(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

OK, that's a great chapter there, 1 Corinthians 15, some great truths there, it's a long chapter and I just want to just look again at the final few verses of 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15, we're just going to look again from verse 51. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 51 starts, Behold, I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, sorry, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass a saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God which giveth us a victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. And the title of my sermon this morning is Abounding Into 2024. Abounding Into 2024. I'd like to pray and then we're going to get started with the message. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the last year, Lord, of this church. Thank you for all the many things we've achieved this year. Thank you for just all the people that have been a part of that, Lord. Thank you for blessing us with all these just zealous Christians, zealous believers that just want to do things for you, Lord, and help us to just carry on with that zeal, carry on with that right spirit into 2024. Help us have a great year going forward, Lord, and just bless this message, please, Lord. Help it to just be an encouragement to people, help people to just really think about what they've achieved and what they can go on to achieve, both personally and in church life, Lord. Fill with your spirit, please, as I preach this message. In Jesus' name, pray. Amen. OK, it's a New Year's sermon, if anyone was wondering, which means that we're going to look at what we've achieved in the last year at this church, what we're hoping to achieve in the coming year, and some potential personal goals too, and how they can contribute to the work of the Lord as well. Because that's really what it's about, isn't it? It's about the work of the Lord. We have a short life here, but we do have so much to do, don't we? We have a short life, but there's a lot to achieve in our short lives. And when I look back in eternity, and I want to be looking back going, yeah, I just could have done so much more. If only I'd done so much more with those few years I had in life, if only I'd just kind of done a bit more for God and spent a bit less time on just all that wasted, just pointless, vain stuff. If only I'd spent a bit less time polishing my car. And I don't think we have many car polishers here, I don't know, I don't hear many people going on about their car. You get that, yeah? There are people that just love it. You drive down the road, you go and knock on doors, there's people outside polishing their cars. And look, you know, sometimes the car needs polishing, right? But there are some people that spend a lot of time polishing cars, right? It's not just cars, there's so many just empty-veined things that people spend so much of their lives focusing on, Christians will spend so much of their lives focusing on, when... Look, there's much more important things at hand, aren't there? There's much more for us to do. If only I'd spent less time on those temporal things and more things on the eternal things, we don't want to be thinking like that when we're in eternity, do we? Less time on my hobby. Less time, for example, on just watching mindless junk on TV, on the internet, on Netflix, whatever it is now, Prime, whatever, look, whatever it is, right? If only I'd just spent a bit less time on that and more stuff serving God. You want to be looking back like that? I want to look back and say, no, I was always abounding in the work of the Lord. Yeah? And that labour was not in vain. That's how I want to look back. And in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul reminds us at the end of the chapter how important that work is. So 1 Corinthians 15, we're going to look at again from verse 51. Now, before this, he's made it very clear that there's a resurrection coming, OK, where all of us believers will receive our glorified bodies. So if you're saved, when that resurrection comes, you're going to receive a glorified body, because basically this sinful flesh isn't turning up in heaven to stink out the place, OK? It's not happening. You're not going up to heaven in your sinful body and stinking out the place, OK? And basically you're going to receive a glorified body when it comes to getting that, when it comes to the resurrection. He says in verse 51, Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. Now the saying you don't have to turn to is from Isaiah 25.8, which is, he will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it. Because the Christian life is hard sometimes, isn't it? The rebuke that we have to deal with, the attacks, the slander, the mocking, the scawning, from people all over life, it can be hard, can't it? It can be difficult sometimes. Sometimes you're looking at some of the most vile scum in the world, mocking and scawning you for just trying to live for God, for trying to serve God. And it can be hard. It can be difficult. It's hard sometimes. And you know when it's going to be even harder is in the Great Tribulation. That's going to be hard. But if you're saved, you've already won. Okay, you've already achieved, you've won. You will never go to hell, you will never taste death, you have eternal life. And just quickly, if it's eternal, it lasts forever, okay? You can't lose it, because it's eternal life. But verse 55 then says, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the only way you can defeat death, okay? It's through faith in the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's Jesus Christ who has won that victory for us. And if you know that God has given you the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it worth getting that news out to others, isn't it? How easy was it to get saved? Very easy, yeah? You just, you literally just took a gift, you just received a gift. So wouldn't we want to tell others about that? If you know that God has given you the victory, you know that eternity awaits, don't you? If you know you're saved, you know that heaven awaits you. Isn't it worth focusing on things that affect your eternity too? That should be obvious, shouldn't it? Look, I know heaven's awaiting, so I want to start focusing on those things, right? I want to take hold of eternal love, I want to really start getting my focus and having that at the centre of my life, thinking about what's awaiting me, right? Thinking about those extra rewards you can have up there waiting for you in heaven, right? Thinking about things in heaven, thinking about other people's eternities as well. He says in verse 38, Therefore, with all of that in mind, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Basically he said that if that's you, OK, if that's you, if you're one of his beloved brethren, and I hope everyone here is saved, you need to be steadfast. Steadfast is fast fixed, firm, firmly fixed or established. Constant, firm, resilient, not fickle, not wavering. Firm in your faith, yeah? Firm, steadfast in your faith, not fickle, not serving God one month and giving up the next. He's saying get some steadfastness, get some never-say-die attitude in you. Get some of that in you, yeah? I'm not giving up, I'm not giving up on God. I'm not giving up on the things of God. I'm not going to, well, yeah, no, this month I don't really fancy it. No, get some steadfastness in you. Do you know what the devil and his agents are looking for? Fickle Christians. He loves fickle Christians. One of his favourite parts of his diet is fickle Christians. That line that walketh about seeking whom he may devour, he's looking for some fickle Christian. He's looking for fickle Christians whose heads are easily turned. And they find many ways to find those fickle Christians, and they put out the feelers and try and feel, are you a fickle one? Are you one that I can turn your head? That's what he's looking for. Who are too weak to resist the false doctrine, for example. Who will just get their heads turned. No, they're not going to lose their salvation. But you know what, he can stop you being an effective Christian. He can stop you being in the things of God. He can devour you and just ruin your spiritual life. And then you'll be one of those looking back going, what a waste of life. I just focus on all those things that he was throwing at me, and I had my head turned by this, I got pulled around by that. You need to be steadfast, you need to be unmovable. He's looking for those that are too weak in the faith to say, no, the Bible warns me about these people, time and time and time again. I've been warned about this. The Bible warns me about the subtle deception. And it's everywhere, isn't it? The Bible warns me about his devices. I'm warned about this. No, I'm going to be steadfast, I'm going to be unmovable. He said, be ye unmovable. He basically said, be that pillar in the church. Be that constant part of the furniture. You come in a church, you say, barring illness or something else, I'm likely to see that person and I know they're going to be in the church. They're going to be there. They're steadfast, they're unmovable. Be unmovable in your Bible reading. Be unmovable. Look, it doesn't get in the way, yeah? When it's my Bible reading, I read my Bible. Nothing gets in the way, I'm going to read my Bible. When it's prayer time, I'm going to pray. When it's soul winning time, I'm going to soul win. You're not getting pulled out of the things of God, you're unmovable. You're not doubting the truths of God's word, you're unmovable. But aside from reminding yourself of that victory over death, that victory over the grave, do you know what makes you steadfast and unmovable? By always abounding in the work of the Lord. That's what makes you steadfast and unmovable. Abounding is having in great plenty, being in great plenty, being very prevalent, prevailing. It's basically doing a lot, doing a lot. Always abounding is always doing a lot, and here it's talking about the work of the Lord. It's just always doing a lot of work for the Lord. Something you notice in church life is that the ones who are most likely to drop out, to disappear, to find an excuse, to give up, are those that aren't doing much in the