April '16 Update
Preach the Word!
I’d like to open this update by expressing a sincere thanks to all of you who prayed for my trip to the Philippines. The Lord sustained my health over the course of a very busy 3 week trip—a trip in which we hit the ground running. After arriving in Manila late on Friday night, I then preached five messages on Saturday at an all-day conference on spiritual warfare, followed by a sermon on Sunday at Higher Rock Christian Church. 
We then traveled to Soli Deo Gloria Christian Church in Davao City, where I preached six messages over the next several days on the topic of walking in love, then the Sunday sermon. All in all, that’s 13 messages preached in the course of a week. Now for someone like Spurgeon or Whitefield that’s no big deal but I’m no Spurgeon or Whitefield!But through your prayers, the Lord not only sustained me, but also gave me the privilege of being an encouragement to our brothers and sisters at these dear churches in the Philippines. So much so, that they want me to do another seminar during my return trip in September (more on that in a future update). So again, thank you for praying.
Entrust to Faithful Men Who Will Teach Others Also
At the end of that first week, our church group who was with me left to return back to the US. But my work was not yet finished there as phase 2 of my trip began. I remained at Davao City to teach a week-long course to 22 local pastors on how to study and preach expository sermons. We covered Bible Study methods which show how to understand what the original author was saying to his audience and then how to communicate that message to those in the pew.
Following my time in Davao, I then traveled to Cebu City to teach the same course to another group of 18 pastors from in and around Cebu. In addition to that, the Lord gave me the privilege to preach the Sunday services at Living Word Christian Church.What made the experience even more memorable was that the church live streams its morning service. So my wife and my parents were able to watch the service live. I guess the internet does have some usefulness.In any event, through the course of the two weeks of training these faithful pastors, the Lord only further confirmed to me that this is where I need to be investing myself. I was greatly encouraged to see these men, some of whom had been preaching for more than 20 years … but to see how over the course of the week their eyes light up as they learned new ways to get at the meaning of the text and then to clearly communicate that to God’s people. I’ll give more on that in next month’s update.
Prayer Requests
- The Pastors: pray that they would understand and know how to apply the training they received and that the Lord would use it to make them even more accurate and clear as they proclaim the word. Pray that He would sustain them through the many assignments they will need to complete over the next few months.
- The D.Min. coursework: pray for me in that regard also since I have many several papers to complete by early May for my Doctor of Ministry degree. We began our third session in July.
- Family: please pray for my oldest daughter Hannah who is pregnant with our first grandchild and is due in July. Pray also for Daniel, Carissa, and Brie as they are in their last few weeks of the school year that they would finish strong. Pray also for my son-in-law John as he applies for the Police department. And pray too for my wife, Tina, as she continues to invest in the women at our church, especially the young moms.
Also, please continue to pray for the Lord’s provision for us. We are at 80% of what is needed for personal and travel expenses for the ministry and need to be at 100% by July 1st when I transition to part-time at our church.
How To Support Our Ministry
And if the Lord leads you to desire to support this ministry, you can do so by check made out to Calvary Bible Church with ‘suggested use Carns Missions’ on the memo line. The check can be placed in the Sunday offering or mailed to Calvary Bible Church at 1101 S. Main St, Burbank, CA 91506.