January 23, 2012 Prayer Letter

Dear friends,

Greetings again in the wonderful  name of Jesus!  

John's travel to Ukraine:
Feb 8 - March 1
Preaching, teaching, evangelizing, praying, counseling, spending time with pastors and leaders, visiting various Churches of Praise, working side by side with Pastor Gregory, having a great time with our dear Churches of Praise, friends for 19 years since we helped them to begin.  This is John's trip #55 to Krivoy Rog, Ukraine.
3/4 of the funds are still needed.                    

Let it be done to me according to Your Word!      
 (Continued from last month's letter)
I wrote in our December 12 letter about seeing the two most important truths of the gospel as a two sided coin.  On one side of the coin, it would say, "Christ is in me."  On the other side, it would say, "I am in Christ."  Nothing is more important to you as a child of God than to believe this truth.  This is the foundation of the mind of Christ, the mind of the Father, and the mind of the Holy Spirit.  Your main task as a believer is to think like God: to agree with Him, to say, "Yes Sir.  You said it, I believe it." This is first of all an action of humility, and then faith will come.

As I also wrote, (now use your imagination!) I wish there was a little slot in your head where I could insert this two sided gospel coin until it drops down with a "click, click" inside your head. In other words, that the truth would be implanted inside your brain, and your mind would go "Click, click: Oh now I see it!" -- so that all you would believe is: “I am in Christ, and Christ is in me”.  “I am in Christ, and Christ is in me!”   “I AM IN CHRIST AND CHRIST IS IN ME!”  Compulsive thinking in the right direction, I would call it!

Oh, what a change there would be in each one of us, if that voice of Truth drowned out every lying voice, and it was always in charge of your mind!

That's the job of the Holy Spirit to make that happen.  (John 16:14) Your job is to keep letting him do it through His Word. Let it happen until you know that you know that you know the truth of Christ in you is more true than anything!

...because it is.

This is the rock bottom reality for every Christian. That's who you are.  You are joined to Christ, and He is joined to you. That's where you draw your strength, that's where faith comes from. Faith comes from Truth. You can't have faith without believing the Truth. Faith is not a feeling, faith is an agreement with the truth as God sees it. And you can do this! Just say this, “I'm a believer! And I agree with God!  And in any way that I disagree, that's going to change!”

When I got filled with the Holy Spirit, I realized I had a problem with my thoughts. I could not trust my thoughts very well.  Actually, I was a young pastor. I remember when the Lord showed me where the root of my thinking was to be. I had always thought my mind was anchored in my head. But I found that my mind is to be anchored in the written Word of God, the Bible. My head needs to be filled up with what is in the Bible. (This was after eight years of Bible College and university.)

As a young pastor, I made a discipline for myself. When people come to a pastor, they hope he knows everything. When pastoring, people would ask me,  “What do you think about this or that?” I learned to say, “Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know. I have to find out what I think about that. I'll go look it up in God’s Word. I'll find out in His Word what I think. In fact I encourage you to do the same thing, since you don't really need to know what I think.  What you really need to know is what God thinks!”

That's what people really are asking for. If you're going to lead people, you need to have a discipline on your speech, so you do not parrot back your own opinions about people's problems. Remember, they are not saved by your opinions, but by God and His Word!

Frequently I would do something that looked silly, especially in my prayer time. I would open the Bible and put it on my head, and walk around my office saying, “This is my mind!”.

Of course, God has a stronger idea than putting the Book on my head. He wants the words of the Book to be IN my head, not on my head!

The Word of God is alive. It does not just exist as the letters on the page. If somebody burned all the Bibles, the Word of God would still exist! The Truth would still be the truth!

But thank God, it's written! Every day it says the same thing! Thank God for that.

The "Big Three" for you in Ephesians 4:22-24
Big Number One: Ephesians 4:22 ALWAYS says “Lay aside the old self”.  From God's side, the old self is a dead man. From God's side, He already put him to death. He's just a corpse lying there. All we can do is bury the thing! It was the power of God that killed that old nature, not YOUR power. Jesus fought that flesh and Jesus won the battle.  Just LAY aside the old flesh. Give him a decent burial. Water baptism signifies the burial of your old flesh, and your resurrection into the new life of Christ.

This old nature is not your life anymore. You have a new life. So be renewed in your thinking.

Big Number Two: Ephesians 4:23 ALWAYS says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.”

What spirit is in your mind?  What spirit is inspiring your thoughts? As an example, your mind can be inspired with the spirit of fear and worry.

