James Series
I gave two entries into my James sermon series this quarter. Our congregation is slowly making our way through the book, and I'm happy to have preached through chapter 2. My most recent entry was an exposition of one of the most controversial passages in the book of James (2:14-26), and I'm thankful that many brothers and sisters shared that they benefitted from it.

Church Finances
Pastor Kai and I have delivered a series of sermons on both personal and church finances. He preached 2 Corinthians 8's relevance for personal giving as well as a sermon on the relevance of tithing today. I preached how to organize the church's budget according to the mission of the church. Join us in praying that these sermons would prepare our church to give faithfully and prepare a God-glorifying budget.

Christianity Explored
I finished my first round of our German Christianity Explored class. I had only one student that finished the whole class, and I covet your prayers for her. She is coming out of a Muslim background, but her husband is a believer. Pray that she would trust in Christ.

We recently met with our network of pastors from various regions in Austria. Bobby flew in from his hiatus in the United States, and we cast a vision for cooperation among confessionally committed churches in Austria. I look forward to working together with these men, as well as about 6 other pastors who want to see German-speaking healthy churches. Pastor Kai delivered a devotional direction for the group from Ezra, and I appealed to the brothers for a confessionally committed cooperation on the basis of baptist history and the legacy of Andrew Fuller who told his friend William Carey, "Mr. Carey if you descend into the Pit, I will hold the rope," thereby founding the modern missions movement. (If you're interested, you can read the English text of my address here) Please pray that this work would bear fruit and that the many revitalization efforts in Austria would bolster churches to be ever more grounded in the gospel.

Shortly thereafter, Bobby and I headed to Scotland to join a conference of church leaders from the Pillar Network. The event was hosted at Charlotte Chapel - an evangelical and baptistic church in downtown Edinburgh. It was encouraging to see that an organization as healthy as Pillar is looking to do more work internationally, and I hope that this cooperation of churches can be a blessing to work in Austria and Europe more generally.

In Progress: Membership Course
As our church grows, we increasingly encounter the need to formalize our processes. Things that we used to do on a case-by-case basis now require some greater measure of efficiency. One of those things is our membership process. Consequently, in the past month, Kai and I have been formulating a membership course for our church. Lord willing, we will teach this course very soon. We have about seven people who would possibly join our church and participate in the course. We intend to cover our church's characteristics and distinctives, as well as our confession (more on that below) and covenant. Also, we want our people to have somewhat of a grasp of the history behind Christus Gemeinde Wien.

In Progress: Congregational Confession
Additionally, I'm incredibly thankful for our church's confession -- the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith. It has served us well these few years and distinguished us in the midst of our setting. However, at Kai's behest, I undertook to write a draft of a slightly more succinct confession that would adequately describe our church. This will also be the basis for what we teach in our church's membership course. Please pray that this confession would serve our church well.