​11/16/15
Fall 2015 Newsletter

Dear Partners in Ministry,

With all of the many opportunities that the Lord brings our way. I feel the need to send out a monthly newsletter to keep our friends current. There have been so many things that have occurred since our last letter that I can only give to you these highlights.
Church plant in Youngstown. This summer, with the help of the girls, we were able to go and spend a total of three weeks helping in the planting of this needed church in Youngstown, OH. With the help of at least ten other pastors and friends, we were able to place 10,000 John and Romans into the community, along with an invitation to the new church. We then followed up a couple of weeks later knocking on at least 1000 of these doors, soul winning and inviting folks to come to the first revival meetings. Praise the Lord we had 10 souls saved that we know of, and nearly 25 from the community came to the meetings! Please pray for The Youngstown Baptist Church and Pastor Mike Williams; that this church will continue to grow.
Preaching for a Soul Winning Conference. We were invited to come to Michigan to preach and sing at the first Soul Winning Conference for Pastor Mario Chadinha at the Highland Hills Baptist Church. This church is located just outside of the Detroit Metro area and was a great opportunity for us. We were able to encourage pastors and others that, “The Main Thing Is To Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing.”
Helping with some church maintenance. As we travel and present our missions work with our plea for support to the local churches, we often try to stop and help in any way that we can.  This may include anything from tuning a piano or installing a sound system or weeding a flower bed! This week we are helping a pastor in Jacksonville, NC with some much needing plumbing and small carpentry work. In whatever way we can be a blessing to preachers and churches is our joy.
Blessings of a great gift of new tires for the truck. Things wear out in time, especially tires. We have been traveling on used tires for some time and were in great need of new ones. While at a church in the mountains, one church family looked at our truck tires and said, “That horse could use some new shoes for the man of God.” Praise the Lord, this family was a great blessing to us and bought us four new tires. Thank you Lord!
Special prayer request. We have a special prayer request for the South Baptist Church in Staten Island. This is the only other Independent Baptist Church in Staten Island. The pastor of this church passed on to Glory last week and the church is in danger of closing if they don't get a new pastor. Please pray for this church as they both grieve and transition in the days ahead. We also ask for prayers that the Lord will send the right man to keep this church going straight. If you know of anyone that is looking to pastor, please let me know. I also know of several churches in Western PA that are in need of pastors.
As for the Holtsclaw Family.
Both of the girls are in college now at Westcoast Baptist College in Lancaster, CA. They are such a blessing to us and it has been a bit of a transition to travel without the girls.  It is our goal to be out in California for Elizabeth's graduation the first week of May.  So, we are in the process of scheduling meetings out to California and back again.  While out in California, we may even be able to help with a new church plant.  If you know of any church plants that are starting up in the summer of 2016, please let me know.

God Bless.
Dr. Timothy Holtsclaw
Dir. Church Planting

Donations to our ministry can be mailed, or made online at www.theholtsclawfamily.com

July 16, 2015

 

Dear Pastor and Friends,

So many things that have happened since our last newsletter. I will try to be brief but also complete in giving an account of our ministry. Having traveled many miles and helping many, we are so very thankful for your prayers and for those that support our ministry financially on a monthly basis.

On May 11th-17th we were ministering back in Staten Island for the One Year Anniversary of the Liberty View Baptist Church. Elizabeth had just returned from college and we whisked her off right away for ten days helping this new church.  Nothing like hitting the ground running! With some help from the teens of Stateline Baptist Church, we were able to get out over 2000 gospel tracts and had three souls saved. For the anniversary service we had three first time visitors and nearly doubled the regular attendance. Pray for this new church as they signed their church charter with the new members.

Summer is the time for traveling and revival services. These summer revivals give us good exposure for our ministry. We started with a couple of revival meetings in western Michigan, around Detroit.  We then traveled down to upper Ohio, near Toledo, to visit a pastor friend to present out work. We will be parked nearly 3 weeks in Meadville, PA before we leave next week, (a record long stay for us!) and just finished up a week long revival here in Meadville at Bible Baptist Church. During this meeting, we were asked to sing and preach the gospel in the city’s central park gazebo and were overjoyed to see a young eleven year old receive Jesus. 

We have several more meetings ahead of us, but we are making plans for helping a new church plant in Youngstown, OH. On September 7th-12th we will be helping in the starting of the Youngstown Baptist Church. We are making calls and sending out requests for help from the local pastors for soul winners and door knockers to assist in getting tracts and invitations out into the community. As they say, “many hands make for light work.” We could use your hands and feet to help in this effort. Please go to our website for more information on how you can help with pray, finances and even taking a missions trip to help.