Have you ever been driven in your thinking by anxiety? I have. My mind can be very imaginative. I can create an entire movie in my head in a few seconds, a great drama about everything terrible that's going to happen. Just BOOM, and there it is in my head!

But God did not intend your imagination to be used to dream up disaster! He created your imagination to imagine the Truth; to imagine the power of God working, to imagine the world from God's perspective. Therefore, you need to check out what spirit is inspiring your mind. If it's the wrong one, you have authority over it. You are not your mind.  You are spirit. Your mind is a tool and a servant and you  have the power to put your thoughts under obedience to your spirit, to the truth of God.

Many of us have these problems and don't realize that we have a very proud mind.  No, we don't act proud or feel proud. A proud mind is like this: “If I think it, it has to be true! How can it not be true?  How can it be in my mind and not be true?"

A proud mind can be such an extreme problem that people can end up in a mental hospital, because they put so much confidence in their imaginations! Proud thoughts can be full of fear, shame or hopelessness; some proud thinking, instead of making you feel proud, can make you feel miserable!

The answer is to humble your mind; insist on your mind bowing to the truth of God – that He loves you, that He will take care of you, that He never puts you to shame.  These are His covenant promises.  (See Romans 8:31-39)

You don’t need great faith to take hold of those great promises; you need to humble your mind.  You are not God, you are not the Creator.  He is.  If He promised to love you and take care of you, your response as His creature is to say, “Yes Sir.  You are the Creator, I am not.  You are God, I am not.  I humble myself under Your Truth, under your ideas and your promises.   If you said it, that is good enough for me.”  That is not great faith;  that is humility of mind.

Your mind is like a computer; it may have good things in it or it might not!  It depends on what has been put into it. Sometimes I think of my mind as a battlefield, and there are armies of thoughts marching through, and I have to decide which army I'm going to join! I must choose to take sides with my army of choice (God’s army of ideas in His Word), and I'm going to drive out that other army of lies -- EVERY thought that is contrary to the Word of God. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Like a  computer, sometimes you have to reinstall the operating system and reload the software.  God’s covenant Word is the operating system of your mind.  How you think about everything in life depends on laying everything on that foundation.

There is nothing more powerful than the blood of Jesus to cleanse your mind and conscience from old dead ideas that bind you to darkness and defeat.  There is nothing more powerful than the covenant promises of God to light up your heart and mind and give you hope and faith and peace and wisdom and courage to look ahead, with expectation of grace and mercy and goodness following you all the days of your life!!

You CAN be renewed in the spirit of your mind through the washing power of the Word. Though you don't know how to do that by yourself, God knows how to renew your mind! Ask Him to renew the spirit of your mind. Then 1) keep your mind in His Word, 2) keep honoring His blood over your mind, and 3) keep inviting the Holy Spirit to help.

You just need to stay with Him; don't run away from Him. Stay in this presence, don't let anything keep you from the presence of God. God does the work. He's the Savior -- not only of your spirit; He is also the Savior of your mind, and your body.

Big Number Three: Ephesians 4:24 ALWAYS declares the third thing we need to do, which is “Put on the new self”. Put off the old man, laying him aside just like taking off your old coat. From God's side He's done all the work, that old man died with Christ. Just take him (or her) off like a dirty old garment cast it aside.  You do this by faith in the truth.

With the Big Number Two done, a renewed spirit in your mind, how do you think? You’ve got that gospel coin planted in your mind, and it renewed your thinking.  Now your thinking is constantly, “Christ is in me and I'm in Christ”.  “Christ is in me and I'm in Christ”.  “Christ is in me and I'm in Christ”.   (Colossians 1:27-29)

You are now agreeing with God! You now believe “What the Word says is what is true about me; and since Christ is in me, I'm a new creature".  From the point of receiving a renewed spirit in your mind, doing the Big Number Three, putting on the new self, is like putting on the new clothing that matches who you know you are! You know who you are, and you know that this new life of God belongs to you! You're putting on the truth that you believe! You know that God provided it all, and so you put it on.

Romans 13:14: " But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh." You take the truth and put it on -- in your thoughts, your meditations, your convictions, your words, and your actions -- just like you put on your new coat!

I realize that talking about these things in this way may seem too easy. When you are in the middle of a temptation or a crisis, it seems as if that  old self is screaming at you! How come this dead guy is screaming at me? Well the fact to remember is this: you still live in a body which is a natural body and still only has the natural life in it. There still remains the old nature in the members of your body. That's what Romans 7 and 8 teach us.

The new nature is in your spirit. Romans 8:10 says your spirit is alive but your body is dead. God means your body is spiritually dead. But your spirit is alive and well and in charge! For this reason, through the members of your body (your brain is a member of your body) you can get screamed at from the dead and dark flesh.  But in the name and blood of Jesus you can silence these false voices of the flesh.  "Old dead flesh, shut up!"

