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August 2008 Prayer Letter

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:50:58 GMT

August 1, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

About a month ago we as a simple church made the decision together to multiply into two areas. One group will meet in the Maywood/Huntington Park area of Los Angeles with seven people, one of whom is Kenneth, one of our longstanding disciples and developing leaders. The other group, which I will remain with, will maintain a presence in the South LA/USC area, and will effectively begin from scratch with all missionaries and a burning desire to reach our neighbors with the love of Jesus. We did this for two reasons. The first was that this was partly our original intent when we decided to form a simple church out of our World Impact Family Group and the five indigenous leaders we were modeling simple church for. The second was that we World Impact missionaries within the church felt like it was time to begin opening up our church to the whole neighborhood and everyone within our circle of influence. The trial period was finished, but we had a taste for how awesome this would be for others, and we did not want to contain it within our insulated group.

This new phase for us has really excited me for the possibilities for our neighborhood. It has been a bothersome little nag in the back of my brain all this time that I have been actively pursuing discipling relationships all over the city, while effectively ignoring my own block. I know that there are many others on my block who are reaching out to my neighbors, and there have been many church plants and church plant efforts that have reached this street for years, but the fact remains that there are still many who are NOT reached, who have not heard the full Gospel account in their entire lives, and who would be transformed by an encounter with Jesus.

I am rediscovering my roots as a missionary. I am feeling about my block and immediate neighborhood what I felt when I first came to this community 12 and a half years ago. I have moved much between now and then, but I feel the desire to get out and rediscover with fresh eyes what my community is all about, what stories it tells, what issues plague it, and what aspects reflect the Kingdom. I want to fall in love with my neighborhood again and not assume I know what is happening in the hearts and minds of my neighbors simply because I have lived here for a while. Things constantly change. People change. Actual neighbors change. Shifts in demographics occur. Gentrification is even happening, which we must be aware of. Many of the open lots that were abandoned for ten years or more are now being developed into restaurants. Storefronts are getting facelifts. USC students, alumni, and professors are moving into the houses where once only the poor lived. Even the name “South Central” has been abandoned by the city for the less baggage-laden “South LA.”

Thank you for the prayers you have offered to the Lord for us all these months and years. Your prayers are paying off handsomely with many open doors to neighbors and brand new sections of the city. We would ask that you pray now for us in this new phase of our simple church, as we multiply into two, as we seek to raise up leaders in these new simple churches that will be able to lead in our stead, and as we seek to reach our goals of 16 people being discipled, 16 new converts/believers baptized, and three churches by November of this year.

In His Service,

Bryan Cullison

July 2008 Prayer Letter

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:50:12 GMT

July 1, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

From the middle of April until now we have been living out what the experience of simple church can be with five leaders from the community that have been in our Fire and Maneuver training. We decided to do this because church is better caught than taught, and also because for most of us, the classroom is not where our best comprehension comes. In order to fortify what was happening in our weekly formal teaching times going through the five elements of a church plant movement, we decided to open up our World Impact-only simple church to these five leaders as well, with the intention of commissioning them out at the end of the time to start (or continue, as is the case for some) a simple church themselves in their own neighborhood.

As we began to do this, the Spirit brought to our attention a few lessons that we had been slow in understanding. One of these lessons was that simple church is not just a traditional church service in a smaller room. We really wanted to get back to the heart and spirit of what the early church experienced when they met together, and the Apostle Paul’s writings really helped us along. I Corinthians 14:26 is especially enlightening in that we want there to be a freedom and an expectation that the Lord will work through everyone present, from the oldest to the youngest, the most mature to the least, female and male, middle-class and poor, formally-educated and street-educated. We wanted the Spirit to guide our time together instead of pre-assigning set leaders and times for the opening prayer, twenty minutes of worship, a sermon, etcetera. You know the drill. We had been guilty of trying to simply bring the old wineskin in for this new wine. Now we allow what is going on in each participant’s life and what the Lord is teaching them to speak into our time, and the Lord brings songs, burdens for prayer, and His Word to our hearts as we all share. This was an admittedly awkward process at times, and still is occasionally, but it is so cool to see when the Spirit moves us as a group when we trust Him. We are like a livelier version of the Quakers.