first place. And it's a funny thing because you feel like it should be the other way round. But it's the ones that are irregular, that don't do much soul winning, that don't abound in the work, that are more likely to just disappear. They're more likely to drop out, they're more likely to be here one minute, gone the next, maybe back again and gone the next. They're more likely to just drop out forever. You'd think it'd be the other way round. You'd think that the people that are three to thrive, that are soul winning every week, that have jobs and roles in the church, that are just constantly there wanting to serve, wanting to do stuff, are the ones that will get burnt out. That's what you'd think, wouldn't you think? These guys are going to tire out in the end. You would think that those are the ones that will get exhausted and need regular breaks from it all. Just, oh man, I need another few weeks off because it's just been tiring this Christian life. You think they're the ones that will get weary and well doing, right? But it's the opposite. It really is. It's the opposite. The ones that are plugged in, the ones that are there serving, doing the things, reading their Bibles, out soul winning, three to thrive. You know you're going to see them in church. And it's the ones that are kind of in and out and a little bit here and there. They're the ones that are movable. They're the ones that aren't steadfast. They're the ones that will drop out. Verse 58 said, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. When you're labouring for the Lord, it's not in vain. It has eternal consequences. And you know that's not just soul winning, by the way. So in case anyone is thinking, well, you just got to make sure you're soul winning. Yeah, you need to make sure you're soul winning. But there are other areas of the Christian life. Now, soul winning is an essential part of the end result. And what's the end result pulling people out of the fire? That's what we're looking for, our goal. And obviously, getting people who are saved to learn to do the same is part of that end result, because you're going to get more people pulled out of the fire. But ultimately, we're trying to pull people out of the fire. That's our goal, isn't it? Without soul winning, all the work is vain. Look, you could go to a church where they're having these, you know, they have all these great fellowship events, great, all these different things they're doing, but if they're not soul winning, it's all vanity. It's a waste of time. It's not even a church. Because if they're not getting people saved, what are they doing? That's our ministry, the Ministry of Reconciliation. We're ambassadors for Christ. But everything that's done, therefore, in a church whose goal is soul winning is part of that end result. It's not just the preaching and soul winning captaining either, by the way. OK, so the preaching encourages people, gets them to be strong and steadfast, to be able to keep soul winning. Yeah, sure, the soul winning captaining is important, right? It's essential. But all the other jobs done in this church have some part to play in salvation. From the ushering, to the cleaning, to the collecting the offering, to providing a live stream to the music, it's all part of a functioning church. It all aids, it all adds towards more salvations, ultimately being the end result. Everything done in this church, whether you consider it to be a menial task or not, all has a part to play towards this church being a functioning place and getting people saved. The end result is more salvations. Did you know that even just turning up, even just turning up to church and being in church and exhorting one another is playing a part in people getting saved? Even if you don't go out and you don't preach God, just being here is at least part of it. Even at the lowest end, even at the lowest end, just watching online. If you're watching us now live online, you still have a small part to play in people's salvations. Did you know that? And look, obviously the best thing you can do is be in church but even watching online, you go, how does that work? I'll tell you how that works. Because when other people tune in and they see 15, 20 people online, it slightly more validates, it slightly more encourages them as well. When I see that as well, that slightly encourages me. It's like people, even the people that haven't made it at least are watching online and getting encouraged by that message. And all of that has some part to play in encouraging each other, encouraging others and making them last the course. Because we get discouraged, don't we? That's one of the goals of the devil, is to discourage us. With different angles, different seeds sown, different attacks, people trying to pull out. You know, all this sort of stuff is to discourage. And even just watching those people, knowing that there's people that are tuning in, that are part of it, liking it, sharing it. Even if that just goes out and those extra views and those extra... And again, this isn't a message trying to encourage everyone to just sit at home and watch online, in case you get confused there. But even those people that can't make it, we have people from outside of this nation that tune in online because they've got no decent church around. And even those extra views and that extra like on our channel means that that message will go a little bit further. That's why people say, please like and share. Please view, like and share, because the more views, the more comments, the more likes, just means that it just goes out a little bit more and a little bit more. And that might eventually end up with one person started tuning in and slowly started growing and slowly started attending and then started soul winning and then ended up being a soul winner in the future. How many salvation has that just achieved? And some of that is a result of just people watching and getting involved, right? Everything plays a part in the end result of salvation. And everyone here has been a part of what we've achieved here over the past year. Everyone here, even if you're a first time visitor here, well, it's still part of the year and you are part of that, OK? You are part of what we've achieved at this church. Now, last year I set some targets for the year and we're going to see how we got on. So they weren't just empty targets. OK, well, we set those over. That made a good sermon. Let's forget those now and think of something else. No, those targets were real targets. So let's see how we got on with those targets. I'd like you to turn to Daniel, chapter 12, please. Daniel, chapter 12. I went through six targets last year for 2023. Daniel, chapter 12. And I preached, not say preacher, at least we looked at these verses, as we looked at these targets. And the first one we looked at was Daniel 12 and verse three. Daniel 12, three, which says, and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever. Who's wise? He that win of souls. He that win of souls is wise, and if you're winning multiple souls, you're getting many to put their faith in Christ, to have his righteousness imputed unto them, you'll shine forever and ever. That's eternal consequences, not just for them, but for you as well. OK, that's talking about the rewards. That's talking about the esteem you'll be held in forever for eternity. If you're out saving people, you're out getting people saved. And you're going, well, I just don't know. I don't even know what to say. A silent partner is half a team. If you're coming out and you're you're pairing up and you're involved in soul winning. But amen, you're going to shine forever. You're going to shine forever on our number one goal. Was a thousand salvations for 2023. Now, like I said, I wanted to I wanted to have a look at our bulletin. Now, some might say that we've only achieved 700. And I think we've got 758 down there. OK, there's 758 salvations on there, only 758. OK, obviously, I'm not disappointed with 758 people calling your name the Lord in front of someone in this church. OK, however, we also had 220 salvations in South Africa with our Pretoria soul winning group. That's they're members of our church. We also had 20 in Switzerland since they became our soul winning group in Switzerland. The total we're on is 998. But it's the 31st. So if anyone wants to come up now, just claim you're getting some. No, I'm kidding. OK. But we do have some soul winning going on in Switzerland today. And I hope, brother Nick, if you're watching this and if you weren't planning to go out, look, South Africa's receptive to salvations. Come on. But but even if even if we don't make that thousand, that is our best ever. 998 salvations from this church is our best year ever. And by the way, that's without all the clown. I went, you know, the clown jokers that were going out before we kicked them out of our church, claiming they got 10 salvations and stuff in a place where no one else was getting more than one. OK. We haven't had that for this whole calendar year. And this whole calendar year, we're now on 998 because our church isn't just in South End. We now we're now reaching out around the world as well. OK. 998, I'm hoping we're going to get the thousand. OK, so if anyone wants to pop out at lunchtime and just find someone to, you know, just say one, two, three, repeat after me. No, I'll kill you. Obviously, we want genuine salvation. And that's the other thing as well, is that those salvations, you know, I believe the vast majority of those, they're legitimate salvations. We have thorough, we have thorough preachers at our church. And always please be a thorough. Look, the numbers aren't really the important thing. The important thing is getting people saved. OK, that's what we care about most. But I know that I've been with many people at this church preaching the gospel. And look, I hope and I want that to be the, you know, how our church does it. Is it you do your best, you do your best that person to make sure that they understand that before they call the name of the Lord, there's nothing more you can add. You're not just kind of rushing them and let's try and get a number here. It's about trying to get people saved. Right. And so far, our church and those representing our church with our invites, with our tracks and everything