This morning that old flesh was saying to me, “Just don't even get out of bed! Just lay here. Feed me. Be good to me.” That was the voice of that old self-centered flesh that comes from the body.

Who are you? You are not your body! Again, you are not your body!   "Body, get up and serve God!"

You live in your body. You need your body. It's like a spacesuit that you need if you're going to be in outer space. If you don't have your spacesuit on, you'll just blow up and die!

But if you are going to live on the earth, you need your Earth suit! That is your body, your Earth suit. You, however, are a human spirit. If you went outside and WHAM!, a car hit you and your body died, you would still exist. Your spirit would be there. Maybe not long; the Lord would probably take you quickly to heaven, but you would still be you.

That's who you are. You are a spiritual person. Do you see yourself that way? That's part of the change that renews the spirit of your mind. Your body serves you and your mind serves you; but who are you?  You are the one joined to Christ!

And for this reason, you can "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh".  The only provision needed for the flesh is burial. And that is what happened to your flesh when Jesus was buried.  The old you was buried with Him.  And when He was raised from the dead, you were raised up with Him to a new life in God. That is what is true about you the moment you come into Christ and Christ comes into you through the new birth.


"I'm a new creation, I'm a brand new man;
Old things are passed away, I've been born again;
More than a conqueror, that's who I am;
I'm a new creation, I'm a brand new man."
                                        by David Ingles

January 6, 2012: Passing to heaven of a Ukrainian pastor, evangelist and friend, Pasha Sobol.  
Pasha served in the Afghan war in the early eighties, was run over by a truck, and another time the straps of his backpack were shot off by passing bullets. He survived all that and sixteen years ago, radically turned his life to Jesus Christ.  A long-time Churches of Praise evangelist and church planter, Pasha had opened a new church in Krivoy Rog 18 months ago.

He preached in his young church until the Sunday before he unexpectedly went to heaven from cancer discovered only a few weeks ago.  He went to glory with "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus....." on his lips. He brought hundreds of people to the Lord, and many were healed.   Nina, Pasha's wife, will lead the church in his place.

A continual thanks to you...
40 years of ministry, 25 years of missions, and the fact remains that we would be able to do little or nothing without friends like you who pray for us and support us financially.  Every month needs miracles and offerings that surprise us.  We appreciate you and are privileged to have you as a friend of this ministry.

With love,
John and Jackie

Our December 12 Prayer Letter

Dear friends,
Merry Christmas in the name of Jesus!

Let it be done to me according to Your Word...
Eph. 4:22-24 says:
1. Lay aside the old self.
2. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
3. Put on the new self.
In these verses are the three things that will change your Christian life.  The first one is that we lay aside the old self, or the old man, or the old nature. That's your sinful nature. Here it says to lay him or her aside. Don't fight with him or her. Don't fight with your flesh. Lay it aside - because this is the fight that has already been won!

This is why you need to know what Jesus has accomplished, and how to make it yours. This knowledge of what Jesus finished on the cross shows that we don’t fight with our old nature, we lay it aside.  Romans 6:6 declares that your old self was crucified with Christ.  When you were baptized into Christ, you were baptized into His death, and your old sinful self was crucified with Him. When He died, your old self died. The only thing that you can do is receive it. As I say often, that means just agree with God. “Yes Sir, Lord! You said it, I believe it. I agree.”  When you agree with God, you are in faith.

You don't need a huge amount of faith. Jesus said that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, which is a tiny little seed, you can tell a mountain to move and it will move. You will never face a bigger mountain than your old sinful flesh.

Again: you don't need huge faith; actually the first thing you need is humility. If you don't have faith, you start with humility. You humble yourself, which means that you say to yourself, “Okay, I know I'm not God. I'm not the creator. I'm the one He created. He is God. And I am His creature.”

That is the basic healthy view of life. It doesn't take a lot of faith; it takes some humility. It is acknowledging that God is God, and you are not Him. You acknowledge that He knows more than you! You believe that He has a brain and created your brain.

Thank God for His Word, thank God for the Book which is the Word of God, written so that you can know how God thinks; because He wrote it for you. You don't have to be confused about God. He not only wrote about His ideas, but He also sent Jesus Christ so that you would see the Living Word, Who is the Father come in the flesh. Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." John 14:9

You understand God the Father by looking at Christ.

