On January 13, Joseph Tkach (GCI president) and Russell Duke (GCI vice president) were guests at a historic gathering of denominational leaders held in Los Angeles, CA at the central offices of the Foursquare Church.
Foursquare president Glenn Burris welcomed leaders of the denominations that have formed the Wesleyan Holiness Consortium (WHC). The WHC brings together the Pentecostal and Traditional streams of the Weslyan Holiness movement to cooperate in mission in the 21st century. Member denominations are Assemblies of God, Brethren in Christ, Church of God/Anderson, Evangelical Free, Foursquare, Free Methodist, Nazarene, Pentecostal Holiness, Salvation Army, United Methodist, United Pentecostal and Wesleyan.
Vinson Synan, renowned church historian at Regent University from the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, reported on the meeting with enthusiasm, “This is an historic day. The divisions of a hundred years ago were laid aside today in a wonderful spirit of unity.”
Assembled leaders including Joseph Tkach (back row, 5th from left) and Russell Duke (back row, 7th from left)
Snowblast 2012 was held January 14-16 at Ironwood Springs Christian Ranch near Rochester, MN. Twenty-eight youth and 24 adults participated with an additional 22 members of the Rochester congregation present for the Sunday morning worship service. The mix of people included some from other denominations, one woman who can only speak Spanish and a ten-year-old Russian boy who was just adopted from an orphanage in Kiev by a couple in the Rochester, MN congregation.
Alter'd leads worship
The overall theme of the camp was “New” and this was reflected in interactive messages from Todd Fox, Tom Kennebeck, Troy Meisner and Jeff Skrove. A newly formed youth band (Alter’d) from the Champlin, MN congregation led worship on Sunday. An adult Christian Living session was conducted by district pastor Doug Johannsen for adult staff and other adults who remained after the Sunday worship service. Questions and insights from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics formed the basis for this discussion.
In contrast to 2011 when 80-100 inches of snow fell in Minnesota, our concern this year was the absence of snow and unseasonably warm temperatures, which threatened to eliminate the main outdoor activity of snow tubing. The tubing hill ends at the edge of a small river and the river was not frozen. However, two or three days before the event the temperatures dropped and a couple of inches of snow fell. By Friday evening the thermometer had dipped to -2 degrees and by Saturday afternoon the river was covered with ice thick enough to be safe.
Other camp activities included board games, using a pottery wheel to make pottery, arts andcrafts, making peanut brittle and making paracord bracelets.
The GCI congregation in Barranquilla, Colombia has 45 members and an average attendance of 70. They meet in the recreation room of a local school. This location provides many opportunities for members to develop relationships with students at the school. As a result, they have a large children’s Sunday School.
In addition to their Sunday worship service, the congregation has a regular Wednesday evening meeting for prayer, worship and to equip members for service in the work of God. In this meeting new teachers are trained. They also hold monthly prayer and fasting vigils. The most recent one was on December 7 from 7:30pm to 2 am. Attendance was high and the results were refreshing. The congregation also provides discipleship classes, with several expressing interest in baptism.
The Barranquilla congregation held its first Christmas feast on December 17. They visited 27 homes near their place of meeting to invite families to come to the feast – 23 families accepted and about 50 neighbors attended with their children.
During the feast the children gave a presentation about Jesus’ birth. A group of girls then presented a dance. Refreshments were plentiful and delicious. There was a very festive atmosphere – demonstrating that Christmas is a celebration of great joy.
A message was given titled, “Christmas and Salvation.” There was also a brief workshop concerning the meaning of Christmas, which was very well received. The feast also provided the opportunity to celebrate the birthdays of two girl guests. Several visiting neighbors gave positive comments about the event and some who did not attend the event have expressed their desire to do so next time.
The videos below are interviews with GCI senior pastors Jim Valekis (Tipp City, OH) and Roger Abels (Fort Wayne, IN). Each pastor discusses what his congregation is doing to connect with the unchurched community nearby where their church gathers for worship.
GCI members in Madrid are thanking God for the opportunity to participate, along with most of the Evangelical churches in Spain, in “My Hope” – three television programs that presented the gospel for the first time on two nationwide TV stations in Spain. We hope these programs provide a means for many Spaniards to hear and respond to God’s call to come to Jesus Christ and accept and receive his love and grace.
We have received several phone calls from people who watched the programs because they had known about them through one of the 5000 brochures we distributed in the neighborhood where our congregation meets. The brochures offered a free subscription to our GCI magazine Verdad y Vida. In Villamanta, a small village of around 1500 inhabitants where I live, we distributed 500 brochures. We received a call from a family asking for a subscription to the magazine. We will follow up with a personal visit.