Personally, we are all doing well, but do have some things that we do seek your prayers about. We surely need prayers for safety and for souls, and for the Lord to open doors for service and for financial support. Prayers for opportunities to present our ministry as we are scheduling meetings back down south to Florida. In just two months we will be sending Elizabeth back to college; but not alone, for her sister Maggie will be joining her as a student at West Coast Bible College. This will leave Kelly and I as empty nesters and we will need your prayers. Lastly, Kelly and I, in obedience to the Lord’s calling, will be taking another step of faith towards fulfilling the Lord’s calling upon our hearts. Upon returning back home, we will be putting our house in Columbia, PA up for sale. We believe that it is time for us to go full time in our ministry.  Please pray with us that our house will sell quickly and for the amount that we need.

We hope that all have a blessed summer. Keep looking up for the Lord is coming soon.

Blessings,

Bro. Holtsclaw

Dear Praying Friends,

As a new year begins we have continued to be busy. For the past four months we have been traveling up and down the east coast. Preaching and presenting our ministry every weekend about the great need of America, church planting and our struggling Baptist Churches. We finished our journey up with the joy of being at the Cornerstone Baptist Church, our sending church, to celebrate their 20th Anniversary.

We want to Praise the Lord for a safe journey this winter for no major problems, although we did have to replace the rear brakes on our trailer. Another praise is that our truck is doing great. Quite a change from last year! We also had to the joy of meeting Bro. Byron Fox who was kind to put some of our songs on his new internet radio program. www.BTMRadio.org

The “need” waits for no missionary (or deputation for that matter!) and we have found ourselves busier than ever with new opportunities to help. Here is a list of what we are currently working on for this year:

1. Our first mission work will be to return to Staten Island for the one year anniversary of the Liberty View Baptist Church. We will be in Staten Island on May 11th through the 17th to help with soul winning and handing out invitations to this special service. We would love to have you come help! If you cannot physically come, perhaps you can give. We need some financial help to offset the expenses of our BATA team and guests. We are praying for $1500 to help with the lodging, meals, and supplies that we will need during that week. Please pray about helping with this great need. Pastor’s please pray about taking a special offering for the mission field of Staten Island.

2. Another mission work is that we will be doing some soul winning in our nation’s capital DC for a new church plant for four days. We will be there from April 15-19 at a missions conference in which we take the missionaries out to help a new church.

3. We will be helping with a restart work this September in the Youngstown, OH area.

4. We will be working next winter towards helping with a preacher to start a new church plant in Zypherhills, FL.

5. Finally we are working with a pastor in Mississippi to organize a church planting fellowship to plant new churches in that needful state.

If you are interested in coming along with us on any of our homeland missions trips, please give me a call or drop me an email. I know that you will be a huge blessing, whether you can come for just one day or for several; it will change your heart for the great need of church planting.

We do have some openings for meetings available for summer and fall. Please give me a call, I would love to come and visit with you and your church. There are still half a million people in Staten Island alone that need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

God Bless,
Bro. Holtsclaw

Dear Pastors and Friends

 Our Summer was filled with missions meetings and revivals. Over the years, because of our preaching and singing, we are invited to several revival
meetings during the summer months.  This year we were at three, week long tent meetings in a row.  These tent meetings had us running from one side of the state of Pennsylvania to the other,  praise the Lord for our camper! We were able to see at least six souls saved at these meetings,
praise the Lord.

Just last week we were at the Ambassador Baptist Church in Frederick, MD. Pastor Tom Fry is always looking for unique ways to get the gospel into the community, so for the past several years at the end of summer on a Sunday night, he rents out the city's band shell amphitheater at the park in the middle of town. He holds his evening service there and provides several singing groups to sing to those in the park. Pastor Fry then gave a gospel message to those who could  and would hear. Praise the Lord we had at least 3 souls saved.

For an update on our family, our daughter Elizabeth is back in California for her Junior year of bible college. Our daughter Maggie is going to be taking some online college classes while we continue to travel. With the help of a pastor in Scranton, I have been learning to tune pianos and to make minor repairs. By learning this trade I have already been a great blessing to many churches so far this year. This will also will help us with some additional finances until we are fully supported. If we are due to come to your church and your piano needs tuning, please call and I will do my best to work it in. I also tune personal pianos so if anyone in the church needs their piano tuned I can do that as well, all at a discounted rate. If it wasn’t for our present supporters and love offerings we would not be able to do what we are currently doing for the Lord. It is our desire and burden to come off the road and to offer more help to struggling churches and to start many more churches up and down the northeast coast.