This takes only small faith to begin. It takes just enough faith to open the Bible. It takes just a little faith to listen to and read the Word. It takes just enough faith to say, “Okay God, I need everything, I want everything You can give me. I want to learn.” It doesn't take a lot of faith for that.  It just takes humility.

When I was first filled with the Holy Spirit, at age 29, it was after many years of being frustrated as a Christian. I knew for many years that I was born again, but I struggled and struggled. I did not understand what I was missing. Before being baptized in the Spirit, Jackie and I had not even attended church for more than five years! We knew we were children of God, but that was about it.  Our youthful dreams of serving God had all turned to ashes.

The great day came when we were both filled with the Holy Spirit.  It happened in a little church that had exploded with God’s presence when the Holy Spirit moved in our city.  The rickety old building they were renting was packed out every week.

I had a friend at my job who invited me to visit this church, someone whom I had seen change before my eyes on the job.   For several weeks, I saw him come in every day full of the joy of the Lord. He wasn't like that before. He had been a very unhappy person.  I watched him change at our place of work. He invited me over to that church, and I finally went to a meeting there.  I sat down in the back row near the door, in case it got weird and I could sneak out.  For one of the first times in my life, I heard a quiet voice inside of me that I knew wasn't me.  It was the Lord, and He said, “John, you just come and sit here, and I'll do all the rest.”
At that point I really needed that. I didn't know what to do. I had tried everything.  I tried to dedicate myself and promised God over and over that I will be a wonderful Christian, but it didn't work. Well, of course God never intended to work by my promises, but by HIS promises!

God wants you to live a holy life, but how can you do that without the Holy Spirit? He's the Only Strength Aways Available to live in a holy life.

What you really need is what Jesus has already done. You can't make a new life happen yourself.  You receive what Christ has done.  You learn to react like Mary the mother of Jesus, when the angel came and said to her that the Son of God would be conceived in her.  She responded, “Let it be done to me according to Your word.”  Luke 2:38

"Let it be done to me..."  That's where we all begin, not by saying, "Lord, I'm going to try hard to make this work." No, you sit down in the presence of God and you let His Word do its work. It's the Word of God that changes you. "Let it be done in me according to Your Word."

The Word of God (Romans 6) says that your old sinful self was crucified with Christ, so that you are no longer a slave to sin. How do you respond to that?  You may have trouble believing it; so humble yourself, listen to it and read it, remembering that the Word of God itself has power. Pray, “Lord, let that be done in me, according to Your Word.” Meditate on the Word, think about it, read it again, and speak it out loud to yourself.  The Word does its work in you. Meanwhile, you rest in the Lord, trusting Him. You wait on Him. He's the One that changes you. The chief way He changes you is with His Word, especially all the words about Christ. Absorb in the Bible what has happened to you through Christ.

The New Testament uses certain simple words over and over: through Christ, in Christ, by Christ, for Christ, with Christ.  Those simple words represent the underlying process of God's thinking about you, what He has planned for you, and how he is going to work it out. It is all because of your connection to Christ. Hallelujah!  Just agree with Him.

For a Christian to become filled with Christian thoughts, the center of your thinking must change.  It changes from “me” to “Christ”.  “Not I, but Christ.”   This becomes the root of your brain! You learn to think about yourself as part of Christ. When you do that, you will find that you have faith.

The most important thing about you is that you are part of Jesus Christ - that He is in you and you are in Him.
I like to use a certain illustration for this simple and powerful new thinking. Find a coin, and put it in your hand.  Now notice, that coin has two sides to it, as all coins do. That coin is a simple way to describe the gospel for you. Now look at it and imagine this: on one side the coin says, “You are in Christ”, and on the other side, it says, “Christ is in you”. These are the two most important things about you. This is how God thinks about you. Now, just agree with God. Say it and shout it:  “Christ is in me!” and “I am in Christ!” Say it out loud and say it often!

Sometimes I need to look in a mirror and speak the truth to myself. I point my finger in my face in the mirror and say, “John Matthews, Christ is in you”. If you will say that to yourself, it is more powerful than if any powerful preacher said it to you! You yourself are the strongest preacher in your life; you have the most power to speak into your life and change your life!

The Lord has called all of us to go out in the world and preach the gospel. Who's the first person that you need to preach it to? Yourself!

You can find yourself trying to get a victory that's already won for you. What you really need to do is receive that victory, acknowledge and agree with that victory – the one that Jesus accomplished for you in His death and resurrection.

Thank you again...
What would we do without you? Trust God, of course.  But we have learned that He uses you in our lives to provide the spiritual and material foundation that keeps us moving ahead in getting the gospel to God's harvest in the nations. We are grateful to each of you who does what the Holy Spirit inspires you to do to support this ministry.