else. We're up to 998. Now, there is, there might be a couple of them. And just to make it clear, if you if you're at our church and you get someone saved in your personal life, please let me know about that, because that does count to our salvation. OK, you're a member of our church. You're being built up, encouraged by our church to try and get people saved. So they do count. So if anyone wants to come up after the service, let me know about a couple that weren't listed. I would love that because I really want to hear that thousand. But ultimately, look, 998 up until the 31st. I find the morning is amazing. Right. OK. And do you know, do you know what that is as well? In turn of Matthew 28, where we talk about this, is that's been thanks to those that turned up two or 12 marathons this year. OK. We've run a marathon at the end of every month. I don't think I'm mistaken with that. I think we have at the end of every month. If I'm if I'm wrong about that, even the back of my mind was thinking there might have been a month we didn't. I'm sure we did. It's either 11 or 12 marathons, soul winning marathons out of this church. Like that's really rare. And you know what? There are people that have literally been on every single marathon out of this church, or at least on the vast majority. That's that's massive. Like other other churches, and I'm not trying to knock other churches, but that's every single month, the soul winning marathon. That's like, look, pat yourselves on the back. Yeah, because that's amazing. OK. And we always have a great turnout. I mean, yes, I was our quietest just being New Year's, but we have people out in Scotland doing the same thing. And even so, it was still it was still we had like seven teams out, you know, and it's that we always have a great turnout. And thank you, everyone, for that, because, look, it's it's it's a massive part of this as well. It's those that have been making it to our four four different soul winning times, at least local. And thank you for everyone that's just been turning up, because sometimes and thank you again for the captains as well. The captains that week in, week out are running soul winning times. I mean, that's not always easy. And it can be hard when people aren't turning up. So thank you for turning up, because sometimes when they're when they're there on their own and they're there with maybe just their wife and their soul winning, they start to think, is this worth it keeping this time? But I haven't had to think about stopping any of those times. And they haven't had to think about that because we just have people turning up every time. But they'd be turning up. And you know, what's been going on behind the scenes is captains just week in, week out, making sure that they're free to do those soul winning times. And it's not just here. Also down in Exeter as well with Neil as well. I mean, you know, these guys, those guys are driving four hours to get here to be built up in person to then go and soul win every single week. Look, everyone's look, you're all a big part of that. Right. And, you know, it's not it's not, oh, well, you know, past the tavern. It's the whole church, right? The whole church has been doing great. Soul winning every week. We've got a Tuesday night. We've got obviously a Wednesday here. We've got the Thursday night. We've got Sunday in between. That takes planning. That takes route planning. That takes working things out. That takes pairing people up. That takes organization. And thank you to everyone that's put their work in for that. Also, as well as those guys, we've got, like I said, two soul winning captains out in abroad right now as well. We've got in Pretoria, we've got Nick Mabusi, who's I mean, that guy is steadfast. I mean, he's so winning Saturdays and Sundays. And he's not he's not being able to come to our church and get built up and get the fellowship and everything else. He's going out with his family. He's trying to encourage others to get involved. Now and again, he gets other people involved and he's soul winning most weeks, two days a week. Yeah, that's great, right? Pierre down in Switzerland, they're meeting every every week on a Sunday and they're soul winning every Sunday. And and then they're also doing events on Saturday now and again as well. And a lot of them are coming from far and wide. So I don't think a midweek time would necessarily work for them. However, they're going every single Sunday. He's been preaching and leading these guys for a long time now. And praise God for people like that, right? And they're getting people saved. And I'll tell you what, with that group as well, it's not just they're getting people saved local there. I mean, his online ministry is massive. I mean, he's been promoting his Bible ways to heaven out to French speaking Africa for many years now. And I mean, he's got like hundreds of thousands of views, thousands of comments, thousands of, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people messaging him, emailing him about it or like he's doing a great work in French speaking Africa as well. And that's something that we want to eventually do in person there as well. So, look, it's thanks to everyone. But that was our first goal of thousands of salvations. I'm still hoping we're going to make that this year. Let's look at our next goal. You're in Matthew 28. Have a look at verse 19. Matthew 28 19 says, Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. We're a Baptist church and we believe in believers baptism. We don't believe in sprinkling babies. Or worse, dunking them underwater for no reason. OK, because it's just a waste of time, right? We believe in baptizing believers, believe it or not, which is part of the Great Commission to encourage people to not just get saved. Yeah, the first thing is to get them saved. We don't go, well, what a waste of a salvation because they didn't get baptized. I mean, that that is lunacy, isn't it? And usually that someone whose real heart is, well, I don't believe they're really saved unless they get baptized. That's not the gospel. OK, the gospel is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I shall be saved. However, we do want to baptize people. We do want to build them up because we do want to encourage them to serve God as well, don't we? And then ultimately to go out and get more people saved. But but the thing with that, the first thing you want them to do is to get baptized, and that's not always easy nowadays. OK, there are many people unchurched. In this nation, people are unchurched when it comes to real churches, right? When it comes to a legitimate church. So and even aside from all the fake churches, most people in this nation don't go to church other than maybe not really baptisms, maybe the old christening. They like a christening. Maybe they like the odd wedding at a church. And a lot of I'd imagine probably most weddings aren't in churches now. And funerals and a lot of funerals aren't in churches either. So a lot of people are unchurched and so many are choked with the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. So just because you've got someone saved, it doesn't mean, well, that's it, they're ready to live their life for God. No, a lot of them are very pleased they're not going to hell. And then you shut the door and then all the distractions come in and then the TV and then the buddies trying to get them out drinking or whatever, whatever the distractions are, and they don't end up in church to get baptised. So it's a it's a hard thing to do. It's not just like they're saved, they'll get baptised. A lot of people seem like they genuinely want to come to church and get baptised when you get them saved, don't they? And then what happens in between that conversation and them coming to church? You can only imagine the amount of distractions, the amount of getting pulled left, right, up, down people. You know, look, if the devil can't stop them getting saved. He'll try and stop them serving God. And the first step to serving God is getting baptised. Well. There was a huge group of 63 people wanting baptising in Poland the year before last, and other than that, we've had we've actually had 24 per year. So aside from that big group, and I'm not downplaying that, but that was amazing. Right. 63 baptisms in a row. I mean, that's pretty unheard of. Right. And that was that was amazing. But that was kind of a bit of a one off situation there. So aside from that, we've had 24 each year. And our second goal was 30 baptisms and we've achieved 30 baptisms. So I'm really pleased with that. We've had 30 baptisms in this church. So again, we're going from strength to strength. And considering that the first lot of baptisms in the first year of our church was actually a load of people that had been in church and so just hadn't been baptised yet. So they were kind of waiting for our pastor to come here and baptise them. Back in, I think it was September of 2021, a lot of people got baptised, which made a lot of those 24 numbers. Whereas now we're just getting people coming into our church and getting baptised and we're up to 30 baptisms. I've done a few out in I think I did a couple in Switzerland and a few in in Ireland as well. So 30 baptisms, we've achieved that. And again, that's an improvement each year, which I'm really pleased about. OK, what about our third goal? OK, Matthew 28, 20 says this, verse 20 says, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always, always, so even until the end of the world. Amen. So for those baptisms and to observe all things, people need to be in church. Now, yeah, we we we make it very clear that salvation is a gift, that salvation isn't dependent on being in church. OK. However, we want to get people in church. We want to get them saved and understand that what they're trusting for salvation is the Lord Jesus Christ. However, we want to get them in church. And. We've said many times, again, it is one thing watching at home, but to observe all things requires being in God's house. You can't be observing. You're not even, you know, observing one of the most obvious commandments, which is not to not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together. OK, people need to be in church. And our third goal last year was more first time visitors. And the