We just returned from hosting our 2nd Annual Pastor's Conference on the campus of South India Baptist Bible College in Coimbatore, India. The Lord gave us a wonderful meeting with approximately 240 National Pastors in attendance. We conducted two general sessions and 3 split-sessions each day.

An excellent team of men accompanied us this year. In addition to Dr. Charles Keen and myself, we were joined by the following pastors: Gary Ledford of Atlanta, GA; Scott Hooks of Hickory, NC; Richard Scheer of Lancaster, NY; James Overton of Newark, OH; Andrew Dennis of Dresden, Ohio and Michael Peslak of Bridgeport, CT. These men not only made great contribution to our conference, but we had great fellowship with them.

One additional blessing was that Dr. Cherian and the South India Baptist Bible College conferred upon me an Honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree. This was a very special honor. They have a 26 year record of high academics and the solid Biblical training of young men and women for ministry.

We have already set the dates for next year. The conference will take place on Tuesday-Thursday, February 1-3, 2011. If you would be interested in going, please commit early. We are already making plans.

Our National Conference was held at Franklin Road Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, TN again this year. We were blessed in the evening services by the preaching of Dr. Raymond Hancock, Dr. Greg Baker and Dr. Paul Chappell. Daytime sessions were conducted by the FirstBible team of Dr. Keen, Dr. Norris, Rev. Ken Fielder and Rev. Mark Brown.

We had the privilege of hearing from Dr. Earl Jessup on the effect that church planting in the U.S. is having on missions around the world. We heard from Rev. Rex Cobb of Baptist Bible Translators Institute teaching on the subject of "The Translator's Toolbox."

All sessions were recorded. You may order them on CD or DVD by calling 615-796-0043.

We just returned home from Coimbatore, India. There were 8 of us who traveled to the campus of South India Baptist Bible College to host a Pastor’s Conference. There were at least 38 language groups from all parts of India represented among the approximately 150 pastors and the 150 senior college students who attended. The Lord blessed each session and there was great liberty.

Our desire was to stir the hearts of the Indian ministry leaders to the plight of the unreached. No church is to be the end product or end result of the gospel effort. Every church is to be a Great Commission church with a worldview and a desire to spread the gospel where Christ has not been named. There was a great response as some heard for the first time that one-half of our world has still never heard the name of Jesus Christ and there are more than 4,000 languages still waiting for the Scriptures. One pastor commented, "This is eye-opening."
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Baptist International Evangelistic Ministries (BIEM) based in Danville, Indiana, has a wonderful record of establishing churches and training nationals in Russia and the Ukraine for almost thirty years and has begun in the last three years to reach into the Muslim world. Earlier this year I was invited by Bob McQueary, the Western Asia Director of BIEM, to participate in a national training week for Western and Central Asian pastors and missionaries to be held the second week of December. FirstBible was privileged to partner with BIEM financially to help make this training week happen.

In the early stages of planning, we hoped for a class of eight to ten students who could be trained in the areas of church planting and Bible doctrines and be challenged with information about reaching into the Muslim world. This developed quickly into a class of almost forty people. God gave us a wonderful week with students from the nations of Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. Some were able to travel by plane and several rode a bus for over twenty‐four hours to attend this training week.
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