Two GCI members, Kayla Shallenberger from Cincinnati, OH, and Carrie Smith from Pittsburgh, PA, are presently teaching at the Worldwide Church of God school in Blantyre, Malawi. Kayla was teaching her class about the real meaning of Christmas and she asked the children what they would give Jesus for Christmas. The children turned in their answers and Kayla was so moved, she asked the children to share their answers on camera. This video is the result.
This report is from Living Christian Fellowship member Paul Hailey.
Pastor Dee Bulante leads in prayer
Living Faith Christian Fellowship, the GCI congregation in Portland, OR, has about 30 members. We meet adjacent to King City, a senior (55 and older) community with about 1600 residents. Since most of our members are of this age group, it made sense to us to make King City our primary focus for outreach.
With guidance from Pastor Dee Bulante, we began sponsoring events at the King City club house with the goals of serving the community and making our presence known. In December 2010 we held a Community Christmas Celebration. In the summer of 2011 we sponsored a seminar on overcoming grief. Then this last December, we held our second Community Christmas Celebration.
We paid to advertise the event to all 1400 homes in King City. We hired a professional three-piece band to play Christmas music, invited the local King City Music Club to sing carols, asked a local singer to lead in a sing-along, and invited a King City resident who previously performed with notables such as Danny Kaye and Red Skelton to sing a solo.
The one and a half hour program went smoothly. About 90 people attended. Pastor Dee Bulante served as emcee, introducing the performers and giving a short message focusing on the love of God expressed through the person of Jesus Christ—love not just for Christians, but for all people. He commented:
We share time with family and loved ones because God has shared time with us through Jesus…. We exchange gifts to one another because God has given us the ultimate gift of Jesus…. We sing songs of warmth and merriment because of the peace and joy that wells up in our souls, expressing thanks to the baby born who is our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
Several “amens” were heard from the audience as he spoke, and some appeared to be on the verge of tears as they were reminded of God’s love.
We feel the event was a smashing success. Some attendees asked where we meet for church, and a few took copies of Odyssey magazine. Many gave comments expressing their gratitude:
You outdid yourselves this year…. Everything looks so beautiful…. Thank you for the delicious food…. We had a wonderful time…. I came primarily for the Christmas music, but was pleasantly surprised with the food served and the whole program. I appreciated the message as well. It gave me a different perspective about Christmas…. I really am glad I came today for the whole program, the food and the people. Nice pastor, didn’t talk too long, but got the message out.
We have learned how a small congregation can reach out to the community. It takes prayer and hard work, but it is worth the effort. We plan to hold two King City outreach events in 2012 – possibly a seminar on aging gracefully and definitely another Community Christmas Celebration.
The following report is from Lee Berger who directs the GenMin Crossing Borders mission team.
We returned recently from a mission trip to Mexico to deliver shoe box gifts. In several ways it was the most challenging of the 13 mission trips we have made into Mexico since 2005.
From churches and other groups across the U.S. we received almost 600 shoe boxes full of gifts, together with personally-knitted baby blankets, handmade pillows, infant supplies, custom-carved wooden cars, several boxes of nice shoes, bags of good clothing and other items. Finding space in the vehicles to transport these items across the border was both a challenge and a blessing.
Carol Meyer from Kansas City donated copies of “Project Renewal” (in Spanish), a book she authored about recovery from abuse (a common problem in Mexico). Truett Seminary at Waco University donated 100 books for training pastors. Generous cash donations allowed us to purchase many other needed gifts and resources for the pastors and ministry leaders with whom we partner in Mexico.
Pedro Orduno and van
Our crossing into Mexico from Laredo, Texas on Saturday started well with visits to two churches to sing Christmas songs, teach about the birth of Jesus and hand out the shoe box gifts. However, it was raining hard and both of our team’s vans got stuck axle deep in mud at the second church. A tow truck was called but it got stuck too. Then the host pastor’s van and another vehicle got stuck. While some worked outside to free the vans, the rest of the Crossing Borders mission team and local church members prayed and visited inside the unheated church. Two young men who lived in nearby houses (we thought of them as our “Mexican angels”) worked hard to help pull out a couple of the vans. After four hours struggling in the cold rain and slippery mud, a truck from the fire department arrived to free the vehicles.
