From the July-October 2009 Issue
A happy pastor
Paulo and Cristina Nunes
Lisbon‘I feel the happiest pastor in the world’ – these were my words last week as I spoke to some members of the church. And I really feel it. In the last three years, step by step, we have made some moves that have been a great challenge and source of blessing to the church in Seixal. First, the church decided to become self-supporting; second, we believed the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’, and as a church we began to give to mission work; third, we came to the time as a small congregation to study the plurality of elders in the local church. My joy is to see that the Holy Spirit has given gifts to men in order to strengthen His church in Seixal – in preaching, teaching, leadership and administrative capacities. Praise the Lord! Very often we feel ‘we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us’ (2 Corinthians 4:7).
As we study Acts I feel even more enthusiastic about the work, about evangelism, mission work, about the sovereign and gracious work of the Holy Spirit in the church (uniting, enabling and leading, Acts 13:1-3) and bringing people to a saving knowledge of our precious Saviour Jesus Christ. I feel so grateful to God when I see Christians looking after others who have become jobless.
We have been entrusted with a good number of children (the congregation is made up mainly of young couples) and also a growing number of teenagers (since last summer four or five from outside have joined the church group). At present our main problem has to do with our premises. We need more rooms for Sunday school and at first it seemed we could make rooms in the main hall. However, very often the main hall is pretty full, so if we make it smaller we may lack room for the main service. Good problems!
We praise God for your interest and support in the gospel work.