first time visiting can be really hard. That's that's the hardest part for people, isn't it? To just turn up a church, especially if you're in church, especially if you're not used to being in church. To walk into a church can be a hard thing. A lot of people find that social aspect difficult, don't they? They find it hard to just turn up, to just walk into a church, especially maybe if they're new to the faith. They just think they're not going to fit in there. You know, people are just going to kind of see through them. A lot of people feel too dirty almost, don't they? Just feel like, my sin, I shouldn't be in church. And there's a lot of issues, a lot of reasons that that stop people coming into church for the first time. Now, we don't have a running total of first time visitors. Some people do that. We haven't done that here. But I do think everyone here would agree that we easily hit that goal last year. OK, easily. We've had a lot of first time visitors coming in. There are people here that only started coming in the last year in our church. OK, that have only started coming to our church in the last year that are still coming to our church. And since we moved to South End, we've had many different visitors come in just in the last four months or so that we've been, that we've had church services back in South End. Many have got saved after visiting as well, which has been great, isn't it? To have people come in that need to hear the gospel, need to get saved has been amazing as well. Some coming more than once as well has been great as well. So we've had people that have been coming like more than just the one visit as well. And of course, God builds the church gate. But it needs the right environment for people to be able to come and get plugged in, doesn't it? So it needs the right environment. It needs people. You know, we had a bad environment before, you know, when we had we just had a lot of problem people in our church. We don't we don't have that majority of issues now. So so it's just been so much nicer to be able to see people come in and be able to get saved in church. And if they already saved to be able to come in and not just be like jumped upon and everything else. So that's been great. And that's thanks to everyone here. That's thanks to our church being a welcoming environment, being a place where people aren't, you know, having people trying to force them to go soul winning the first day they've ever turned up in church and things like that. So we've had a lot of that weirdness previously. Turn to Hebrews 10. Now, of course, we want people to keep coming. OK, we want we want people we want people here. OK, we want people in church. We want them to keep coming. We want our genuine church members, though, also to be unmovable as well. OK, so it's one thing getting people to come and visit and now and again to come more. We want people to just get plugged in. OK, we want people to be a part of the church, part of church life. And that might be slow for some people. Some people, it can be a slow process to become more and more regular, to start doing more for the Lord. And again, we don't want to be an environment here where people feel like they can't come to church unless, you know, they're just a three to thrive, soul winning every week. You know, clearly have been reading their Bible through hundreds of times. We want we want this to be a welcoming environment for everyone. Right. And I do believe that we're becoming that as a church. And that's been really nice to see. But let's look at our fourth goal. Hebrews 10 and verse 24 says this. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as a manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. God commands his people not to forsake church. So if you're saved, you're commanded not to forsake church. But do you know who that's for? Not it is for you. Yeah, you need to be in church. But it's as much for everyone else as for yourself. Look at those verses. Hebrews 10, 24 says, let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. You're provoking others to love and to good works by considering them. How? By not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as a manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. That so many people go to these verses, go see you need to be in church. Because this is a clear, clear verse in the Bible, which is then followed about the chastisement that comes on people that are just forsaking the assembling of themselves together. However, do you know what the main key point in those verses is? Is that when you come to church, it's for everyone else. Because when you're in church, you're encouraging each other, because it's it's it's also it should also be a selfless act. Because when we do, you know what? Do you know what was hard was when we had half the church off with Hupenkopf. Because it is a bit demoralizing, isn't it? It is a little bit discouraging. It is hard. And what if one person one person came into our church? Maybe they were regular. Maybe they weren't. And because we had half the church off and a lot of other people just couldn't be bothered just for whatever reason. And, you know, I had let the distractions get in the way. Just didn't really fancy it. You know, had a nice invite for a nice Sunday lunch instead of whatever it is. Yeah. And what if one person then just went on? I don't know, I'm not really feeling that that church didn't really do it for me. Don't come back. They end up in liberal Baptist, pat each other's on the back for being so holy and never doing anything for the Lord. Like that's a wasted spiritual life, right? And that could be that could be a direct result of ourselves. That could be a direct result of the people that are choosing to not go, because it's not just about you, because when we're in church, we're encouraging others. It's not just what you might say to them. It's not just that that person might actually need you to say a kind word for them that day, see a smile on your face, get a nice handshake. It's just even just your presence. It's people being in a proper church, hearing proper preaching, encourages others that, yeah, I'm in the right place, right? We've got and look, I'm looking out on a busy church today with with all we've got people from all walks of life, ages, stages, everything else. And that's how a church should look, shouldn't it? But if half the people weren't here and it was more of a kind of everyone just looked like the same similar sort of person and that person walks in and it's like, I don't really fit in here. That can feel weird, can't it? Our fourth goal was to beat our attendance record, which was previously 85 and 82. And in our previous build, it's 76 to 75. And this summer on 27th of August, we did have a huge weekend, right? We had 121 in our Sunday morning service and 120 in our Sunday evening service. I can't think why. I know it's just one of the random Sundays, you know. OK. Admittedly, we did stumble across this rather decent preacher. OK, they managed to entice here to preach. But it's not every week that Passer Hymn is in town, OK? But we did manage to cater for those many visitors, right? And you know, what I found interesting about it is that many of them were actually consider themselves at least to some point members of our church, whether regular or irregular. So a lot of people that came, there weren't as many first time visitors as you would have thought. There were a lot of people that have come before from France, from Switzerland, from Holland. There were people that have come from Scotland, that have come from Bristol. You know, there are people that come to our church anyway. They just all came at the same time and add a few Americans into the mix and a few others, and we end up with and we end up with 120 in here. And that was great, wasn't it? That was great. And look, with that, we provided home cooked food on the two Wednesdays where, by the way, we smashed our Wednesday attendances with 90 and 85 on those two Wednesdays. And they were some great days, weren't they? And it all went pretty seamlessly, really, with what was around double our average attendance. More than that, just to have and having that many people. And again, that was just thanks to everyone here. And people had a great time there. People just have fond memories of it. You know, you get there are people that only do come down again, just saying what an amazing weekend that was. And that was thanks to everyone here. Everyone was welcoming. Everyone was kind. It was nice. It was just a great time, wasn't it? Didn't really have any real problems, did we? Just went really well. And that's thanks to our whole church here. Hopefully it made everyone hungry to see this place full up like that in the future. And that, again, depends on you, though, as much as anyone else. It really does. So if you want to see a busy church, you want to see a lot of people in church. Well, it starts with you. And it starts with you being here and being here as an encouragement to others and just being that extra person here. And it does make a difference, right? And the more you don't forsake the assembly of yourselves together, the more you're going to encourage others to be in church as well. Turn to Mark 16 for our fifth goal, because it's not just about what we do in Southend, OK? There are other places in the UK and beyond that need reaching. Mark 16 and verse 15. Mark 16, 15, we're going to look at. Mark 16 and verse 15 says, and he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. The command is for all the world, OK? Not just those that want both the seaside and to be close to London, which is kind of where we're at here, right? It's kind of a happy in between for many. Our goal was to start with, and number five, our goal last year was a soul winning trip to Northern Ireland. So that was the start of us reaching out to other areas. We wanted to get abroad. We wanted to start reaching out to different places. And we did that with a preaching and soul winning trip to Belfast. We then organised one for Good Friday, the 7th of Saturday, the 8th of April. And we had we had a, you know, good time out there with soul winning. We had a preaching event out there as well. There were 15 salvations and four baptisms. However, that was just