Acts
So far with the book of Acts, I managed to preach through Acts 11:18 and the Cornelius incident. So far, the book of Acts has taught our congregation much about being God's people that he has gathered by His grace to proclaim his Name to the whole earth. The book is on hiatus for moment, because Kai is returning to the New Testament in his series on Romans in the fall. Therefore, I'm returning to an old friend.

Samuel
I just last Sunday preached on 2 Samuel Chapter 1, which was quite a surprise chapter for all of us. We found ourselves dwelling deeply on the cross, and the tremendous cost of our salvation. The service felt much like Good Friday, and many of us left the Sunday service with a sense of grandeur and weight. Kai is currently on vacation, so I will continue preaching through Samuel until the end of July. Samuel is an extremely christocentric book, and it has afforded our congregation much opportunity to dwell on our righteous King and Messiah, the Lord Jesus.

In my last update, I mentioned the following three items and our plans for those things, so here is how things have developed.

Street Evangelism
Our efforts to proclaim the gospel openly on the street have been exciting, and afforded many opportunities to share the truth of God's Word. Vienna is allegedly the most unfriendly city in the world, and we certainly received some push back, but also we had some fruitful conversations. We had disputations and discussions with Muslims, heretics who denied the trinity, and also some especially fruitful conversations discussing Christ's work of penal substitutionary atonement. My brother from church - Samuel - will continue this ministry in August when I am absent for deputation and a mission trip to Bolivia. More updates upcoming. Please pray that more folks would encounter the gospel this way.

Family Ministry
Investing in additional teaching time for our children has put some strain on our needs for volunteers, but our church has enjoyed assisting parents in the evangelism of their kids. Our children have been learning the Apostle's Creed, and memorized a few key Bible verses as they have studied the Old Testament prophets. (Isaiah 6:3, Jeremiah 1:8, Ezekiel 37:14, Exodus 20:4) Please pray for some of our older kids like Jonathan as we prepare them to sit through the church service and be respectful and considerate to members and visitors.

Home Groups
We started our home groups off this quarter, and they met with mixed success. Our church is geographically quite spread out, because our furthest two members live more than one and a half hours apart from one another by car. However, our Sunday-afternoon home group in the northern part of Vienna has done well, and we as elders are considering how we might be able to leverage that for the whole church.

We hosted two elders' college meetings in April and June of this year. We are placing this ministry on hiatus after this, but not for lack of encouraging success!

Elders College: Liturgy
In April, we thought about church liturgy and how best to equip our fellow pastors to guide their churches through worshipping God on the Lord's Day. I taught mostly on the history of church liturgy and the role of connecting ourselves with the saints who came before us.

Elders College: Preaching and Preachers
In June, we had a guest speaker, (Brad Baugham, more on him in a moment) who helped us to think about the disposition and character of a preacher. Brad is an especially gifted preacher, so we were both given instruction and instructed by example in the task of preaching. He taught that we ought to preach Christ, and then he clearly showed us Christ. This was also the first instance where our brother pastors brought their wives and children to the elders' college and we also had a program for the wives led by Becky Baugham (Brad's wife). I was elated that perhaps a sisterhood of pastors' wives might slowly blossom in this country.

So a dream began to take shape recently. It has been the aspiration of a number of brothers and myself to see theological educational opportunities for Austrians from a confessionally reformed perspective. So, together with some brothers from the local Presbyterian congregation, our church came together to start an apprenticeship program. Truly, however, it is the brain child of Brad Hunter - the Teaching Elder of New City Wien (the local Presbyterian Church). We had about 20 graduates in May of 2024, and now we are returning to offer a step up in our curriculum.

Last time, we had approximately 6 instructors and a 9-month unaccredited program. At the moment, we are still unaccredited, but there are pathways to possibly change that through some American institutions. This time around, we are looking at about 8-10 instructors, and we are offering a two-year program. We will be offering new courses in Biblical Theology, Counseling, and Preaching Practicum, and we have increased the Systematic Theology curriculum by 50%. There is a good chance I could be teaching more than just Church History this time around, but I'm just happy to be along for the ride. Please pray for this initiative now named, "Trinitas Academy".