Recently, one man in our group began to share after we all arrived about some family struggles he was enduring, and we spent an elongated period of time interceding for him and encouraging him. This led to another young woman sharing out of her own pain, and we in turn lifted her up in prayer. It became clear when three more people after this shared their own battles that we had all been under severe spiritual attack, but had thought we were alone in that. We now recognized our common struggles, and the Lord in turn gave at least four different people very specific and appropriate passages of Scripture that perfectly spoke into our lives. We transitioned very naturally from this to the Lord’s Supper, where the theme we resonated with this time was identifying with the suffering of Christ. That was our time. It was not anything earth shattering or new, but it brought us closer as a group to each other and to the Lord, and it was such a beautiful and spontaneous worship experience.

Please continue to pray for us as we pursue being the Church in the structure of simple churches here in the city. Pray that we will be faithful to God’s Word and a radical force of love in action for our immediate community. Pray that these five young leaders we are training will continue to pursue the vision of being a part of this simple-church-multiplying-movement here in Los Angeles.

In His Service,

Bryan Cullison

June 2008 Prayer Letter

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:48:37 GMT

June 1, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

There is a famous legend that tells of a wise man in India who so pleased the king (or beat him in chess, as another version goes) that he was offered anything he wanted as a prize. When he asked that he be rewarded with one grain of rice for the first square of a chessboard, two for the second square, four for the third, and so on, doubling the amount of rice for each square, the king readily agreed, thinking the request modest. By the time he reached just the end of the second row, the king realized he was in deep trouble. Even halfway through the board, the king would owe the wise man over 2 billion grains of rice. So as not to forfeit all the rice of India, legend also has it that the king just had the wise man killed.

This fable is an example of why I have been captured by the idea and genius of reproduction as of late. Having reread The Making of a Disciple for perhaps the fourth time, I keep coming back to this powerful concept of multiplication. In the book, Dr. Phillips compares the effectiveness of an evangelist who wins one convert a day with that of a discipler who disciples one person a year. After one year, the evangelist has 365 converts (defined in this example as those who simply assent to a belief in Christ with no further action), while the discipler only one disciple. If these disciples continue to reproduce themselves though, spending an entire year to disciple one other person, by the end of the 14th year they will have nearly doubled the number of converts. Within 34 years, or one generation, the entire world's population would be discipled!

Jesus knew what He was doing when He gave the disciples the Great Commission before ascending to heaven. Would that we would obey it! Even the early church, for all that they did well, and for the wonderful model of community they gave us, failed to consistently make disciples that make disciples. If they had, long ago the world would have been won for Jesus.

I say all of this to challenge you to first be a disciple of Jesus yourself, being careful to obey all that the Lord Jesus taught. Secondly, ask the Lord to show you this month who He might have you disciple this year. Reproduce in them what there is of Jesus in you. I am seeking to do this in Casey, Jonathan and others here in Los Angeles. Please pray that these men and I will all prove to be faithful in this process, and that we be willing and able to do the same thing for someone else next year.

If you ever want ideas or resources on how to go about starting to disciple, please let me know! It is my favorite thing to talk about.

In His Service,

Bryan Cullison

March 2008 Prayer Letter

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:57:56 GMT

March 1, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

It is not often that you get to immediately apply what you learn in a Bible Study or discipleship teaching. I was just having lunch with a young man named Kenneth, whom I have written about previously and who is being discipled by Terry and me. We were reading through a chapter in Dr. Keith Phillips’ book The Making of a Disciple, and the topic was forgiveness. We discussed how we were doing in the area of forgiving others, forgiving ourselves, receiving forgiveness from others, and receiving forgiveness from God.