We totally depend on your contributions of prayer and finances, and we say thank you with deep appreciation and affection and love.

Have a Wonderful Christmas, celebrating all that Jesus accomplished when He came to this earth!

With love,
John and Jackie

p.s. Keep praying and agreeing in faith with us for God's wisdom for our 2012 mission travel.

Our November 28, 2011 Prayer Letter

Dear friends,
We greet you once again in the Wonderful Name of Jesus!

Living in agreement with God...
Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The Word of God simply says that is the fact. Having been justified by faith, the fact is that you have peace with God.  So, if you are trying to get peace with God, you have a problem. Why are you trying to get something that you already have? An old preacher friend of mine said, “John, most Christians have a problem. They are trying to get into a room that they're already in.”

You are justified by faith in Christ NOW. That means you're made right with God. Therefore you have peace with God NOW. If you don't feel that peace, does that mean you don't have it? This is the basic lesson of a Christian, to know how to believe the truth - to separate the truth from the lie. This lesson is learning to base your life not on what you feel, but on what the Word of God says. If you are feeling a lack of peace with God, and you start thinking of all the reasons why, you will immediately get help from the devil, who will give you lots of reasons why you don't have peace with God! He will help you remember all your failure and your sins, and you will feel less and less peace. But you would be listening to the liar.

Instead, as a Christian you are to find a different way to live. You open the Book, and remind yourself of the truth. You speak the truth to yourself: “Here it says it: Having been justified by faith, yes...I believe that...we have, which means I have, peace with God through my Lord Jesus Christ. Devil, shut up! Condemnation, be quiet! Mind, be quiet. I honor the blood over my mind in Jesus' name!”

Frequently your mind doesn't help you very much. The best thing to do is just tell it to be quiet, because your victory does not come from trying to think your way out of a problem.

You have spiritual weapons and they all are rooted in the Word of God. Romans 5:1 is a spiritual weapon. Pull it up out of your Bible, and put your attention on it.  You will be using your mind, but you will use the Word in your mind to take authority over your thoughts that are pulling you down.

You also declare the Word with your mouth. This unleashes the power of the Word. You speak it out loud, you sing it, and you shout it.  Do it so that you hear that Word more loudly in your head than the voice of the enemy that's trying to discourage you.

Every day, when you open up and look at Romans 5:1, it says the same thing! God never changes His mind about His covenant words. He never will change his mind on this point. You are made right by your faith in Jesus Christ, therefore you have peace with your heavenly Father, not because of your works but because of the work of Christ!

It says your peace is through your Lord Jesus Christ. Through Christ! This is the beginning of the renewal of the mind of a Christian, when you start thinking “through Christ, in Christ, by Christ, with Christ, and for Christ." This Christ-connected thinking loads the power of the New Testament. This is how God thinks about you: you simply agree with how God thinks.

What is faith? It is thinking the same way as God thinks. Sometimes we try to pump up our faith. But faith is simply agreeing with the Word of God. Your mind lines up with His mind. Your words line up with His words. Your actions will follow your mind and your words.

You can have quiet faith and you can have noisy faith. The power is that you and God agree.

The Lord wants to change us on the inside so that we know what He knows. He wants us to see as He sees, so that whether it's about your life or someone else's life, you are not overwhelmed by the circumstance.  Instead, you are overwhelmed by the power of God that is available, by the love of God that is available for that person or that circumstance.

That's why we’re not in heaven yet, because God didn't want to just forgive us and then send us to heaven.  I’ve sometimes seen people repent and then go back into the world.  I thought for a moment when I was baptizing a new believer,  “Wouldn’t it be better if we just baptize people and leave them down there in the water? Just send them straight to heaven! There would be no backsliding!

Well, it's against the law to drown people, of course, but God has a better idea. He didn't save us just to kill us. He saved us to bring us into an new abundant life. Jesus said it's the thief that comes to rob and kill and steal and destroy but He has come to do what? To give you life.  And what kind of life? Abundant life! Much more life than you need!  (John 10:10)

God is so amazing. His Word is so amazing. His Word is so powerful that if you got understanding and revelation about one verse like Romans 5:1 -- if that's all you had -- He would do a miracle in your life. You would have the power of God working if it was the only verse you knew. Just one word from God can defeat the enemy.

I heard a report about a lady born and raised in India. When she was a small girl living on the street, a missionary spoke to her and said something about Jesus and taught her one Christian song well enough so that she could sing it. From that day on she never heard anything more about Jesus. She lived her whole life on the street with only that one song. She didn't have a Bible. You would have found her every day on the street corners singing that one song to Jesus, and that one song kept her faith going all her life. Someone found her out there on the street when she was 60 or 70 years old.  They found out that song was all she ever learned about Christ, and she just lived on that one bit of truth that was given to her as a little child.