Our final stop of the day was supposed to be lunch served at the children’s home. Instead, it was supper. Soaking wet and cold in our muddy clothes, we visited with the kids for an hour and a half, distributed shoe boxes and provided the meal. Now well past dark, we headed back across the border to warm showers and our own dinner, thankful for the experiences and inspired by the patient and willing spirit exhibited by all. We had hand-distributed about 300 shoe boxes and left the remainder of the boxes in the hands of two of our Mexican ministry partners who delivered them to churches further inland.
I (Lee Berger), my mother Jean Berger, and Steve and Barbara Solari were scheduled to catch a flight the next day (Sunday) to Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, to take gifts to Karen Salinas and her 17 foster children. This was the first time we had ventured into interior Mexico. Once again, we encountered unexpected challenges. Our flight was cancelled on Sunday due to bad weather (no radar at the local airport), and then cancelled again on Monday.
In the meantime, we made ourselves useful assisting pastor Raymundo Rendon and his wife, Lisa. The Rendon’s kitchen stove (which they use to cook food for various feeding ministries) had stopped working. So we went stove shopping and also bought the Rendons a new set of tires to replace the unsafe dry-rotted ones on Pastor Ray’s car. Lee and Steve made a hospital visit with Pastor Ray one afternoon and prayed for a Mexican government official they had met on the previous summer trip. The group provided babysitting for the Rendons so Ray and Lisa could have a rare night out for their wedding anniversary. There was much brainstorming about ways the Crossing Borders mission team can assist Ray with ministry needs in the future.
Praying for the children (Lee Berger at left, Barbara and Steve Solari at right)
On Tuesday, the weather was bad again, so we took the commercial bus to Victoria. We arrived in Victoria at about midnight, and Karen and several of the older children visited with us into the wee hours of the morning. We then had a busy day on Wednesday at Karen’s home, visiting with her foster children and hosting a party to deliver the gifts we had brought, including a bilingual Bible for each child. We prayed for each child and several gave moving testimonials. It is difficult to describe the close bonds we feel for these lovely children being brought up in the nurture of the Lord. Thursday was filled with playing with the kids and restocking the foster home with supplies purchased with donations from many supporters.
After an event-filled and challenging trip, we returned to Laredo on Friday and everyone was back home in the U.S. by Saturday, thanking God for an amazing trip full of unexpected obstacles that led to many wonderful opportunities to serve others on mission with God. We are now looking forward to our next mission trip to Mexico in June 2012. You can learn more about it at http://www.cbmission.org/.
On November 1 GCI Pastor Neil Earle and his wife Susan were invited to set up a “400 Years of the King James Version” display at the Duarte, California Public Library.
The display features two large impressive Bibles. One, a family Bible dated 1898, is on loan from Phyllis and Russell Duke. A 1770 German Bible is on loan from Susie Albrecht. Other items on display are on loan from Joseph Tkach and Curtis May.
Many gratifying comments have been received, pictures taken for the local newspaper, and the library requested that the display be left a while longer. Now, officials from the Duarte Museum are making space available to set up the display there as a temporary exhibit.
The following report is from Charles Fleming, GCI Missions Director for the Caribbean region.
Ocho Rios was the beautiful site chosen by the Jamaican churches for their annual celebration of Christ’s work in our lives held on December 1-4. The theme for the convention was “A New Awakening in Christ.”
Members of the Christian Pen church (GCI’s largest congregation in Jamaica, which meets on the outskirts of Kingston) made a special effort to sponsor to the convention several young people from the community surrounding the church. A number of these teens began attending the church without their parents when they were small children and have become an integral part of the congregation. It was a joy to see how at home they are in our church and how actively they participate in worship. One person commented on how good it is to see young people learning just how joyful the Christian life can be.
Members were delighted to host this year’s special guests – Joe and Tammy Tkach, Mike Feazell, Greg and Susan Williams and Rick and Cheryl Shallenberger. Many members commented on how much they were impacted by the messages and by how easy it was to connect with and fellowship with all the visitors. Christ is truly making us a joy-filled, open, accepting and caring community.
After the convention, Greg and Susan Williams spent two days in Kingston meeting with leaders from the Christian Pen congregation discussing ways that GCI’s U.S.-based Generations Ministries (GenMin) can support the continuing efforts of the local church to serve youth in the community. Greg said GenMin can help upgrade the existing Vacation Bible School by sending a team to assist in next year’s VBS. Michelle and Anne Fleming are spearheading that effort. The plan is to have a number of young Christians (GCI and others) travel to Christian Pen next July.
