Pitts' Sp●t

The last month has brought a return to many routines that travel and the holiday season had modified.

This semester, I’m helping teach Ancient Church History again, and I am also planning to be a part of the new Hebrew class. I am also beginning to make plans to teach a block class this April on New Testament theology. This is a new class for me, so I would appreciate your prayers as I prepare.

The pastors at Emmanuel Baptist began the year with a brief retreat that ended up being very fruitful. We’re grateful to the Lord for a productive time considering each of the church members and praying that the Lord would enable us to help them pursue Christ-like maturity for the sake of unity around the gospel for his glory. Please pray that Christ would be pleased to stamp his image more and more deeply into our lives as we disciple one another.

I completed a significant project for my doctoral training last month, but there’s another big one coming in the next couple of months. So please keep that in prayer as well.

We’re grateful for your partnership in prayer and in the gospel.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I’ll be taking a couple of days off starting tomorrow afternoon, so I wanted to get in a much needed update before then.

After Cornerstone Baptist Church’s constituting service at the end of October, I left on a short visit to the States for a couple of conferences and some time at the library to work on my dissertation. I enjoyed a sweet time of fellowship and mutual encouragement at a missions conference at Ruby Mountain Bible Church near Elko, NV. Later that month I was able to catch up with several colleagues and my doctoral reader at the Evangelical Theological Society conference in San Antonio.

I returned briefly at the end of November only to take off again to the Leadership Conference at Central Africa Baptist University where I had a special opportunity to co-teach 1 and 2 Peter with my sending church pastor. It was great to catch up with him and with several dear friends who live and work there, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to teach several hundred pastors and church leaders in the block class.

I’m thankful for the Lord’s grace during this productive time. Please keep us in your prayers as I seek to continue to faithfully fulfill my calling as an associate pastor here at Emmanuel Baptist Church. Pray also as I seek to continue work on my dissertation. Research can be slow at times, but the pages just need to get written. In addition it looks like I will be co-teaching Hebrew in the new year.

I make an effort to regularly pray for our partner churches. May the Lord grant you unspeakable and glorious joy as you consider how he did not consider equality with God as something to be used for his own advantage. Rather he took on a true human nature—among an oppressed people, during a dark time—to save us from sin’s tyranny and death’s terror. Now that he is risen and ascended, he uses his authority to grant forgiveness and his Spirit to each of us who call upon him. This is good news!

Early last year, Emmanuel Baptist Church sent out a church planter to work in Obama, a neighborhood on the east side of Nairobi with limited access to the biblical gospel. Philip and few other members have been hard at work evangelizing and discipling people in that area. After some extensive time introducing a small group of believers to what the Bible teaches about sound doctrine and meaningful church membership, they are planning to constitute as Cornerstone Baptist late this month.

Over the last several months, EBC has been preparing to say goodbye to some of our dear friends as members of our church leave to start another church in the northeast part of town.

The road to this church plant was long and fraught with difficulty, but we’re grateful for the way the Lord Jesus has kept pursuing his glory in our sanctification as well as in the multiplication of churches.

Please pray for the Cornerstone Baptist Church that the word of God would spread rapidly and be honored in their community.

Please pray for the North Point Baptist Church as they adjust to a new neighborhood, to a different workload, and to their own rhythm of life together.

Pray for Emmanuel Baptist too. Our gatherings just won’t be the same without our friends. And the work of ministry will be spread out over fewer hands. Yet these are the sad but good farewells that the gospel calls us to.

We’re grateful for your prayers for the class on ancient church history. Interaction in the classes has been enjoyable. Studying the writings of the church fathers themselves has been instructive, and I have found the time spent learning from these early Christians nourishing to the soul. Please continuing praying for students’ growth in theological depth as well as biblical discernment.

I’m also co-teaching a class on the Prosperity Gospel at Emmanuel Baptist for our member instruction time (or adult Sunday school). The class seeks to equip our members to wield their congregational authority well by distinguishing false gospels from the true gospel. While exploring false teaching is not fun in itself, it has been soul-enriching to continually return the promises of the biblical gospel: union with Christ, acceptance before God, and eternal and heavenly joys.

Recently I had an interesting opportunity to visit a wheelchair ministry with a fellow pastor. As is often the case throughout the world, those who face long-term physical challenges to mobility can easily be overlooked, or worse, seen as cursed by God. Yet (as my reading in ancient church history bears out) Christians have often sought to uphold the dignity of those in need and aid where they can.