What if we each would grab a hold of just one truth with all of our heart?  There would be great power in our lives.

We sometimes say easily that we believe the whole Bible. But it's not enough to just believe the whole thing. You got to open it up and you got to believe specific things. You need to take one truth at a time and make it yours until you say and know, “This is my truth. This is my life!”

I did that with Romans 5:1: "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we (I) have peace with God through our (my) Lord Jesus Christ."  It was the first Scripture I took inside as belonging to me after I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, even though I had known the verse since childhood.  Somehow the Holy Spirit turned the light on Romans 5:1 for me at that time.  I looked at it and I grabbed it and shouted, “Yeah, that's mine!” You can make it yours too.

Recently I was listening to someone preaching, and as they started preaching I thought they were preaching my verses! I thought, “Hey, that's my Scripture!”  It was the funniest reaction in me, thinking, “But that's my verse!”

You need to take one Scripture at a time and make it very personal. It must become your inside Bible, the Bible in your heart, so that even if you don't have the Book near you, you will be the walking Word of God. Even if you don't have the whole Word of God in you, but you have some of the truth settled inside, it will be your spiritual backbone.  It becomes the anchor of your soul, the anchor of your mind.

Still considering Romans 5:1, when you take that verse inside, you then know you are anchored in the peace of God, not by what you do or how you feel, but because of what Jesus did for you and what the Bible says about it. You simply agree with God.

“Holy Spirit, come and do a supernatural work in any who read this, whose mind is unsettled, or whose heart has no resting place.  We ask for this in Jesus’ name." 

Jackie and I honor the blood of Jesus over your mind, casting down imaginations that come from the darkness.  We rebuke the lies and the liar in the name of Jesus. Satan, you won't have our minds. We belong to God, and we have the mind of Christ! We agree with You, Father, we agree with Your Wonderful Word!

Our vision remains the same: to serve God's harvest in the nations, laying the blood covenant foundations of Christ in the lives of new believers , leaders and churches. 


We remain totally dependent on your prayer and financial contributions for our personal support and for our missionary work.  We need a miracle!!


Thank you for praying for us and for giving as the Lord enables you.  


I have written about 2/3 of the first draft of the book on blood covenant foundations.  


Please keep praying for our establishing and expanding of the writing and publishing ministry:  for distribution at home and abroad.


Pray also for the establishing of plans for mission travel during 2012.


With love,
John and Jackie

Our October 13 Prayer Letter

http://www.scarletthreadministries.org/WhoWeAre/PrayerLetterPDFArchive/2011/October132011.pdf

Our September 7 prayer letter

If you would like to see this letter in original form with photos, go to this link: http://www.scarletthreadministries.org/WhoWeAre/PrayerLetterPDFArchive/2011/September72011.pdf

September 7, 2011

Dear friends,
We greet you once again in the Wonderful Name of Jesus!

Having arrived back in Minnesota a few days ago, I (John) want to report that I, along with pastor Roger Sutch and Ken Beaudry, had a great time in Ukraine.  We were in events surrounding the annual Congress of Churches of Praise during the first days after our arrival. It was a great time of refreshing for everyone!

Roger and I then headed north to the Poltava region of the Churches of Praise, where we had the privilege of being in new church plants in various villages and towns.

It was an honor to be in these places, knowing well the challenging ministry of the church planters, who each work with a network of five or six villages evangelizing, loving, caring, and praying for the people.

A memorable place on the trip was a tiny village of approximately 25 people.  A faithful lady named Anna is starting the ministry there with her five small children, using a house purchased for just $240 dollars.  We held a Saturday afternoon meeting in the yard. Since the house is not directly on any road, we had to drive through the backyards of several houses from the main road to get to the house, and drive into its small yard.

Vanya and his wife, Church of Praise evangelists, came with us.  They, with Anna and the children, walked around the village inviting people.   16 of the 25 people came to the meeting.  There were simple narrow benches set up in the yard.  The people all knew each other, of course, and bantered back and forth in conversation before the meeting began.  My translator was Yanna, who is also and excellent worship leader, keyboard player, singer and music composer - from the main church in Krivoy Rog.  A keyboard and loudspeaker were set up in the yard, and Yanna's singing, playing and worship was like music from heaven in that little village yard.  Of course, the people loved her.