the start of us reaching out as a church. So it started with Northern Ireland. In May, we set up a soul winning group in Exeter who have had 62 salvations there in total, including the few when we were there on that event. That's great, right? Sixty two salvations down in Exeter, which, you know, I know they before that, there was a kind of church they were making do with and stuff. But, you know, I believe that we're just seeing we're seeing some good just good work being done there now. We're seeing some genuine, genuine salvation, seeing some genuine, genuine work going on with some proper biblical backing there, which is great. Not kind of a discouraging church kind of trying to put you off soul winning. So that's been great. At the end of May, we had a soul winning and preaching event in Pretoria, South Africa, with 83 salvations over that weekend and a new soul winning group there. That's a great achievement, right? We've got a soul winning group in South Africa who, like I just said, they had 220 on salvation since. That's aside from that, by the way, that since that 80 odd, they've had 220 salvations over the last few months out there, several months out there. Then in October, we had a soul winning and preaching trip to Lausanne in Switzerland with nine salvations on that soul winning and preaching trip and a new soul winning group there as well. So it started I mean, my goal was to get to Northern Ireland. And since then, we've been to South Africa, we've been to Switzerland. We've we've got a group going in Exeter. And in fact, on top of that, in November, a few of us joined in with a missions trip to the Western Cape region of South Africa. So it's kind of the opposite side to Pretoria. Now, the official number there was 328 salvations, but that didn't include the schools. So that was just the salvations out on the on the on the daily soul winning and not the schools. And, you know, I preached 200 kids there, preached the gospel to them and had the vast majority of them praying at the end of that. How many got saved? We've only estimated. I preached to a class of 30 or kids, and there were others doing the same with those 30 or kids as well at the end of November. We then finished with the Preaching Soul Winning event in Exeter with eight salvations of fifty five at that preaching night. And again, that was the majority of people that have gone down there as well. OK, and again, that's just thanks to our church, right? You wouldn't you couldn't put that on at most places because most people wouldn't even be bothered to go five minutes, let alone four hours down to Exeter to go and preach the gospel in Exeter and be part of a preaching night on a Friday night down there. And thank you, everyone, because again, like what a great thing for the guys down there as well to be able to have, right? And by the way, that was the start of our going to every city in the UK. So our goal as a church and it continues to be is that we're just going to every three months be hitting a city in the UK and we're going to alternate between a local one and a further afield one. Exeter was our further afield one. We're going to be doing Chelmsford next. Then we're going to go up north, probably after that. Now, there's been some great achievements for our church to be reaching out so far already, right? And I want you to look at Mark 16, 15 for a final goal from last year. OK, but but that for me, that's a great achievement to be able to be reached out to so many areas. And I didn't expect that. Mark 16, 15, our final goal is this. And he said unto them, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, every creature. And finally, we had a goal not just to preach to those that answer doors and that we bump into in the street, but to try and reach all ages, too. And our goal number six was retirement homes and schools preaching. So our goal was to get to the retirement homes, try and try and get into a retirement home and also into schools. Now, our plan was to reach the elderly and the young. And we preach every Sunday, barring two in a railway care home from Sunday, the 14th of April to Sunday, the 10th of September. It was approximately about 20 services that we preached to the elderly in that care home. And and at the very beginning, they were bringing them all down from from upstairs as well. And it was pretty busy. There's a lot of people here. A lot of people heard the gospel. I mean, we basically just loaded the gospel onto every single message. A lot of people heard the gospel. There were some individual personal gospel presentations there as well. They heard some other truths from the Bible as well. They heard some hard preaching there as well. Now, OK, what happened in the end is eventually, you know, which was probably likely to happen in the end. They decided there was too much truth from the Bible there, too much, you know, about hell and heaven and stuff. But it probably was good timing as well. I mean, look, there were some great things that came out of there. A lot of the men there that were practicing preaching there. I mean, if you could preach to some of that, I mean, that was some that was a hard group to preach to. I mean, some of the heckling, some of the singing while you're preaching, singing hymns while you're trying to preach. I mean, if you can preach through that, you can preach through any crowd. Right. You can preach a hard message to a church when all looking at you like this guy, you're preaching on me and you're not even faced because you've had, you know, old Ethel the kind of borderline throwing things at you. And what's he on about? Oh, not him again. Sort of stuff. So there was some great stuff that came out. And aside from the fact that, look, those people had a chance to hear the gospel again at the later years of their life. And I don't think it's probably quite like some of the care homes maybe in the US where maybe there's a lot more saved people. I would, you know, we maybe had one there that was potentially saved. It's a bit hard to know, but at the end of the day, we gave it a crack with that. And however, we did want to get into schools as well. Now, we didn't manage to get into any UK schools yet. However, we did get into some schools in South Africa and we got into two different schools in South Africa going on that mission ship. And that's springboarding us to our next plan, which I'm going to talk about in a minute. I still want to get into UK schools, but we did get into some schools in the end. It just wasn't in the UK. Godless bunch here, but OK, but there's still some plans with that. So as is the case in the Christian life, there are often achievements that weren't necessarily part of the plan. See, we can have all our best laid plans. We can have our six goals there, and we've exceeded all of those goals. But there are some other there's always some other things that come up. We got refused planning permission to use our previous building as a church, but we ended up with an amazing upgrade, didn't we? I mean, you can imagine at the time when I'm thinking, oh, it's hard to find a church building nowadays. And where are we going to end up? And next thing you know, we end up in a place like this. And compared with the warehouse that we were in before, this is an amazing upgrade, isn't it? So that was great. And that was in the second half of June when we started to work here. And it was a lot of work here. And many people got involved with that. And I think you did what I did. And even those that couldn't, but at least were praying for the work. And, you know, it was a lot of work. Right. And we got through it. And someone, my brother in law, was talking to me the other day over Christmas about it. I was just saying, oh, so I'm just asking about the refurb. And I was kind of reliving parts of it and having some cold shivers. And the nightmare started at night again. But we got through it and we got it open and it was ready. And that's what you're sitting in now. And this was previously a music shop, and it was a completely different kettle of fish. Right. And yeah, that was amazing. And that was in time for our big August ordination event. And that was something, again, that we didn't know whether that was going to happen. That wasn't on our six goals, but it wasn't necessarily the fact of the ordination. But what it resulted in is us being the first fully independent, new independent fundamental Baptist church in the whole of Europe. And we are the first one here. And and again, that's thanks to everyone who's been a part of this. Right. Everyone that's managed to resist the attacks, the attempts to pull them out, all the different things. There have been a hundred different ways people have tried to stop this. And we're here and we're still here. And we're a strong tower. Right. We're a strong tower Baptist church. And we we that that's when we became strong tower. We were previously part of Shaw Foundation Baptist Church. And that was a great start. Right. As well. And, you know, just the whole thing, the whole journey up until here, like past Thompson, you know, has been amazing the whole time. And to be able to get to the point of them being an independent church has just been like, what a blessing. And that happened in the last year as well. And it's been a massive year. And just just incidentally, it's three years since we started meeting and preaching weekly back in third of January 2021. So we started as a church plant. We started actually just getting ready to be a church plant in January. And I think it was around the third or fourth of January of 2021 was our first Saturday service, where we were just getting ready to start Sunday services. And then we started Sunday services in February. But it's been three years since we started. And that was back up the road there in South End. And in that time, we've had two thousand six hundred salvation's. Which is now if you with our overseas groups, it's two thousand eight hundred and forty one, one hundred forty two baptisms, over four hundred services and a lot of fun and excitement. Right. OK, we've had a lot of fun during that time. Now, go back to 1 Corinthians 15, because it's not time for celebrations yet. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 58 says this, 1 Corinthians 15, 58 said, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable. Always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Now, we need to keep abounding to be always abounding, don't we? We're not just looking back on 2023, going what a great year. Look at everything we've done. Look at all we've achieved. No, we want to be always abounding. OK, we're going from strength to strength. But there's a lot more to come. OK, there should always be a lot more to come. We're always looking to keep abounding. So here are some of our church's goals for this next year. OK, and I'm going to kind of stick to a similar theme for this year. This year's goals, number one, let's raise the bar, 1500 salvations. OK, I want 1500 salvations this year. Now, we've got three soul winning groups now, and we've got a lot of trips planned as well. We've got some stuff planned. OK, so I see no reason why we can't get comfortably 1500 salvations. I'm going conservative here really with 1500, OK? But I just want to make sure we beat this and smash this out the park for next year. I don't want to be like too short on the service and trying to scratch about for salvations. OK, but 1500 salvations. But sure, anyone here isn't. However, however, for that, we need everyone to put the time in, don't we? OK, so for that, we need everyone here soul winning. OK, we need people to, OK, if you haven't done it before, go, right, I want to learn how to soul win, right? I'm going to get involved. We need everyone to turn up to the times, turn up to the marathons, get soul winning. Yeah, because you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord, is it? OK, 1500 salvations. Number two, 100 baptisms. OK, I want 100 baptisms. We had 30 last year. You think, well, you've raised the bar a bit there. But again, we've got trips planned. And with more salvations, I'd like to get more baptisms. Again, though, it's not just about the trips to maybe receptive places. It's also that I want like we need to encourage our converts. OK, you need to remember that when you get them saved, the next thing you need to be talking about pretty much is getting them baptised. OK, if they're saved, the next thing, the next thing they need to be doing is coming and getting baptised. What does hinder me to be baptised? Well, if thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest, right? And if they believe, then they should be getting baptised. So we need to make sure that that's something you're doing after you get people saved is encourage them as much as possible to get baptised. Now, I understand it could be awkward, right? And I understand that you don't want to get too pushy to the point where, you know, people are never going to want to talk to that person again because all they're going about is baptism. But I think you can be pushy to a degree, though, can't you? Because really, if they don't get baptised, they don't come and get involved in church life. What a shame in how many people could have probably got saved by that person if we somehow found a way of encouraging them. Look, not everyone is, OK? OK, the reality of it is that, you know, you know, to continue in his word, to be his disciple is rare. Isn't it? But we can still try, right? So we want to try and get more people, more people getting baptized, which leads on to point number three. Goal number three is more personal discipleship. OK, so the next goal is rather than more first time visitors, I want more personal discipleship out of this church. And I'm going to explain that, how we're going to do that. If you've got someone saved, OK, it's your responsibility to disciple them. So I've kind of thought about different ways and different plans of things you could do. You could like do a kind of... And we are going to... I do want to have a, like, just a simple pack here that you'll be able to just fill in their address on an already stamped envelope that you can just put an address on and send something out. That will be pre-made for them. However, I'd like you to put something personal and I'd like you if you can. And if people are up for it, depending on who it is, OK? So just on this, I don't want you trying to get kids numbers, OK? Please don't get little children's numbers and things now. And look, depending on the age, maybe, of course, if a parent's been there or maybe if they're an older teen, no problem with sending them something in the post. But please don't get, like, teens and kids numbers, OK? Young teens, at least, OK? And even older teens, you've got to be careful with that, OK? If they're out and about and everything else and they're older teens and they're pretty like... And I'm talking like up to 17, 18, 19, it's a bit different. But younger teens, kids, please don't, OK? However, with everyone else, get numbers if you can. Get addresses, encourage people, right? It's your responsibility at the end of the day, OK? You're there, you've begat them in the Lord. So if you're their spiritual parent, you've just got them saved. You've preached the gospel to them. They're saved. Then the next thing is to try and encourage them into church, to get baptised and to start being in church. And that's something I'd like as a church for us to do more of. We are, like I said, we're going to have just a simple pack, just a couple of little things in it with it will be a generic message from the church. However, please put something personal in that yourself as well. Put a personal message in there, try and encourage them. But your encouragement, the discipleship, because something I've noticed is that there are people in my life that I've managed to personally disciple. And you know what? They're so much further along than than anyone else I've ever got saved because they've had that personal discipleship. They've been able to call me, ask me, message me questions, things like that. And those people are soul winning and getting involved with the Lord. And then there are others that I've got saved and I've given them some stuff to look at online. And it's hard. It's a lot of the time you won't hear from them again. So as much as we want to encourage them to look at the stuff. Yeah, we're going to give out the same stuff that we usually give out. We are going to have a new believers booklet being made as well, shortly as well. But I want to try and encourage you guys to actually follow up with you with your converts, if you could. Again, sensitively, not with young children, please. OK, don't start giving out your numbers to kids and stuff. That's weird, OK? Just with those, those are obviously of an age where you think like that's that's that's that's OK. You know, they're going to be able to to get in contact with you. Is it the end of the world if you give a phone number to someone you got saved, if you really don't want to? You don't have to. However, please at least then take their address or something. Yeah, just something that you can follow up with. Yeah. OK, more personal discipleship and goal number four is a higher average attendance. OK, I'm not going to go beyond 120 people in here. That would be tough to get again, short of getting past the Roger Jimenez here to preach again, OK, or somewhere similar. So, look, we I know that that's probably unlikely. However, I'd like to get higher average attendance here. So so when I say average attendance our average over 52 Sunday mornings of last year was 51 as an average. Our average over Sunday evenings was 47. And our average on a Wednesday attendance was 33 for the year. OK, so that's been our average. And of course, we've had a whooping cough and things like that. And, you know, and over the last several weeks. But the average is a good measuring stick, isn't it? Really? OK, that's a good measuring stick. How many people are we getting in as a regular in here? Right. And that's what I'd like to up is our average attendance. But that relies on as much just church members being here as it is encouraging people into church. So that relies on people just saying, OK, I'm going to be in church. I'm in church no matter what, barring obviously illness and and and, you know, and extreme circumstances and stuff. Just, you know, being in church. Right. And so you're not allowed to ever go anywhere. You're not allowed to go on holiday. I'm not talking about that. I'm saying as a general rule, you're that should be that that from a long time ago and many here are the same. You're saved. You're going to church. Church comes first, isn't it? That's how it should be. What would you do on a Sunday? You go to church. You know, what do I do on a Sunday evening? I go to church. It's Sunday. It's, you know, I'm giving that day to the Lord. I give him one day a week to the Lord. What do I do on a midweek to break up the week on a Wednesday evening? I go to church. I mean, it's not like we have services every day, but that relies on people to to get their hearts right with that. And and my goal is to beat that average. OK, I'd like to get I haven't given a number there. I'd just like to get a higher average attendance. And number five, goal number five is our first our first missions trip. So we're organizing a missions trip at this church. And the first one is going to be in Malawi in Africa. We're we're we already have dates. So if you want to write down dates, you can. We're going to do we're going to do a nice advertisement for this shortly. It's from Monday, the 17th, arriving Tuesday, the 18th of June in Malawi until Tuesday, the 25th of June, returning Wednesday, the 26th of June. So just we would be looking at flights and how that's going to work out. But basically, if we arrive on a Tuesday, the kind of main work will start on the Wednesday through till the Tuesday through till returning on the Tuesday. So let's let's take it from someone that's already been there. Brother Hooner, how receptive is it brother Hooner? Probably the most receptive country in the world. OK, and and I we've been talking at length about this being Hooner. We spent, I think, half of half of our trip in South Africa just talking about Malawi because we wanted to plan a missions trip. It was something, you know, inspired us and we want to plan a missions trip. We started plotting plan. We've been talking a lot. And I think it's going to be amazing there. OK, very receptive. And we are we're not