Life has been crazy. It feels like it was just a couple of days ago that I was wrapping up teaching the book of Exodus and writing a blog reflecting on the new school year and what was ahead. Life has been moving so fast, I looked down and it was November. So much has unfolded over the last 2 months. I would love to share some of the highlights with you. 

Teaching Books

Over the past few months, I have had the pleasure of teaching a few books of the Bible for our School and for our Biblical Narrative Series. 

I had the pleasure of teaching Kings and Joel for our School of Biblical Studies. I was excited to teach 1st and 2nd Kings because these two books help give us a roadmap to the rest of the Old Testament. With Kings, we are able to better understand the context of all of the major and minor prophets. It was really fun to help walk the students through this daunting book and show them how even Kings points us to the Gospel. Kings surprised me by showing how much God ran after his rebellious people. Through the entire book, we see that Israel is walking away from God and choosing to rebel against him. In the midst of their rebellion, he sends his prophets to try and get the people to turn back to him. I found myself not only teaching the history of these books but also of the great character of God that we see in them. 

Last week, I was able to share with our students Joel. This book might be the polar opposite of Kings; short, simple and light on historical details. Joel shows us yet another aspect of God. This book often scares a lot of people away by talking about “the day of the Lord,” but for me, Joel always gives me such hope. Joel teaches my heart what true repentance looks like. Repentance isn’t saying “ill do better,” it is collapsing on Jesus. Joel also shows us that Jesus can bring life-changing restoration, he can “redeem the years that the locust have stolen.” The message of hope rings in my heart every year that I teach this book. 

Biblical Narrative Series

One of the most exciting things that we have been working on this year is the Biblical Narrative Series. For those of you who might not know, the Biblical narrative series is a lecture course that we offer on Monday nights. Through the course, participants learn about the relevant historical background, main ideas, and themes of every book in the Bible. Our aim is to give people the tools that they need to better engage the Bible as they walk through the Scriptures. We offer two separate courses, an Old Testament overview and a New Testament overview. 

This Fall we are wrapping up the Old Testament overview. We have had 80 people from 11 different churches studying with us every week through the Bible. We have been so excited to see the reception of this program from the local church. As we move forward as a ministry, we are exploring more ways that we are able to help the body of Christ here in Orlando engage the Bible and walk with Jesus! 

Family 

Lauren and I are just 3 months away from celebrating our one year anniversary. We are so excited to close in on this milestone and celebrate together. 

Speaking of milestones, this past September my parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. My sister Kelly put together a surprise anniversary celebration for our parents and Lauren and I were able to journey together to surprise my parents. It was an awesome weekend of seeing friends and family. It was a real out of body experience to see a house full of people who have been touched by my parent’s ministry. 

We have been so blessed by these two and continue to look to their marriage as a beacon of hope. If our marriage can be 1/10 of what Brett and Carol Ray’s has been in their lifetimes, then Lauren and I have an amazing life ahead of us. 

What is ahead. 

From here until the end of the year is a long road. With the holiday’s life is about to really speed up. In the next few months I have a few different opportunities to teach, please pray that God will move through me in a powerful way and that hearts would be moved closer to Christ. 

November 9th- The Pause youth retreat 

November 11th and 14th- Teaching Ezekiel for ESBS

November 24th- Guest teaching for a local church 

December 9th- Teaching Zechariah for ESBS

December 15th- Guest teaching for a local church

Please pray as I prep that God would have his way with all of my speaking engagements. Pray that I would get out of the way and let God do what he does best!

Prayer Requests: 

Current Students- I can honestly say that this class of students are some of the best SBS students I have ever seen. They are smart, funny and genuinely awesome to be around. Please pray that their year at Emmaus would be restful and that they would meet Jesus in the Scriptures. 

Future of Emmaus- We are so excited about what lies ahead. We are dreaming up new ways to help Central Florida engage their Bibles. Please pray for God to give us a clear path of which way to go. Please also pray for our future students. That God would begin to call people to come and study the Bible with us. 

Emmaus Staff- While this has been possibly the best semester our ministry has ever seen, some of our staff members have gone through some real trials to get where we are now. Car trouble, family health issues, and finances are a few things that have slowed us down. Please pray that our staff would be unified in Christ and that we would have peace as we walk together. 

Thank you so much for your continued support. It is so much fun to see God moving here in Orlando, Florida in such powerful ways. It is an honor and a joy to be used by God in this ministry and it is because of people like you that I am able to do what God has called me to do. 