After leaving this meeting, I went to go pray with my team in the local World Impact Los Angeles office. Right after the prayer time, a few of us helped to transport some items that the office no longer needed down to our thrift store, The Sonshine Shop. What you need to understand is that the office has been going through some major renovations in the last month for the first time since it was initially used, and so we have been used to seeing major activity and foot traffic in and out of the office at all times, usually with the downstairs door unlocked while we were there to allow people in and out with less hassle. After taking my load of stuff to the Sonshine Shop, literally next door, I returned to the office, and I closed the door behind me. Coming down the stairs was a man I had never seen, but I assumed he had been meeting with someone in the office. I apologized for having closed the door on him, as I had not seen him at first. He said, “No problem. God bless you.” I went on my way. Finishing my climb, I went over to my backpack, and noticed its front zipper was open. Then I noticed my wallet was gone. Not wanting to be quick to accuse or assume, I quickly scanned all the places I had been since coming to the office after lunch. Realizing that I indeed had probably been robbed, I ran down the stairs to the street to see if I could see the man I had so benignly passed. Of course he had vanished. My next thought was, well, maybe I left it in Terry’s Pathfinder, or at the restaurant where we ate lunch. Again, no luck. Within an hour of all of this, I called my bank and my two credit card companies, and found out to my chagrin that almost $500 had been charged between the three of them. Thankfully, I had no cash in the wallet. In fact, the day before I had received a tract from a ministry contact of mine which was a pretty convincing fake $1,000,000 bill with the gospel message on it. This must have been a disappointment to the thief. This is not to mention all the other cards which had Bible Study invitations on them, summaries of the Gospel, the seven basic commands of Christ, and the Nicene Creed.

I tell you this story to demonstrate God’s goodness and ability to redeem good out of a bad situation. Were this not to have happened, this lesson on forgiveness probably would have gone unnoticed, another forgotten lesson amongst the thousands that we hear over the course of our lives. It has forced me once again to evaluate the simplicity of my life and the priorities I give to things and security, and realize the importance of every man’s soul over against our love of money. I do forgive this man. I pray that he gets way more use out of the Gospel cards than he does the credit cards. The Lord knows his soul is worth more than $500.

In His Service,

Bryan Cullison

February 2008 Prayer Letter

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:56:59 GMT

February 1, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

I have an embarrassing admission to make. I used to listen to a band called “White Heart.” They were one of the big Christian rock bands in the late 80's, and I thought they were really cutting edge and cool. No doubt they were at the time, for what Christian music was. They had the big hair and the big voice power ballads. For all what I may consider cheesy now though, I think back to some of the song lyrics they wrote, and they still affect me. One of the best lines was from this song called, “More Sold Out”, and it said, “Are they working harder at what we think is wrong, than we are at what we know is right?” The basic point of the song was a challenge to us as followers of Jesus not to be outworked and “shown up” by nonbelievers in the area of commitment and passion. Those in the world who are working for a lesser mission than building the Kingdom of God should not be more devoted to their cause than those who are supposedly dedicated to God, especially when we have the Holy Spirit's power within us.

I mention this because I often feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit that I am lacking in my commitment and heart to live out the task He has given me for the time. It is not that I do not try, or am not serious, or do not believe in what I am doing. Quite the opposite, I would not choose to be doing anything else at this point, nor do I feel that I personally could be doing anything more strategic for the building of the Lord's Kingdom with my current gifts and understanding than what I am. When it comes down to the day by day, hour by hour decisions though, often the motivation of my heart is not so sold out to the bigger mission, but is bent towards my own personal comfort and selfish agenda. Sometimes I want to just “get through” my day so I can relax at home and watch the game or eat dinner. How can this be? How can I, knowing what is at stake, be drawn in by these pedestrian activities? It is almost as if I was at war, on the frontlines, on mission to rescue a town of villagers from the enemy, and I am preoccupied with playing cards in the barracks with the other soldiers, oblivious to the cries of the civilians a stone's throw away.

I am committed to try to live out the example of Paul the apostle more in my life. Here was a man of God who was completely sold out to whatever “team” he was on. When he was a Pharisee, he took it upon himself to destroy the people who believed otherwise. When he encountered Jesus, he spent the rest of his life knowing Him and making Him known, at great personal cost and sacrifice. This is the man who wrote my life verse, Colossians 3:23 (NIV), “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” This verse, the example of Paul, a song from a long-forgotten Christian rock band-all of these have been used to instill conviction, motivation, and inspiration for me. Please pray for me that I will persevere. Sometimes the greatest obstacle of commitment to a mission is simply comfort. Pray that I will not be complacent. Pray that I will be compelled by the Holy Spirit and obedient to His promptings to be radically available and active and used by Him. Pray that my priorities will be right and that I will actually live out in real time what I claim with words.