Your continued prayers are always appreciated.

Continue also to pray for my role in biblical counseling and shepherding. Recently the call to obedience, perseverance, and holiness found throughout the New Testament has increasingly taken the shape of cross in my mind. Part of the way we “know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings” (Phil 3:10) is through the daily death to self required in loving spouse, employer, church member, neighbor, or enemy. Pray that the Lord would strengthen and equip us as a church to help one another follow Christ in these ways. It is only in union with Jesus that we know forgiveness of sins and hope for change.

Image: Wikipedia

As many of you are aware, we have returned from a brief assignment back in the States reporting to our supporting church, mostly in the West. We averaged about 1,000 miles on the road each week were away, so we’re grateful to the Lord for safety in travel. We’re also grateful for the ways that he provided for us through your generosity.

Now that we have returned, I am resettling into my roles, and we’re conscious once again of our continued need for God’s grace from beginning to end. Here are a few prayer requests that I have shared recently.

Please thank the Lord with us for safety and health during our travel in the States.
Thank the Lord also for providing for our needs through his people as we traveled. In this quarter, we’ve had two churches let us know that they’re going to add us as gospel partners and begin to support us financially as well as prayerfully.
Please pray for Jenny and me in our discipling relationships, including our parenting. Pray that our marriage shines forth with joy and hope in the gospel and that the Spirit bears the fruit of Christlikeness in us and in those we seek to serve.
Pray for me as I prepare and teach an intensive course for our Hebrew students and a class in early church history.

The year has begun with a rush of activity and a blitz of meetings. Much of January we were preparing for and launching Emmanuel Baptist Church’s pastoral internship. We’re grateful for five godly, gifted men who will be walking with the pastoral staff and growing in their understanding of biblical church ministry. The internship focuses on reading, cohort learning, and Socratic discussions, and the interns will also have several opportunities to give short Bible messages from the book of 1 Peter. Pray that this five-month intensive will be instrumental and formative for these men as they seek to mature in their pastoral aspirations.

We’re also planning to a visit to the US in the near future. So we have squeezed in several extra meetings with friends and fellow members at EBC. It’s great how a clear deadline can make help us get meet-ups into the calendar. Jenny and I have enjoyed studying books with some folks, getting to know others for the first time, and working to counsel and disciple as the Lord has provided opportunity. Pray for continued growth in maturity as we seek to follow Christ as a church. Your faithfulness in prayer is a deep encouragement to us!

It ended up being a relatively mild case, but it meant the reason for my travel (proposing the topic to my dissertation) had to be done online instead of in-person according to plan. Nevertheless, the proposal was approved, and I have been freed to officially begin the researching and writing stage.

While in the States, I was also able to attend the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual national conference. Conferences like this gives me an opportunity to sharpen my grasp on current developments in evangelical scholarship, to grab a few books, and to catch up with other friends with this calling. This time I enjoyed the special privilege of meeting with a couple members from our church here in Nairobi: another teacher in our program here and one of the residents I had the privilege teaching this year. It is exciting to see the ways the Lord is helping us take steps in equipping Kenyan congregations to train their own men through solid theology and godly pastoral leadership.

Your prayers on our behalf are a source of joy and confidence. Thank you for your faithfulness to Christ’s mission.

I believe I was college age before I had seen a colorful fall. Growing up in the Southwest, the trees of autumn were brown and then bare. We didn’t know what we were missing. Living now in the tropics, on the other side of the equator, we have a different view of these months.

I have continued teaching the pastoral theology class this month. We’re reading books by Charles Bridges and Charles Spurgeon, nineteenth century pastors in England, which have been encouraging—some things about pastoral ministry never change. Pray that the classroom discussions and assignments prove to be fruitful for these men as they continue to pursue pastoral ministry.

This month we also worked on our plans and priorities for ministry training next year. Pray that the Lord would continue to guide us as we interview a new crew of intern candidates in the coming weeks. I’m excited about the prospects.

Continue to pray for my doctoral studies. I’m making progress and anticipating some travel in the near future to get some in-person input and research on the topic I’m proposing. As always your faithful prayers and partnership in the gospel are a joy and treasure to us.

The plenary sessions all concentrated on some facet of the person and work of Christ, and everything I had the opportunity to catch was nourishing to the soul. Please continue to pray for opportunities like this to strengthen other churches in our area of the world.

It was nice to get some rest, to get ahead on some reading, and to see God’s beautiful creation in a less-familiar context.