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Pastor's Letters

Second Presbyterian Church believes our Lord wants us involved in His missionary work in a variety of ways: faithful worship and service, individual evangelism, Evangelism Explosion training, local outreach, prison ministry, Reformed University Ministries (RUF and RUFI) on college campuses, PCA Mission to the World and other international mission works, and in the planting of faithful, Reformed, ordinary-means-ofgrace churches. Second Church is currently involved with two such churches – Grace Presbyterian church plant in Spartanburg, SC, and New Covenant Presbyterian church plant in Richmond Hill (a suburb of Savannah, Georgia).

We want to assist these growing churches in tangible ways. After discussions with the church planter of New Covenant, the Reverend Nicholas (Nick) Batzig, we agreed that the best way for us to help them in their church planting efforts is to partner with them in conducting a Vacation Bible school. This will help to build up their growing church body and to reach out to the community with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We decided to use the same VBS curriculum that we used this year. After our own VBS a few weeks ago, we gathered all the available materials that were left over. By using the same VBS curriculum and our decorations and other materials, the cost to conduct the VBS will be kept to a minimum. We have assembled a great team of adults and youth to work with a similar group from New Covenant. They have offered to host us in their homes and to feed our team to keep expenses to a minimum.

The VBS will be held Wednesday, July 20, through Friday, July 22, in the local community center. This is a well-known and well-used venue in the Richmond Hill community. New Covenant has been publicizing the VBS in a variety of ways and has been praying diligently for our Lord’s provision of the Holy Spirit to build His church. They are very excited about the opportunity to minister to their own children and to reach out to the families in their community. They have about 15 children in their church and Pastor Batzig is hoping for another 20-30 children from the families in the area. Pastor Batzig says that this VBS is the only one to be held during the day (the other churches that are conducting VBS programs are having them in the evening). He believes that this will increase our attendance.

In addition to the VBS, the team will also assist New Covenant in other outreach activities including ministry in nursing/extend-care facilities and conducting adult Bible training. Would you join with us in this missionary effort? You may say, “But, I can’t go to Savannah on those dates.” That may be true but there are still several valuable things you can do to assist the team: Pray, Pray, Pray!!!! – Pray for 1) our preparation and presentation of the VBS material, 2) our integration with the team from New Covenant, 3) our love for one another and preferring others over ourselves, 4) our Father to send the Holy Spirit to prepare hearts to hear the gospel and to respond in faith, 5) our Father to move in adults and children to attend the VBS, 6) the financial provision for the team, 7) safe travel to Savannah and back, and 8) the encouragement of New Covenant PCA, the pastor, and the other elders. In addition to prayer for these things, please consider how you can help the team financially. We don’t need a lot of money for this trip, but we do need some to rent the facility, to purchase and print materials, to publicize the events, and to defray the travel expense and ancillary expenses.

Summer mission teams have proved a benefit to the Church of Jesus Christ in a variety of ways: 1) to encourage and help the mission churches and the pastors that labor there, 2) to build relationships between our church and our sister church, 3) to give our church members, especially our youth and young adults, first-hand experience in missions work, 4) to help and encourage us to pray more regularly and pointedly for missions and our sister churches, 5) to encourage some of our young people (and adults) to consider mission work as their life vocation, and 6) to increase our giving to evangelism and missions. If you have any questions about the Savannah summer mission trip, please contact Pastor Spears at 430-7389. If you desire to donate to our summer mission projects, please designate the amount on your giving envelope or put it in an envelope and clearly mark it for the “Savannah Summer Mission Team.”

In His Service,
Pastor Spear