In His Service,

Bryan Cullison

January 2008 Prayer Letter

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:55:49 GMT

January 1, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

The call came through on my cell phone at 2:48 am. These early morning calls are never good. I answered it in a panic. “Bryan, Cesar Santiago is in the emergency room right now. They have already had to revive him two times, and he has no brain activity. It doesn’t look good.” What?!? Cesar was at our Friday night youth service just three nights ago! I made a phone call to our director and then I just prayed. I understood with a new freshness the verse in Romans 8 about the Holy Spirit interceding for us with groans that words cannot express when we do not know what to pray. 17 minutes later the other shoe dropped. I got a call saying he was gone. Cesar Santiago died at 14 years young.

I had taught Cesar from kindergarten through third grade when I still worked at the Los Angeles Christian School before I fully transferred over to church planting. Cesar was always a happy kid, very funny, and very comfortable in his own skin. He had a great attitude, and while not the overachiever, was humble and teachable. I enjoyed Cesar. He was a unique kid, and the more I heard testimonies about him from his peers after his death, the more I liked him. This often seems to happen. Those who pass away are canonized, their faults are gone, and only the good memories are relayed. I understand that.

Just a few months before, Cesar went on a summer youth leadership trip to San Francisco, of which he was only one of eight youth that qualified and were able to go. They had been running a Kids Bible Club that week they were there, and while they had planned for 50 kids, only one showed up each day (the same one). Not wanting to let the moment slip by, after about three days, Cesar just asked him if he had ever decided to become a follower of Jesus, and if he wanted to. Right there Cesar led this little boy to Christ. This was to be the one story that was common to what everyone wanted to relay about Cesar after his death.

Cesar loved the Lord, and his life as a follower of Jesus was evidenced by his love for others. I was touched to hear story upon story from his peers about the quiet, unseen ways in which Cesar had reached out to his friends. He was generous and thoughtful and warm. People liked being around him. I know I looked forward to seeing him on Friday nights at our Kaleo service, because I could always count on being greeted at the gate with a hug from Cesar. This is an unusual thing from a teenage boy. Please pray mostly for his family. They went to church for the first time in a while the few Sundays after Cesar’s passing. They discovered firsthand the love of the Kingdom of God as the Christian community surrounded and showered them with love, support, meals, comfort, presence, and prayer after this tragic event. The mother and brother of Cesar were already believers in Jesus, but the father just accepted Christ. Pray that together they will be comforted, will find peace in Jesus, and that they will discover together, following Cesar’s example, what it means to be true followers of Jesus.

In His Service,

Bryan Cullison

December 2007 Prayer Letter

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:51:34 GMT

December 1, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Back in March I introduced you to a young man named Kenneth that we met on the campus of Trade Tech. Since then we have continued to develop a great relationship with him, and he has ministered alongside us faithfully for the last ten months. As a team we have been consistently prayerwalking, making friends, and sharing the good news of the Gospel on that campus. This last week one of our teammates prayed in our team meeting that God would form three new simple churches on this campus. That very day God started letting us see the fruit of that prayer start to blossom.

First, after arriving at Trade Tech, we found out that there was a huge gathering taking place in the library basement to discuss the police crackdown that happened the week before. This was attended by a large throng of African-American students, for they were the ones who had primarily been the targets of the major sweep through campus, most of whom ended up being released because they had done nothing wrong. The police representatives were there, along with some civil rights groups, a cameraman, a representative from the Mayor, and two of our teammates. Leading the hearing was a student from Journeymen, a mentoring group for young African-American males on campus. It just “so happened” that this same young man was one Terry from our team had led back to Christ just the week before (another story in itself). Before the meeting, this young man, whom I will call Michael, took Terry aside and asked him if he could show him some Scripture to read about justice to start the meeting off. They settled on the Beatitudes from Matthew, and so Michael read it. Michael and his mentor, a strong Christian African-American man who leads Journeymen, facilitated the whole meeting, and literally acted as the people of peace amongst a lot of angry and defensive parties. This meeting has laid the groundwork for many other relationships on that campus, and these two men of peace, Michael and his mentor, are now working with us to start a simple church (or more) amongst this circle of people. They felt the urgency from this time to start meeting right away as a group.