just looking to go out and and of course, so when he's great weather, but we're looking to line up a lot of schools as well and be able to just preach to class after class after class of kids. And we're looking to get a lot of salvation is out there and really try and make a big difference out there and try and, you know, get things started out there as well. So so our goal is that's in June. And look, you might be sitting there going, I can't get to Malawi in June, I can't maybe for whatever reasons. And if you can't, please pray for that, because let me tell you something. And with everything that we're trying to do as a church here, when a great and effectual door is opened, there are many adversaries. Believe me, OK, there will be there will be people trying to destroy this church on that for that alone, because of the fact that there are so many salvations that could be got if we organize this one, we do this well. And that could be a continual thing as well. We'd love that. We want to we want to. It's not like a one off missions trip. We want to be doing regular missions. We could get to Africa from here, which is a very receptive place for soul winning, much easier than all those churches can in the US. It's one flight direct from Heathrow, pretty much to most. So it's a quick interconnecting. Malawi is going to be a quick interconnecting flight after that. It's it's not three flights, OK? And and it's, look, a large part of its English speaking. And you know what a large part is, if it's not English speaking is French speaking. And we have a French group in Switzerland right now that we're trying to build as well. So that's a big goal of our church. That's a long term goal as well. And the first part of that is going to be in 2024 will be a missions trip to Malawi. So if you can't make that, please pray for it. Please just just help us help support that as well in whatever way you can. Just we we want to get out there and we want to start doing a great work in a place which is highly receptive. Huna's already been there. It's very receptive for the gospel. The kids obviously are massively receptive there as well. And it's and it's it's going to be easy to get to those places as well. So look, kids are receptive anywhere, but not like we know here. You ring up the school and go, can I come and preach the gospel there? They're going to be like, what on earth? No way. You know, where is there? We're going to be able to get into a lot of schools. So that's our goal, which means be great if you can make it, but as well if you pray for it. But but as well as well as that, I'm looking to fit in a trip to Holland as well around July time. I think is the time I was looking at. Again, I haven't got the definite date for that. So I'll let you know as soon as I get a date. I'm going to liaise with the guys out there. Again, there's been a great group there that they're so winning every week that they've visited. They've been making the effort to come and visit our church regularly as well. So I'd love to go out there and try and encourage them and inspire some things out there. So if you can't make Malawi, we're going to we're going to have it. It'll be an Amsterdam trip as well. And then we're going to also continue our UK cities tour with with, like I said, Chelmsford. And then we're going to likely go up north in May, probably around the sort of Sheffield, Manchester region. And we're going to keep going different places. So please, if you could be a part of that, that'll be every three months that we're going to be doing a city in the UK. So we're looking to reach out as a church as well. And that means everyone needs to be a part of that. And and last one, last goal, number six. Our goal is still schools or youth groups in the UK. However, like I said, in Malawi, the plan is many schools. So we want to hit schools, which is, again, one of the reasons why Ghana is somewhere where we know that we'll be able to get into schools and they're happy for us to come preach the gospel in schools. I mean, that was great in South Africa to just go to a place, a school where the headmistress is just saying, yeah, yeah, we've got 200 kids here ready for you to preach to. I mean, amazing, isn't it? I mean, it shouldn't be, but it but it is, isn't it? Just like, yeah, great. Come and preach to. We've got 200 kids. In fact, they're going to sing to you first. So they all sung to us. A couple of kind of, you know, you know, it was worship music that they were singing to us. And then and then next thing you know, we're standing there. She gave me like half hour to preach to them. In front, we only had one faint and it was quite hot there. They're sitting there in this play or standing in this playground and just listen to the gospel. They went to another school and they're like, yeah, basically come on. The headmaster, I went to his class and he just takes me into a kind of classroom cabin and just crack on. And, you know, I think I had 40 minutes in there. Didn't I? Was it 40 minutes? 40 minutes to preach the gospel and do a bit of follow up and stuff afterwards. And that's like when you can preach to 40 receptive kids at once. You can get a lot of salvation. And that's that's obviously our goal in Africa. But also, I don't want to give up on the UK either. So I'd like to I'd like to I'd like to in the UK. I've got kind of we've still got a couple of plans of trying to find ways to kind of get into the schools to get to at least get the gospel on the back. But also, another thing I'd like to do is we want to try and find some of the youth groups. They're like youth groups are more likely maybe with affected kids, things like the kids that maybe got some behavioral issues, things like that, that they might be more likely to let us come in and preach to maybe on the back of, you know, for example, boxing, Thai boxing, things like that as well with the gospel here. So there's a few things that we're looking to do there that we're still going to try and look to do into 2024 with that as well. So our plan is still schools. I'm leaving it. I just don't think the care homes is probably the best use of our time for now. So I'm leaving the care homes for now. Obviously, if I get the chance to preach to elderly people, I will. The sad truth is a lot of the time they're very unaccepted. It's not that we're going there to give them preaching, to encourage them, because the reality of it in this nation is that the vast majority are just unsaved. So that's something that we've tried, but I'm not going to continue with. But my goal is schools. OK, so that's number six. That's our goal. So we need prayers, numbers from Malawi. If not this time, then in the future as well. We're praying to do many more trips to surrounding nations, by the way, as well. So Malawi is where we're starting. And of course, there's nothing wrong with having some some personal goals for the new year. And I'll try and be quick because I know it's quite a long sermon today. If you can call it a sermon. But OK, but if you had some personal spiritual goals. OK, so by all means, you're going into the new year and maybe some of you are sitting there going, yeah, that's all great. But what about my waistline? Well, that's great. Hopefully you're not talking about mine. Yeah, but that's great. But what about what about my new, you know, fitness regime? Or what about, you know, I need I wanted to do X, Y and Z this year. Yeah, if they're spiritual goals, they'll all help towards the work of the Lord. Even they'll all help towards those specific goals I've mentioned as our church's goals. So, for example, if you made if you made a Bible reading goal, a Bible memorization goal, a prayer goal, a soul winning goal, a church attendance goal, a clean up your life goal in one way or another, it will all help towards our church's goals as well. In the many ways that I've kind of just talked about, just you being part of churches, you being steadfast, just you being in church, just you being, you know, in the word of God. And you're more likely to be then so winning, et cetera. Just so much of it goes hand in hand, right? Ephesians 2 21, you don't have to turn this is in whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord. So we're looking we're looking to to for everyone to grow together. And that needs everyone to be having spiritual goals for the year as well, to be improving themselves spiritually so we can grow together and be that that that holy temple unto the Lord as a church. So how about you? If you're out there now and you think, oh, what about myself here? Right. That was great to hear your church goals. How about you get a Bible reading goal going this year? How about if maybe you've never read the Bible through? How about you read the Bible through once this year? Maybe you're sitting there going once a piece of cake. How about you read it twice this year? How about you might think, actually, if I put in an hour a day in Bible, I could read it four times this year. I don't know. I don't know what you think you can do. But why don't you set a goal this year? But all this New Year's stuff, it could be useful. Like a lot of people do end up getting inspired. And if they can start well in January, they might keep going. Get it into a routine. Get a habit. Get a habit that when you wake up in the morning, you pray to God and you open your Bible. You get your Bible up on your phone and you read your Bible every single morning. And you know, well, what plan should I do? Should I do a little bit of this? Look, you can if you want. Or you know what you could do? You could just open up your Bible and start in either Genesis or Matthew and just read it all the way through. Read three chapters a day, every day, and you'll do the Bible in just over a year. You add a few chapters when they're short, you'll do it in a year. I mean, that's a good goal, isn't it? Yeah, maybe it's not. Maybe, like I said, it'll be tough. Maybe you've read the Bible a few times already. Maybe you could start adding that, adding a little bit more to that, right? And maybe not just Bible reading. Maybe you could add a Bible memory goal this year. Maybe you could try and memorise the Gospel, your Gospel presentation. That's a good thing to do, isn't it? Because sometimes you'll be talking to someone and you