• I began the last month of the year at a meeting on the third with a number of revival-minded pastors to make plans for the Michigan Revival Conference in 2019.  If you knew about this meeting and prayed for us, I want you to know that God answered prayer.  The Lord was leading from the very first words spoken, and we have made some very good plans to promote revival in our state in the next year.  We are going to have some big regional prayer meetings which I hope you will make sure to attend.  They will be major evening gatherings including singing, special music, and Bible preaching, but focusing on a prayer meeting for revival.  Look for announcements of the dates and locations of these prayer meetings.  Revival comes in answer to the beseeching and believing prayers of God’s people!  In June we will have a “travelling” Conference on Revival, like the 2017 Michigan Revival Conference, spreading revival truth across the state.  I hope you will attend these meetings, too, and pray for them.  I’ll give you details soon.  We will get encouragement from the Bible to strike out in aggressive evangelistic efforts executed in the power of the Holy Spirit as we seek the Lord and God revives us again.  Then (we are excited about this, and you will be, too) we will hold two large “Revival Reunions” in the fall to rejoice together and praise the Lord for what He is doing!
• That same week, actually the next day, Toni and I went down to Nashville and Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to get ready for and participate in what for us was “the wedding of the century.”  On December 7, Pastor/Evangelist Cranston Knowles of Nassau, Bahamas, was married to our daughter Susanna!  Many of you pray for her as well as for us, and knew that she was getting married.  She has had her own ministry for revival as Registrar of the Bill Rice Ranch, and is now entering a new phase of her ministry as Cranston’s wife.  We are thrilled, and were amazed at what to me was the most beautiful and meaningful wedding I have ever seen.  You can see it, I understand, by clicking https://www.facebook.com/psallmen/videos/10155848307707611/?hc_location=ufi  Dr. Jim Schettler and I officiated at the wedding and gave “charges” to the couple.  Evangelist Dave Young was among the groomsmen, and Evangelist Bill Rice, III, and other evangelists, were in the audience.  I think you will be blessed by watching the wedding.
• That Sunday (December 9) I got to preach at the good and evangelistic Nolensville Road Baptist Church of Nashville, where Susanna was a member for so long.
• The next Lord’s Day I preached from Luke 2 on the Gospel and our duty to tell it at Falls Baptist Church in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, and then (in the evening) at the Madison Baptist Church in Madison on Acts 1:8.  God was with us and lifted us up to higher ground in both churches and in both services.
• The last two Sundays of the year, God has put me in three fundamentalist churches in Michigan to preach revival, looking back and looking forward (Grace Baptist in Eaton Rapids and Faith Bible Baptist in Lake Odessa on the 23^rd, and Willis Baptist Church on the 30^th).

NOW LET ME TELL YOU WHAT’S COMING!
Let me speak with you briefly regarding my life and ministry at the beginning of next year.  It is a joy and a thrill to have travelled and labored for the cause of revival for the last eleven years and four months.  There excitement and fulfillment in what we do, and also many special joys including the joy of knowing great people.  Thinking of you in this way, I want unveil to you the unusual plans we have for the first three months of 2019 and urge you to take them into your heart.   Boiling it down, they look like this:

• In January I get to teach the seminary course, History of Revival, which can have a powerful effect on men in or entering the Gospel ministry.  It is one of the most important things I do.
• On January 20, I fly out for a couple of weeks of ministry in Kenya, preaching in churches around Nairobi, speaking at an important retreat for God’s servants, and teaching the revival class at the wonderful Independent Baptist College of Ministry of Nairobi.
• In February, I return to preach in a two-week revival effort in North Carolina, at a church where we saw revival in 2018.  It will be a venture of faith, and we expect to see great things!
• Then in March, I go as a teacher on the Revival Tour of Israel.

All of these ventures are exciting and worthwhile, and they will definitely require the blessing of God, and on our part, steadfast faith in God.  Friend, I desire the partnership of men like you, both in earnest prayer and in other ways the Lord may lead you to be involved.  Look again at the summation I have sent you of each opportunity: the class in January at the Baptist College of Ministry (January 7-17), my mission to Kenya, the extended meetings in North Carolina (at New Grace Baptist Church in Tarboro), and the Revival Tour of Israel (leaving March 22—you can learn how you can be part of this year’s tour group and/or the History of Revival class in January by going to the Baptist College of Ministry website, www.bcmedu.org, or calling them at 262.251.7051).  Keep me on your prayer list as we enter the New Year, and encourage others who know us to pray for us, too.  And follow the Lord as He directs you about giving practical help for me to be involved in the overseas missions and revival work of these next months.  Our home church, the First Baptist Church of Bridgeport, has a fund to supply the needs of our ministry, and some are already involved in providing for these projects.   I would be glad for you to call me at 989.863.0784 to ask questions or just to talk and pray about this.
Thank you very much for hearing me out and for praying.  And may the Lord bless you and your witness for Jesus in the Christmas and New Year’s season.

RICK FLANDERS