Next, three of the women in our team found their Bible Study friends whom they had been developing relationships with over the past month. The few of them started to gather to study the Word, and more young students gathered around over the course of the study. Eventually ten young women were at this little picnic table in the middle of campus, and Sunny, a teammate, took the opportunity to clearly share the Gospel with all of them. Before she could even get done, Anna (not her real name), a Christian student who has quickly stepped up in her commitment to work with us to see a church start there, got up and challenged these young women to step up themselves in their walk of faith, and to be serious about following Jesus. This is another completely separate circle of people whom God is working amongst.

Lastly, myself and Kenneth met up with a student whom we had befriended about three weeks before, and whom had consistently been meeting with us for prayer and Scripture study since. This young man, “Stephen”, is asking a lot of really good questions about the nature of God. We have shared the Gospel with him and he has accepted it. He grew up in a Catholic household, was even baptized, but he has been very confused about the meaning of it all, and is really struggling with a ideas that are coming at him from a lot of directions. As we talked through with him the idea of repentance, belief, baptism, and the importance of being in the Word, it seemed like the next step was to take communion next week as a group of three, teaching by Word and example the meaning of the Church, and the importance of a spiritual community. Not coincidentally, the women from the paragraph above also agreed that they will be celebrating the Lord’s Supper next week as well. In this wonderful two hour period we saw God bringing three little communities together as His Church, and it was so exciting to be a part of. Please pray for these young disciples and for us as we keep pointing them to Jesus and His Word as their foundation.

In His Service,

Bryan Cullison

November Prayer Letter

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:09:15 GMT

November 1, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

When we are five years old, we say we want to be what our moms or our dads are. When we are eight or nine, we say we want to be a fireman or a policeman (at least the boys do). When we are a teenager, we either want to be a professional athlete, actor, or musician. When we hit our twenties, we all want to change the world. Of course, hardly any of us ever really know what we mean when we say that, and even fewer of us end up catalyzing the kind of worldwide change we once dreamed of.

As I think about church plant movements, I think of something that would change the world. In Acts 17, Paul and his companions are nearly swept up into an angry mob who is accusing them of “starting trouble all over the world.” That is the kind of trouble we want to see! Churches spontaneously multiplying uncontrollably, disciples being made entire households at a time, businesses based on human oppression being turned on their ear, the sick and disabled being healed, and people being delivered from their addictions. We want to see not only anecdotal change, but statistical change. In the book Nexus, the editor Rad Zdero chronicles such movements across the globe, citing examples from the underground Chinese house church which saw 160,000 new believers baptized in a single year, Northern India which had 4000 churches planted in ten years, and even the United States, where Church Multiplication Associates started 1000 churches in seven years. This is not about church growth, this is about the Church growing and transforming its communities. When disciples are made who are radically obedient to Jesus, neighborhoods will not stay the same. It is impossible.

We no longer want to plant a church here and a church there, taking five years to start each little congregation. We are in the business of seeing a church plant movement (CPM) take off. We cannot make this happen, but we can align ourselves with what God is doing and according to some solid Biblical principles that have been consistently true with other CPM’s around the world. This is why I am excited about the Fire and Maneuver simple church planting that we have been engaged in for the past ten months.

For eight months it was only Terry and myself on a team, and we still saw God work in a variety of areas helping us locate key people of peace and begin one simple church at Los Angeles City College. Now, six more from our World Impact Los Angeles ministry have joined us, quadrupling our numbers to eight, and giving us four teams of two, instead of one. This is exciting. We are training not only these six, but also helping to facilitate this vision for CPMs within our organization as a whole. We are able to cover more ground, experiment more, and create a momentum in our organizational conversation that helps people understand and come alongside even more with their own respective gifts and burdens. Please pray for the eight members of the Fire and Maneuver team as we go out to the urban poor communities in Los Angeles and share Jesus with them. We need boldness, love, and open doors.

In His Service,

Bryan Cullison

October Prayer Letter

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:07:57 GMT

October 1, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Who you are is more important than what you do. Who you are is more important than what you do. WHO YOU ARE is more important than WHAT YOU DO. Of course the two elements are inextricably intertwined, but the truth we glean is that our character is more significant than the roles we play or the tasks we accomplish. This is new to none of us. Neither is “Eat your vegetables,” or, “Floss every night,” but that does not mean we faithfully adhere to the principles we so readily say we believe.