don't have your Bible to hand. Sometimes you're on the phone to someone and it seems like they want to hear the Gospel. It's an old friend. It's a family member, something else. And if you've got those verses, that's a great way of doing it sometimes, isn't it? Why don't you try and memorise those verses that you use to preach the Gospel, right? Why don't you make sure that you do our six verse challenges? A lot of people don't do it. I mean, you're getting reminded every week, only six verses. Six verses of the Bible in six weeks is pretty easy, right? OK, well, get involved with the six verses. You go over the old six verses. Like I said, I'm going to make a master list for you and you can make sure that you can still memorise each of the other six verse challenges that we've done for the last couple of years. You could note important verses when you're reading your Bible and memorise them. There are verses that jump out to you. There are verses sometimes, I might be preaching something and that verse, you go, man, that verse really speaks to me. Oh, that verse, I really need to think about that. Make a note of it on the back of your bulletin, on your notes section and put that, whether it's in your phone or in your Bible or whatever else is right. I'm going to memorise this verse. So Bible memorisation is important, right? I want it written on our hearts as well. Make a prayer goal this year as well. Some people, look, many people say the prayer life is a bit that's lacking for them. A lot of people say that. Some people don't. Some people, they're just naturally very, very natural to just pray all the time and pray a lot. But if maybe if that's you, if you think, yeah, my prayer life is lacking, a few things you could do. Firstly, give thanks for your food, yeah? Pray when you eat, get in a habit. Once you get in a habit, you can't even not. Even if you quickly eat something, you start praying in your head just because you're like, oh, man, I'm eating without praying. It's a good habit to give thanks for your food. Well, good time to pray. Good time to check in with God. But why don't you add some structured prayer as well? Maybe say, OK, no, actually, I can make sure that every morning I'm going to pray. Actually, I have it on my phone just to make sure that then if I'm if for every reason I get busy and stuff, my phone saying to me, pray, pray and read, pray and read. And it's like, OK, you know, I can't like that. You've got to be even more stubborn to then not pray and get on with something else, don't you? But but how about three times a day? How about you put three reminders a day to get down and do some quality prayer? And if you think, well, I don't really have much to pray for three times a day. Pray for me, please. Please pray for our church members, please. Yeah. Pray for each and every one of us, please, because we all need prayers. Yeah. And the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. OK, we need prayers. So, look, if you don't know what to pray for, pray for each other. Pray for, pray for, pray for our church. Pray for those goals. Pray for many things. OK, we want prayers. Prayer goal could be good. Make a soul winning goal. Maybe you're not soul winning. Maybe you've never been soul winning. Come out for the first time. Come out as a silent partner. Oh, what does that mean? Do you know what that means? Just be silent. OK, even if like there are there are some great things a silent partner can do. But if you're first time silent partnering, just being there is all that's expected and you can start to learn and listen and understand how someone can win someone to the Lord, how we try and get those conversations started, how we try and try and get to the point where someone, you know, to understand someone wants to hear the gospel, to then preach the gospel to them. And every time there's a different there's it's a new experience, isn't there? And sometimes it can be a hard, sometimes there'll be hard issues to try and get through. There'll be questions people have. There'll be distractions. There are many things. Best thing to do is go out and learn, right? Come out soul winning for the first time. If it's not soul winning, maybe maybe so if it's not coming out for the first time, maybe you do so. And sometimes maybe you start making routine. Well, I'm going to make sure I saw win once a week. That's a good goal, isn't it? Once a week, I'm so winning. And if I miss, if for every reason I miss that, I'm going to find another way, another day to go out, so winning, maybe think, actually, I think I can make twice a week. So winning, I can make a midweek, so winning time. Well, please do then. We've got some different options. We've got one near the church at four thirty. We've got a six thirty in Basildon. We've got a six thirty in Tilbury on those on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively, there to try and make a soul win time. Maybe you can do two. Maybe you can make it to three. But again, do what you think you can do. Make a goal that actually I think I can achieve this this year. And that's all going to help. That's not just going to help yourself. It's going to help everyone. How about marathons? Maybe you can make the soul winning, but you can't really make the marathons. Try and make things work out to make the marathons. The marathons are great. I mean, you're getting in weeks of soul winning in one in one marathon, aren't you? And they're often receptive as well about you've never talked before. Maybe this year is a year to try and talk. And again, you know, we don't pressure that. If you've never tried to preach the gospel, you could be a silent partner for years and you're still you're still involved with soul winning. But maybe make it some goals for for for trying to get to the point where you're able to speak. How about a church attendance goal? Maybe just saying I'm going to give Sunday to the Lord. Sunday's the Lord's Day. That's the day that I'm going to come. It's the first day of the week. It's the day that, you know, that the risen Lord, you know, came to his disciples. It's a day that we see them meeting. We see the example in Acts Sunday. That's when they meet. I'm going to give Sunday to the Lord. I'm going to find a way to not have to ever work on a Sunday. I'm going to find a way to not have to be distracted, pulled here and now, to find a way to just say to the family, the friends, the distractors, the people that don't want me in church, and say, no, Sunday's church. That's what there are people out there that go, no, Sunday's football. There are people out there that go, no, Sunday's rugby, or Sunday's whatever. And they're like, oh, yeah, fair enough. Oh, no, they can't come on a Sunday because they're at kids' rugby all day. But is it weird to be able to say that about the Lord? About coming to worship the Lord on a Sunday and listen to the word of God and sing praise to God? Give Sunday to God. You're going to be a great guy. How about Wednesdays? How about, no, I'm going to work things out, find a way, talk to my boss and find a way to make Wednesday evening. And, yeah, I'm not forsaking the assembling then. Wouldn't it be great to just have a busy Wednesday, every Wednesday, just be busy, full of people that are making the effort to be in God's house, and can make a church attendance goal, make it a routine. When it's a routine, it's just so much easier. Or maybe there's a sin that you know is dragging you down. Maybe make it your goal for the new year. I'm going to cut out the TV. It's dragging me down. I can't resist watching junk on TV. Maybe that could be your goal. Maybe it's the music. My goal this year is to stop putting on empty vanity going into my ears and trying to brainwash me into thinking fornication and other stuff is OK. Get it out of your life. Cut it out. How about this year, I'm no longer going to listen to worldly music. This year, I'm no longer going to watch TV. This year, I'm going to give up the cigarettes. This year, that's it. Whatever it is. Whatever that thing is that you know that's holding you down, make a goal for the year, right? The social media, maybe. Maybe you realise, actually, I probably spend hours a day just scrolling through junk and often filth and rubbish and vanity and everything else. This year, I'm going to put some blocks on that. I'm not going to do that. Whatever it is, because it will all help towards... It will all help, from a selfish point of view, it's all going to help towards our church's goals. But even from a personal point of view, it's all going to help for your own spiritual goals. It will all help you to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. It's not in vain. It's not for nothing. Everything we do in the Lord is worthwhile. It all makes a difference. Everything you do. And it will all help towards our church's goals. So, just to remind you of them again. Goal number one, 1,500 salvations. Goal number two, 100 baptisms. Goal number three, more personal discipleship. Goal number four, higher average attendance. Goal number five, our first missions trip and other trips. And goal number six, schools or youth groups in the UK, as well as Malawi and elsewhere. Last time with that verse. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. It's not in vain. OK, let's all work hard this year and just keep abounding on more and more and more. And on that, we're going to finish up in a word of prayer. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for this church. Lord, thank you for everyone here. It's just been such a part of what we've achieved over the last year. Thank you for this last year, Lord. And it's just sometimes great this time of year to just look back and realise how much we have achieved as a church, how much you've helped us achieve and how much you've been a part of that. And thank you for just everything you've given us with this church, Lord, for everything that you're helping us to achieve here as this soul-winning church here in Southend, Lord. Help us to just keep reaching out, keep doing more, keep abounding, Lord. Help everyone to do that in not just their personal lives but also in their lives, in their church life as well. Help us to all just have a great afternoon now and a great afternoon service. In Jesus' name I pray all this. Amen.