After her testimony, I taught the gospel -- what Jesus accomplished on the cross.  As I often do, I had them use their fingers to remember the five great things that Jesus completed for them in the shedding of his blood.  I had the whole group of sixteen pray the sinners prayer, with most of them saying they had never prayed that prayer before. They prayed loudly and with great enthusiasm!  All of them then wanted prayer for various things: sickness, family problems, etc.  It was great honor to pray for and bless them. This village group is pictured on the back of this letter.  As on other days, Roger was at that time ministering in another village.

The church planters are all heroes to us.  In the Poltava region, 52 churches have been opened and six more are scheduled to begin soon.  None of the planters have cars.  Each are responsible for several villages which may be 5 to 15 miles apart.  Two such female church planters had been using old bicycles which collapsed some weeks ago, and now they walk to their villages.

I asked the senior pastor Vadim, who oversees these 52 churches plus his own church,  how many bicycles were needed right now.  He said seven.  They want to buy the medium quality bicycle for $110; the cheaper model falls apart in a few months from the heavy use.

In one of the towns a house has been given to the church that has started there, a very good house from the point of view of the young congregation. For them, it was a miracle. But it needs repairs in order to be used as a meeting place for the church.  Those repairs will cost $2500.  It will be a building worth more than $10,000 when repaired.

We could tell many stories from the fifteen towns in which we ministered.  People came to Christ in every meeting.  We also laid hands and prayed with individuals for their needs in every meeting, sometimes everyone present.  It was a pleasure!

Thank you for praying for us, and thank you for continuing to support us and the ministry financially.  The Lord's richest blessing on you and your family!

With love,
John and Jackie

Our July 20 prayer letter

Dear friends,
We greet you again in the Wonderful Name of Jesus!

It's hard to believe that my (John's) next trip to Krivoy Rog, Ukraine will finish 18 years of working with our beloved Churches of Praise.  It was October of 1993 when Jackie and I, along with Ed Sorteberg and Brian Rupe, landed in Kiev and took the overnight train to Krivoy Rog.  We had the honor of preaching to a theater full of people who had come to hear about Jesus.  When I gave the invitation to give their lives to Jesus for the first time, the entire crowd stood!  Not sure they understood, I had them all sit down and explained more and repeated the invitation.  Again they all stood to their feet.  Can you believe I did it a third time? With the same results?  The first Church of Praise was announced at that meeting, and the first gathering took place the following Sunday.

Within weeks, pastor Gregory and Galena opened the second Church of Praise - which became the "mother church".  A daughter church had been born before the mother church was born!  Try to figure that one out.

We knew from the moment we met Gregory that he had an apostolic anointing and in our hearts we saw him opening many churches.  He did not see himself that way at the time, but now he leads this fellowship of more than 200 churches, with several dozen new ones being opened this year.

Roger, Ken and I are privileged to again be at the annual "family reunion" of these churches, called the Congress of the Churches of Praise.  Every leader wants to be there! It is a great reunion, with hundreds of church planters and ministers together, with the love of Jesus flowing among them freely. They really act like a big family of God!

It is hugely important for church leaders from far flung villages and towns to be with their spiritual brothers and sisters, and to be in the explosive atmosphere of praise and worship.  They drink in every word taught and preached, and are hungry and thirsty for a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Ken and Roger are great imparters of the Holy Spirit, and we are sure the meetings will be marked by the unusual.  We call that normal!

Our desire is that all the workers get fresh fire from God and filled to a new overflow of the Spirit.  By being continually filled with God's love and fire, these ministers keep moving on ahead!

Roger and I will have two weeks longer than Ken to be in Ukraine, and plan to use it all in evangelism and church planting in towns and villages that are being targeted for new churches to be opened.  We will be supported by the Ukrainian team who work faithfully in such outreaches.

Please agree in prayer for the power of God to be present for healing and miracles, and for the village gatherings to be marked with many coming to salvation and receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

We are planning to have outreaches in at least twelve villages.  You can be a partner with us by prayer and by giving to the small budget needed for each village outreach.  $150 will suffice for each village near Krivoy Rog.  For reaching more distant villages, $250 per village is needed for the extra transportation expense of the workers.

We have received $300 for two village outreaches, and believe that the rest for all twelve will come in.  Funds are also needed for the rest of my own travel expenses, about $1000.

Roger and Ken and I are VERY excited about this trip, and believe God will do wonderful things.  All reports indicate there is a fresh moving of God in the towns and villages of Ukraine, with the people very hungry for God!

Thank you  for your partnership in prayer, in love, and in giving to this Ukrainian movement which has never stopped in the last 18 years! Actually, we believe the best is yet to come!!