I am celebrating the year anniversary of the Learning Community I was invited to join consisting of other young urban ministers in Los Angeles. This group of men has challenged me to be real with who I am and where I am at while simultaneously striving to grow in the direction of Jesus. Many of the books we have read together and processed through have been on the theme of spiritual formation, inner life, and being vulnerably and painfully real with those we live life with.

It is a theme that has repeated itself on many occasions over the past few months through a variety of mediums--Bible Studies, conversations, sermons, and even movies I have remembered. I confess that I take the shortcut so many times. It is vastly easier to seem like you have it all together and to play the role of a minister than to actually be the person you teach and disciple about. I have seen this in my life when I am more concerned about getting task x done than in spending some intimate time with the Lord. I am convicted when I treat with more dignity and patience the stranger on the street I am witnessing to than my girlfriend Jennifer, whom I claim to love. It is ugly and altogether too common when I seek justice for others and mercy for myself, or when I judge others by their actions and want others to judge me by my motivations. I understand the Pharisees all too well when I allow myself to admit that I act the same way. I happily lap up the respect that is afforded to someone who is a “World Impact missionary”, and I do nothing to correct the impressive image they may have of me due to my position. So many times the motivation for the decisions I make in the daily moments of my life can be summarized by what pleases and impresses people instead of what pleases and glorifies God. The return is so much more immediate and evident.

I am so thankful to the Lord for his patience with us and his ever-willingness to forgive. I am thankful that He continues to teach us until we learn and obey. I ask for both your forgiveness as members of the Body of Christ and for your prayers for me as I come to understand more what it means to be His follower. I am motivated and convicted to BE the man HE wants me to be. Please pray that I will be motivated by the right things, that I will be patient during the journey, and that I will be disciplined to be obedient. Thank you for your support, as always. We serve a great God.

In His Service,

Bryan Cullison

September Prayer Letter

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:01:59 GMT

September 1, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

The Apostle Paul says something very interesting in his first letter to the Church in Corinth. In the opening chapter, he talks about how he has hardly baptized anyone as he has gone about his ministry and church planting. In fact, he even goes so far as to declare that Christ did not send him to baptize, but to preach the gospel. Paul of all people, one of the most productive, amazing, and well-known evangelists and apostles the world has ever seen, did not baptize very many people. Of all things, I would have thought this would have been something he would have done the most of. Now why do you suppose this was the case?

One of the things I have learned while trying to plant simple churches gave me some illumination into why this might have been true for Paul. As we go out and make disciples, and as we gather them together, they naturally will want to bring more of their friends and family. As the people in their life come to know Jesus, and want to be baptized, we have the ones we are discipling baptize them. We do this for three reasons. One is that it bonds the new believers together with the ones who baptize them--not to us. This makes it easier for us to transition out someday. Two, this stirs up a passion and desire in the disciple to see more people come to Christ, as the joy becomes addictive. Three, it communicates to the new believer that we are all ministers of Jesus Christ if we follow and obey Him, and the line between clergy and laity starts to erase (a good thing). I believe Paul did the same thing in the cities he visited and ministered in. As people came to Christ, he had them baptize each other, instead of him doing all of the work. This decentralization of the work of the Church did not allow there to be an unhealthy dependency on Paul, which would have rendered the churches immature as he left to go to other cities.

When we asked Joshua (from last month’s letter) to help plan his baptism, we encouraged him to bring as many friends and family as possible as an opportunity to witness to them of the great things God has done in his life. At his baptism, he had four of his younger friends from his street come. After hanging out at the beach for some time, we shared why we were gathering at the beach that day. When they learned that their friend Joshua was getting baptized, which he apparently had not shared with them yet, they were surprised. This led them to ask many more questions about our beliefs, and we let Celestine and Kenneth answer almost everything. When it came time to baptize Joshua and Katarina, another young lady in the simple church, we had Celestine and Kenneth baptize them as well.

It is a beautiful thing to witness the ones we are discipling step out in faith and minister themselves. Seeing your faith reproduced in another is a joy I think can only be compared to seeing your own biological children turn out well. Please continue to pray for the simple church based at Los Angeles City College. It is growing steadily, and the Lord is adding to our number through the public witness of the believers there. Pray for the perseverance and joy of the saints there, that they may live to see themselves reproduced as well.
In His Service,

Bryan Cullison