1-2 for my Greek test tomorrow and Tracy is upstairs reading. I hope that our day off gets a little bit more exciting than this as it goes on, we plan to go to Elizabethtown, about 30mins from Bardstown, to go to the Mall, get dinner and maybe catch a movie.

We have had a busy weekend! On Saturday we spent most of the day cleaning the house and I tiled the Basement - since we had to take up the carpet after the flood I have finally decided to bite the bullit and do some handy work around the house by laying floor tiles. It looks pretty good! We now have a lounge and I have my office downstairs.

We also did quite a bit of cooking Saturday night because we had about ten guests over for dinner after church on Sunday. I made a good ole' Sunday Roast - Pork, veggies and I attempted to make Yorkshire Puddings, but they did'nt work out all that well....but hey, the American's don't know what they are supposed to look like so I served them anyway!

Tracy has quit her job at the Seminary. The drive was too much for her and the hours too long. But God is good and has already provided an oppurtunity for her to work at a Day Care - something that she really wants to do. It is a Christian run Day Care using only Christian curriculum, and it owned by a church member. She starts there in October.

I have started back at Seminary and am already overwhelmed and totally confused by Greek. I am now studying advanced Greek - which assumes I know basic Greek...YEAH RIGHT! Its a struggle but by God's grace I'll hang in there.

As far as Bardstown Baptist Church is concerned, things are going pretty good. We have our ups and downs, sometimes more downs than ups. But the people are coming together and we are moving forward. This coming Sunday we launch a new Adult Sunday School program - instead of age based classes, which I am not a fan of, we are changing to what we call 'Discipleship Tracks' giving members the free choice of classes from a Missions class to a Marriage class. I am teaching a class called "Christian Living" and looking at some of the spiritual disciplines of the Christian Life (prayer, bible, giving, service, fasting etc).

We are hanging in there though, I appreciate the calls, emails and evident concern from many that I am taking on too much. But I am convinced God has called me to Bardstown at this hour for this purpose. And I am convinced that my Ministry experience as well as my Seminary education will prove excellent preperation for the ministry that is to come when I return to Scotland in 2006.

I trust you are all well, email and call when you get the chance! Or just leave a comment on this website, its always good to hear from y'all.

Take care
Matthew

Oops..has it been that long!

I am soooooo sorry!!! It has been two months since I last updated my weblog and I feel so bad about that! I was doing so well keeping it up todate too. Oh well, I guess my only excuse is summer!

I can't actually remember all that has happened since I last updated my blog, but I know I have been to Scotland since then! I was able to go and surprise my Mum, and spend an amazing week catching up with friends and family. I was able to preach at IBC, and had a great time being back in my old church again, every time I go back it feels like I never left the place. I also had the chance to go and visit my Grandmother who has been very ill recently and was in hospital. When I was down in England I got to visit my Aunt and Uncle as well who I am very close to and have'nt seen in nearly a year. So all in all it was a much needed and greatly appreciated trip to Scotland, and I want to thank IBC for putting up the funding to make it possible.