With love,  John and Jackie

p.s. Jackie will be at home; agree with us that all the needs will be met at the home base!



John's Travel to Ukraine:
August 10 - 31
(with Roger Sutch and Ken Beaudry)
Schedule:
1. Annual Congress of Churches of Praise   Aug 16 - 20
2. Evangelism and church planting in 12 villages Aug 12 - 16, Aug 20 - 29
You can cover the cost of one village event for $150 - $250


Write checks to: Scarlet Thread Ministries, P.O Box 48341, Coon Rapids, MN 55448-0341
For online giving: go to our website page: http://www.scarletthreadministries.org/ContactUs.htm

June 28, 2011 Prayer Letter

Dear friends,
We say hello again in the wonderful name of Jesus! It is a great honor to us that you would take time to read our letter, and to pray as the Lord leads you!  Thank you.

We have included with this letter (only the snail mail version) a new tract "Five Done Deals", which we wrote to help young Christians remember what is in the blood of Jesus. The five things in that tract constitute what Jesus meant when He cried out at the moment of His death in a loud voice, "It is Finished!"   Email your mailing address to us, and we will gladly send one of these tracts to you.

Because of this great finished work of Jesus on the cross, someone wrote this song;
"It's done, yes it's done!   
 It's done, yes it's done! 
 Through the precious blood of Jesus, the battle is won!" 
Jackie and I sing this song -- not just when it looks like the battle is won -- but when the battle looks lost!  We sing it because we know Jesus won a victory that is complete, regardless of how things look!

You don't need to try to GET the blessings in your salvation.  They are already yours. Jesus won them for you with His blood.  Taking what is already yours is all that is needed. Keep the truth of Jesus Christ and His great sacrifice in front of your eyes.  Just keep looking at the truth!

In Numbers 21:4-9, is the account of God's people being healed by just looking at a bronze snake on a pole.  (a type or symbol of Jesus on the cross. John 3:14).  In like manner, you can receive the Lord's victory in your life by continually looking to Jesus and to the great facts of His death and resurrection.

Your healing is more than a promise: it is an accomplished fact.  It is a "done deal". This is also true concerning your freedom from sin, from Satan's power, and from the curse.  It also is a "done deal" that you have peace with God and full access to His presence through the blood.

An old preacher said to me, "John, the problem with most Christians is that they are trying to get into a room they are already in."  Because of the blood of Jesus, you already have been brought near to God (Ephesians 2:13) and you already have access to His presence! (Romans 5:1)  Your are already in the room where God is!

What pleases the Lord, and what ushers in the help of God, is when you trust Him even when you see nothing with your natural eyes that indicates God is at work.  As Jackie and I deliberately say to each other at those times: "God is working secretly on our behalf."

Today, God certainly is working secretly on your behalf.  "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, HOW WILL HE NOT ALSO WITH HIM FREELY GIVE YOU ALL THINGS?" Romans 8:32

If your faith and hope seem dim, wait on the Lord. There is resurrection power in your spirit.  If you have gone through loss, just wait on the Lord.  Your heart will rise again!  New hope and faith will come.  It will be as if God raised you from the dead.

Only three things are needed when you are walking through an extended dark valley.  First, stay thankful for the goodness and faithfulness of God; second, keep your heart free from bitterness and unforgiveness. Third, stay in His Word.

God will do the rest.  Remember, "Faith comes". (Romans 10:17) If you seem to have run out of faith, wait on the Lord and wait in His Word.  Faith will come.

Thank you...
Some of you have stood with us for such a long a time!  Our partnership with friends like you goes back twenty-five years to when we stepped away from pastoring a church to serve the body of Christ in prayer and missions.  A few of you were even with us during the fifteen years before that when we pastored churches.  This fall will complete forty years in the full-time ministry.

Our goals remain the same, to build up the church where He sends us, laying foundations in young leaders and young churches, encouraging those who serve on the frontlines of evangelism and church planting.
We are trusting the Lord to help us write and publish what He has given us to teach.  Please agree with us for this important work.

Our eyes are on the Lord, but we cannot do anthing alone.  We rely on your prayer and your financial giving in order to do the work of the Lord.  To be honest, we need a major financial miracle.  Thank you...

With love,
John and Jackie
email: ScarletThread@cfaith.com



John's upcoming travel to Ukraine:
August 10 - 31  
(with pastor Roger Sutch and Ken Beaudry)
Plans:
1. Annual Congress of Churches of Praise: Aug 16 - 20
2. Evangelism and church planting in 12 villages: Aug 12 - 16, Aug 20 - 29 You can cover the cost of one of these village events for $150.00