Hello, Partners in the Gospel of Jesus Christ!Catching Up:I try to do a blog update once every 2 months, but March and April were so jam-packed with teaching that it was hard to find time to sit down, process the season, and give you an update on it all! In the span of 7 weeks, I taught 5 books for our SBS, 3 different seminars and was a guest speaker for my own church. Needless to say, it was probably the busiest I’ve ever been. I wish that I could share everything about these lectures. Each lecture had a different impact on me as I prepared, and I pray a lasting impact on those who attended my classes, lectures, and sermons. In this update I will be sharing some of the highlights, telling you about what God is doing in my heart, then talk about what we are currently working on here at Emmaus. Teaching Books of the Bible: In the last few months, I taught 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude for our students in our 10-month school. All of these books have heavily impacted me as a teacher and leader. Corinthians taught me to lead out of my weaknesses and humility, and to seek my neighbors needs instead of my own. 1 Peter taught me that I am a priest both in word and action, because of this I’m called to a holy life. 2 Peter and Jude showed me that it's easy to be a false teacher, say what’s popular, and stay comfortable. These books challenged me to contend for the faith and stand up for the truth.Teaching Seminars:Many of you know that we offer several different seminars. This spring I was able to teach a few. The first was a seminar that we call Bible Overview. We break up the Bible into different “acts” and teach people the overarching story of Scripture. My Lecture covered Acts to Revelation!The second seminar was a historical background lecture to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark is my favorite book to teach, so to be able to help a church better understand this amazing book was so awesome! I also taught one of our Biblical Narrative Series. I had the pleasure of talking about Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude and James in a 2-hour seminar. This was honestly one of my favorite lectures. The seminar is part of a series where we teach each book of the Bible and how they fit into God's bigger story!Lastly, I had the distinct pleasure of teaching Sunday morning for my church, Grace Oviedo. This was my first time teaching on a Sunday morning at a church ever! I have never been so nervous and so excited to teach. I was asked to teach in the middle of our series on marriage, where we were going through the book Song of Songs. My sermon was on chapter 7! I taught on Nakedness and Vulnerability in marriage. If we want true intimacy we must first be vulnerable and open. You can listen to my sermon here!  https://discovergrace.com/media/?sapurl=Lys0ODk0L2xiL21pLytrczVnajZjP2F1dG9wbGF5PXRydWUmZW1iZWQ9dHJ1ZQ==Current work:We are in our last few weeks of school so we are shifting our attention to the Fall. There are a few big things that we are focusing on.

Here are a few of our favorite pictures from the big day. Don't worry, more will be coming soon!Pictures by Old Pine Pictorial. 

Hello, partners in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m super excited to be writing you! This year has been a great year of change already, with much more to come. As we enter 2019 we have a lot on our hearts for this ministry. I wanted to take some time to vision cast with you, to show you what we are hoping to accomplish this year and all that we have going on.

General Ministry Updates!

This year is really exciting for two big reasons: We have just welcomed two brand new staff members to help run the school! I want to introduce to you, Kristi Marsh and Morgan Phaneuf.Over thMorgan was a student with our SBS program this last year. Morgan really let Scripture transform and mess with her life. Even when she was a student she had a passion for helping people engage with the Bible. We are thrilled to welcome her husband, Justin, and their children Drake and Tannis, to the Emmaus Family. Please pray for Morgan as she is currently support raising and preparing to teach her first book: Colossians.

This spring we are back in the New Testament. This semester is our second time teaching the New Testament with our revised format. This makes it so much easier to not be creating the curriculum as we teach. We feel like we have hit a groove and now we can focus on fine-tuning our school to be the best experience it can be. Vision for the future: We first changed the program because we believed that God was calling us to make the school more accessible. We took the program down to 20/hours a week by eliminating some “busy work”. We also designed our program to be more commuter friendly so that our students didn't have to live on campus. We are exploring even more ways that we can remove barriers and make the school even more attainable to more people. We have a few ideas that we are considering, Stay posted!

We have been blown away by the response to our Biblical Narrative Series. We created this monthly night class as a way for people to learn the overarching story of Scripture. We have been seeing great engagement from those in attendance. People are getting quick and easy tips and tricks for tackling each book of the Bible. Vision for the Future: We want to reach more people with this great resource. We are currently looking into ways that are going to make the monthly night class easier to attend. We are even praying through multiple nights and locations. Our hope as always is to help as many Christians feel less intimidated by Scripture. We want to see Orlando know their Bible in a way they haven't been able to yet. We believe that the Biblical Narrative Series will play a big role in seeing this vision come true.

We started 2019 the best way ever! On January 19th Lauren and I got married here in Orlando! It was a beautiful service lead by Tom Phillips. We celebrated with family and friends at First Baptist Orlando. Lauren and I were blessed to spend our honeymoon in Hawaii. We spent most of our time on Maui. I have never seen anywhere so beautiful! We are home now and getting back into the swing of normal life. Lauren and I have been looking forward to getting into a rhythm! We only have the rest of our lives together to figure this thing out! (wedding pictures by Old Pine Pictorial)

Emmaus- Please pray for me as I prep for the books that I'm teaching this semester. Please also pray for our new staff as they support raise and teach for the first time. Support Raise- Now that we are married I am feeling the pressure to get fully funded. I'm starting to close the gap, but I'm still in need of more monthly donors. Please pray for God to move in the hearts of people and to set up divine appointments.If you would like to join me as a financial partner in ministry, Click Here.Grace Oviedo- Pray that Lauren and I will have a real impact on these high schoolers. Pray that God will use us to break into their lives.