September 1995
Dear Saints,
May
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ abound with you mightily.
Sister Bonnie, Aaron, Gabrielle and I are ready for
my 14th consecutive year of campus evangelism!
This year is going to be missionary furlough year
with an emphasis on reaching churches that have been requesting my presence in
their pulpits for quite some time now.
How I operated in the past was to park our trailer at the church that
was closest to a university or college campus and preach on that campus for a
week as well as in the closest churches in that area and then move on. There are hundreds of churches, because
of their location to a university, that I have never preached in. There are hundreds of churches within a one
hundred mile radius of many the campuses that I have repeatedly preached on in
the past. Due to the fact that I
average about one campus per week I move on to the next campus and do not branch
out to the other churches that have opened their doors to my ministry. This manner of travel has resulted in my
leaving behind sometimes up to thirty or so church doors that I have yet to
walk through.
For example, in the Oklahoma City area there must be
30 or more churches that would let me preach tomorrow if need be but because
there is only one major university and one small college in that area I always
park at the closest church resulting in me preaching for that church and maybe
one other during the week and then moving on down the road to preach the
following week at another campus. This
approach puts preaching on campus the main priority and it is this approach
that I have maintained for 14 straight years.
On the other hand there is the western part of
Virginia where there is not an open campus within 100 miles yet there are 50 or
more churches that I have personal invitations to preach at. The only time that I have preached in some
of these churches is when I took a week off from preaching on campus.
Pastors continually ask me when I am going to get
around to their church. Some Pastors
have even told me that they want to support me monthly but I need to come by
their church first so that I can be introduced to their congregations. This is what I plan to do this year.
This will reduce my rate of travel tremendously thus
decreasing my expenses while I increase my income by preaching in more
churches. To me this is basic economics
101.
We thank you for your love and prayers.
Brother Jim - Sister Bonnie - Aaron - Gabrielle