In my last communication, I mentioned that my family was traveling around the US for one month in order to raise support for our work here. We thank God for all the new friends that we made, and if you're getting this newsletter for the first time, welcome!

During our time in the States, we were quite busy. My family buried my last grandparent - a confessed Roman Catholic. While I shared the gospel with him several times, it appeared that he was never dissuaded from placing his hope in what the Roman Church was selling. If you would, please pray that his death and some of the puzzling Roman Catholic funeral rites would move my extended family to consider their only hope in life and in death.

Also, we met some new like-minded churches in Wisconsin, Nebraska, and South Carolina. I'm very thankful for that fellowship and look forward to seeing how they might continue to partner with us for the work here in Austria.

Church Membership
Last I wrote, Kai and I were three out of five classes into a membership course. We were able to finish that up just before I left for the US. We praise God that we were able to take on 3 new members from that course. We hope to offer this course again soon and continue to tweak it, but overall we were pleased with the result.

In conjunction with the course, Kai and I conducted our first membership meeting in which we decided not to move forward with a membership candidate. It was certainly a strange and jarring experience in some respects, but I rejoiced that we can be a church that takes membership so earnestly. Also, we hope that we can soon take in that candidate as they begin to more assuredly grasp the gospel.

Attributes of God
Our prayer meetings continue to progress well. Our December meeting was postponed until next Wednesday when I will deliver an address on the Goodness of God. Another brother pastor has proposed the idea of publishing these addresses somehow, and that may be an avenue to pursue at some point. At the moment, however, we are looking into posting short 15-minute "bible project style" videos with a videographer who is a church member. That project is certainly one in a long list of dreams, but please pray that Austrian churches would be better equipped to understand the nature of God.

James Series
My series in James continued meanwhile up to its penultimate sermon. Between now and my next communication, the series should be finished. If you have any suggestions on where I should go next with my expository preaching, write me an email! At the moment, I'm leaning toward either Numbers or 1&2 Samuel. We will see what Kai thinks.

Installation
Currently, we are in the interesting position of planning my installation process. Since I would be the first elder to be installed since the founding of the church, we had to consider the precedents that we will take. Overall, we settled on a process like this: Public examination from some brother pastors from other like-minded churches, private congregational questioning followed by a vote, and finally an installation on the Lord's Day. Through this process, we hope to set a precedent of due diligence as well as congregational decision-making. Lord willing, we can set an example for ourselves as we seek to install other elders as well as suggest an alternative to our dear like-minded churches.

How to Interpret the Bible
Soon, we want to explore the topic of how to interpret the Bible. Many of our church members - but especially our trainees who are learning to preach - have expressed an interest in learning how to read and interpret the Bible better. Private interpretation should be the bedrock of private meditation, so we really want to give our people a sure foundation as well as something that is accessible to everyone. On this front, pray for clarity and richness in our teaching. By God's grace, we have people who are eager to learn this.

Through some incredible generosity from my parents, we were able to buy half of a duplex in December. After ten years of bouncing around apartments in Vienna, Lina and I are thankful to put down roots and ponder the long term.

Lord willing, we think this will be a solid base of operations for our growing family as well as hospitality in the church. The community is relatively friendly for Vienna with many old-school Roman Catholics - which is atypical for Vienna, which is largely atheistic and agnostic. We actually took one week of vacation last week in order to furnish and paint the house, but the labors seem to never end!