This past July a Gay Pride rally was held in Mansfield, complete with a parade through the town and celebrations through the afternoon and evening.  

We at Providence Church did not take this wickedness lightly.  It was a serious concern for prayer.  

Thanks to the organizing efforts of our in house evangelist a group of men from the church went to the event to pass out tracts, engage in evangelism, and stand for righteousness in the land.  The picture above shows the men gathered in prayer prior to their going out to the event.

There were a number of good gospel conversations that were had during the outing.  We estimate that there were about 300 tracts passed out, which would have covered the majority of the people who attended the event.

We pray that these men and women will come to a right understanding of sexuality and offer repentance that is pleasing in the sight of our Savior.

It was our great joy to welcome another little one to our church.  

It was also a blessed opportunity to see baby Alanna's parents stand before the congregation and publicly vow to raise this little one in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

Alanna makes the fifth baby born into our congregation this year.  We look forward to a few more coming in the next few weeks!

May the Lord be praised for His great gifts!

What a fun time hanging at the Lillo's!  And what a great testimony to the unity & love our church has for one another with so many families making the trek up to the Lillo's!
(Click to enlarge the pics)

We enjoyed seeing God's promises affirmed this past week as six young people were baptized.  What a joy it is to remember that our God washes away our sin and brings us into fellowship with His people!              (Click a picture to see a larger view.)

Because it has gone so well, our street evangelism has continued through the August and September months.  One of the highlights has been the growing interest in the evangelism, especially among our young people.

Pictured here are just a few of our youths who have participated over the last several weeks.

We've been greatly blessed not only to share the gospel, but to see others join us in sharing the gospel on a consistent basis.  We've seen quite a great response from the Providence Church membership.  Different people from the congregation have come out regularly to speak with local passers by about Christ.  This truly is a fruit of our evangelism training that we initiated just over a year ago.

We've also enjoyed having friends from other churches coming out to share the faith.  The picture above shows two gentlemen who hail from two other churches that frequently help out.   Once we had a handful of people from another church come over and say, "Do you mind if we join you?"

All in all, the Lord has allowed us to spread out over a larger area and interact with more souls regarding their eternal state.  We give thanks to our God for this blessing and pray that the tracts we pass out and the conversations we have will be blessed for the conversion of many to Christ.

A couple weeks ago we enjoyed our annual camping trip at Pleasant Hill.  What a great time with all the families who came out!

We had a great time at the Ashland Balloonfest doing our evangelism outreach.  Five families came out for it.  With kids we totaled around 25 people.  We passed out hundreds of tracts in less than an hour and a number of us had opportunity to share the gospel in conversation.  

We saw that lots of people took time to read the tracts.  The balloon launch ended up being delayed and it eventually was canceled.  While it is always sad to have this fun event turn into a bust like that, it actually worked to our advantage.  As boredom sets in people start looking for something to read!

Joe and I have been doing some street evangelism over the last few weeks with our new prayer stand.  We've had tremendous opportunities and look forward to what God will do through it.

We welcome you to join us if you are able.  We meet from 11-1 every Thursday (in Mansfield) and Friday (in Ashland).

We've had a number of new members added to our number this year at Providence church.  The pic shows the two of the four children that have been born into our covenant families in 2014.  

We praise the Lord that He has blessed us so, and we praise God that our families have a high regard for the Scripture's command to be "fruitful and multiply."  

All this is to say that Providence Church, unlike many other churches today, won't be dying out anytime soon.  
But there is another reason why this picture noteworthy.  It displays something of our church's unity.  These families came forward on Sunday for a child dedication.  They took vows to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and Matt (who is at the pulpit) closed this part of the service by praying for them.

What's the big deal?  It is this:  Matt is believes Scripture teaches paedo-baptism.   In other words, Matt is supporting these families despite their difference of opinion on the matter of when baptism should be applied--just like the other elders (and credo-baptist congregants) support his family (and other paedo's in the congregation) in so far as they can when it comes to the baptism of an infant or covenant child.

In other words, there is a difference of opinion on this matter, and we have to deal with it.  At Providence we seek to love and accept each other in the Lord despite our quibble over water's application.  

Baptism, while an important issue, isn't a fundamental issue.  For at least 500 years the church has been divided upon it and good Christian men have disagreed.  Fortunately, it doesn't have to be a strident division.  We at Providence have sought to demonstrate that the sign of our unity (the sacrament of baptism, which signifies our union with Christ and each other) does not have to be an issue that actually breaks our unity.

These two dynamics of our church home here in Ashland are just some of what makes Providence such a great place to worship.