Summer 2020

Hello friends, hope this update finds you well.  

CC York & Bible College

CC York

CC York has resumed limited in-person Sunday services and a few prayer meetings during the week but we are still operating online as well.  We’re not sure when we will be able to resume the full gamut of our other ministries such as coffee morning for the older folks and prison ministry but we will walk through those doors when the Lord opens them.

After being surprised by Covid, we were able to finish the spring semester online and had a wonderful graduation ceremony via Zoom.  The students worked very hard and embraced a difficult situation.  They even continued meeting online for devotions several times a week.  Praise God for their diligence.  

We have decided to move full speed ahead for the fall semester of the Bible College.  We have a number of students planning on coming and barring any unforeseen circumstances are looking forward to seeing the Lord’s hand at work in yet another group of students who have drawn apart for a season to study His Word.  I am planning on teaching the book of Joshua and the Gospel of John.  Please pray for the Lord's good hand to be upon us. 

Evangelism

It’s funny- in conversation I quite frequently tell people that I don’t have the gift of evangelism and that I’m an introvert and such and that I dislike walking up to people for the unsolicited purpose of initiating a conversation about Jesus and salvation.  I’m just being honest.  But the Lord has a way of regularly bringing people to me just as I'm out and about and they initiate a conversation and then I steer it toward the things of the Lord.  Not long ago I was walking down by the river in York and a group of young people (3 girls and 2 guys) asked me what my favorite football team was so in jest I said the Philadelphia Eagles (the correct response would have been more along the lines of Liverpool or Manchester United) but it was all in good fun.  My South Jersey accent always gives me away so that was their next question and after chatting for a few minutes I asked them if they had ever heard the gospel before and would they be willing to listen. 

River Ouse in York

They said yes and put down their cigarettes and I shared the message of the gospel with them and then a bit of my own testimony and they were very polite and allowed me to pray for them when I was finished.  It was one of those encounters that had the Lord’s fingerprints all over it and I could feel His Spirit at work.  I didn’t extract a commitment from them but they allowed me to pray for them and they heard the clear message of the Gospel and I encouraged them to search the Scriptures and to seek after the Lord.  

Then again a few weeks ago I was walking by the seashore in Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast and I had a similar experience sharing the gospel with an older man named Patrick.  There’s a beautiful choreography of heaven as we’re led by the Spirit.  The Lord has a way of using the things in our lives that we perceive to be deficiencies for His glory: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us” (2 Cor. 4:7).  To be a servant of Christ is one of the greatest blessings in all the world.  Jesus said that "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work" (John 4:34).  As we walk by faith, we get to step in and take part in the work that He is doing in the world. 

The Harbor in Scarborough

God knows how to diffuse light

I've recently been reading in Job and chapter 38 provides an awesome account of God answering Job out of the whirlwind.  The answering is really a series of rhetorical questions that the Lord asks Job.  He asks the following question:

 “By what way is light diffused, Or the east wind scattered over the earth?” (Job 38:24) 

I was thinking about this and one thing is clear, that God is able to diffuse light and also to withhold it.  The physical phenomenon of light and the incredibly complex process by which the human eye perceives it are remarkable; even more so is the idea of spiritual illumination that physical light is representative of.  As our Lord Jesus was being crucified, light was withheld over the earth from the sixth hour until the ninth hour (Matt. 27:45) in a divine demonstration of the gravity of what was happening as human sin was being atoned for.  As the Israelites were on the verge of deliverance from bondage, the ninth plague caused a situation where the Egyptians were stymied by the darkness but the Israelites had light in their dwellings (Exod. 10:21-23).  God is able to give light to His people and at the same time withhold it from those who oppose Him.  "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" (John 1:5).  We are living in some pretty dark times if we look on the externals but from God's perspective there's quite a different thing going on.  Jesus said, "I am the light of the world.  He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (John 8:12).  The world doesn't see it, but we see it.  We have light in our dwellings.  These are truly exciting days as we behold the face of Jesus and walk in His light.  Praise God for the Rock of our salvation!  Maranatha, come Lord Jesus!