FOREWORD

The Lord’s church is given the commandment to preach the gospel in every nation around the world (cf. Mark 16:15; Matthew 28:19). Surely we are dedicated to doing this great work. We read reports of so many being baptized on this or that mission trip by some preacher or preachers of the Gospel and this is good to a point. What happens to those baptized when the mission journey is over? Have you ever wondered about this problematic situation? Can these new Christians “fend” for themselves?

Many are the cases where those from denominations have followed some of our missionaries and made a great advance for Satan by taking advantage of the “new born babe.” This causes great concern for us all. This does not have to be a mission point in order for something similar to occur. Many years ago as a lad we led singing for one of the most powerful, persuasive preachers in the brotherhood. There were fifty responses and about half of them were baptisms. One year later the same preacher and song leader were back at the same congregation at the same time of the year. Where were the converts from last year? Most had gone back into the world or something had happened. Regardless of what may have been the problem they were once again lost. This has been an age old problem for us. What can we do?

Brother Toney L. Smith has an idea that is nothing short of brilliant. Ten lessons taught by ten couples over a ten week period. Brother Smith has done his homework well with the origination of this method of study. It will help in a number of ways. It will greatly improve the knowledge of the new convert. This study will expose the new convert to ten different families and, if the families involved could get another family to come to dinner and to the study of that particular lesson, the new convert would be exposed to twice as many people. This course of study is not asking too much of anyone. While it would be desirable that we know every lesson to be taught, the focus of this one family is to teach one lesson. This, in turn, will help the family doing the teaching. There are many other benefits that come as a result of this study. We have truly only touched the helm of the garment as we attempt to weight the results.

Brother Smith is a great student of the Word and a faithful Gospel preacher. He is an astute writer and in everything his prayers are for the Kingdom. We commend his hard work and diligent effort in writing this material. This truly is a way to help us “…grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ…” (II Peter 3:18).

Harrell Davidson
Obion Church of Christ
P.O. Box 358
Obion, TN 38240