 I would like to thank those that had a part in helping to meet some of the needs from our last newsletter. Your prayers, love and giving are very evident AND generous!

Please pray for meetings as we are now scheduling our trek back down to Florida for the winter months. We will be on the road between Virginia and
Florida from November until March. With our camper we are able to go farther and stay longer in offering help to churches along the way. Please let me know if you live in FL, GA, NC, SC and or VA and would love to have us come to your church. If you personally know a pastor and  church in these areas and would like us to visit, please let me know. We obviously have a great time-frame to work a meeting in! I will need the church's name, city, state, phone number and the Pastor's name. Please be in prayer for us in that we will be able to fill our empty Sundays and be a blessing to many churches and pastors on this trip.

As we finish September and enter October and November we enter into our primary mission's months. Please pray for these month as we encourage churches in their missions programs to do more for Jesus. We even have one church that is stepping out by faith in taking the first steps into church planting! Church planting is the heartbeat of our ministry and they have asked us to have a great part in this new church plant. THAT'S exciting!

God Bless,
Bro. Tim Holtsclaw

Dear Pastors and Friends,

I am so excited to say...I have just finished the Staten Island 2014 update video! This video demonstrates a few of the many things that we offer to church planters and pastors who are interested in starting churches. You will find the link to the video at the bottom of the newsletter.

As you know, we have been working with Pastor David Wilt in Staten Island, for over a year, to get the Liberty View Baptist Church started. In September 2013 we went for our first visit to help with a special "Get Acquainted" day. We were able to be in Staten Island for about a week and saw 11 souls saved and over 3000 Gospel tracts distributed. When we returned the week of May 12th-18th, with our BATA team and several volunteers, we were able to help prepare for the final grand opening of this church. Together we distributed over 6000 tracts and saw 10 more souls saved. We helped with the preparation efforts in turning a storefront building into a beautiful church for the glory of God. Finally, when the big day arrived, the "Grand Opening" service had 29 in attendance for the morning services and 52 in the evening. I am thrilled to say that this new church is averaging 15-20 each week. Praise the Lord! It is our plan to work with Pastor Wilt to continue building this church in Staten Island and then to plant more
churches on the island.

In other news: we are back on the road visiting some of our faithful church friends forour summer meetings and revivals. We've gotten some new opportunities to present our ministry of church planting and church helps this spring and summer. Bro. Holtsclaw is also making many phone calls to fill our calendar from August through November. We will be heading down south for the winter, so even more phone calls will be made
preparing the way for that trip.

This morning I received a phone call from a pastor in Illinois needing help with two struggling churches in his area. We have the ability to give help to both ministries, but what holds us back from taking off for Illinois, is because we are still low in our support level. The Pastor seemed excited by the end of our conversation, and agreed to  call some of the other Baptist Churches in that area to try and find a church that has a hookup for our camper. If the Lord works it out, we could be preparing to head that way in September, spending as many weeks as possible. We could visit other Baptist churches in the area to present our ministry, while continuing to help the struggling pastors and their churches that we were called about. Earlier this month we had a meeting with another pastor that has also made a plea for help with his ministry. These are just 3 examples in 2 weeks, of pastors of Independent Baptist Churches, that are struggling and asking help. I wish I could say this is unique, but you know it isn't.

The specific needs for our ministry, outside of the need for support is: we are in the process of raising funds for new tires for our truck. We've driven a lot of miles in the past year on the current ones and they need to be replaced. Since we are pulling the camper, we have to get a higher grade of tire, which of course comes with a higher price tag. Praise the Lord, Union Ridge Baptist gave us a special love offering to get us started and has voted to take us on for support! What a encouragement and blessing those folks are. We also have a need for a new computer tablet for our ministry. I had one that I kept my calendar, contacts, sermon notes and video presentations on, but it has stopped working. I am thankful that I have a hard copy
of this information so not all is lost, but it was a useful tool that allowed me to always have my calendar and messages with me in one device. If you can help us with either of these needs, please go to our website at to donate, or you can mail a check to : BATA PO Box 815, Crab Orchard, WV 25827. Please put a message or a note with the donation so we will know what your donation is intended for.

Thank you for your love for the Holtsclaw family. We could not do what we are presently doing without your prayers and support.

God Bless,
Bro. Tim Holtsclaw

Staten Island 2014 Update Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGUUw1sEAfM