I trust that you have had a wonderful Christmas and New Year season in your family and church. As I look toward the New Year, I am both excited and concerned. God has again given me a great schedule with many meetings for Faith Promise Conferences and churches that still believe that “missions is the mission!”
I am concerned because I see so many churches today that talk a talk without a walk in this matter of soul winning and evangelism. If we fail to reach our area where God has put us and just emphasize the giving to missions, we will one day find that we do not have a home base from which to send the missionaries with the Gospel to the world.
I am also concerned that we are losing the emphasis of the church. The results of the church are not people in the pews but, as Jesus said in Ephesians 5, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing and that it should be holy and without blemish. If our churches do not bring people into a holy relationship with Jesus, we lose our purpose—first a position of holiness in the Lord Jesus Christ and then a practice of holiness in being able to be used in His great work. I know that standards and convictions are not popular today, nor are they in many minds necessary; but it is still popular in Heaven and in the mind and heart of our Lord.
Pray for us. We are helping to start a church in the Phoenix, Arizona, area. March 29 is the first Sunday. Please pray for this work. I will also be traveling beginning in February. Please pray for safety and for God to bless with increase in the Faith Promise Conferences that we will be preaching this spring.
If you would like more information about our ministry, I do maintain a web address of josephelwell1.com. May God continue to bless you and encourage you in His great work.
Dr. Joseph Elwell