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Paul Wall (right), pastor of West Windsor UB (Dimondale, Mich.), experienced the loss of his father on Friday, Jan 6, 2012. Rev. Dave Wall, 82, had had dementia and Alzheimer’s for several years. Cards can be sent to Paul and Pam Wall at: 7275 Windsor Hwy, Dimondale, MI 48821.
The Mill Crossing UB Church in Cambridge, Ontario
Mill Crossing UB Church (Cambridge, Ontario) is one of three Ontario churches featured in an article by TheRecord.com titled, “Building a Church Bigger than a Building.” It’s about unconventional evangelical churches arising not in traditional church buildings, but in other locations–a hotel, a community center, and, in the case of Mill Crossing, a former warehouse. Here’s the part about Mill Crossing.
Neil and Liz Cudney
At Mill Crossing, reaching out to others in their Hespeler community is central to their mission.
Co-pastors Neil and Elizabeth Cudney (right) describe Mill Crossing in Cambridge as a journey where members try to be more like Christ, showing mercy, grace, and gentleness.
“How do we help the community around us experience that?” Neil Cudney asked.
He said Mill Crossing has connected with Popcorn House, serving Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and supporting the group’s breakfast club.
Mill Crossing started in Cambridge in 2005, meeting at the Best Western, and moved into its current home in a renovated warehouse on Queen Street next to Len’s Mill last April.
Mill Crossing stems from the United Brethren Church, the denomination of Orville and Wilbur Wright, who built the first airplane. Their father was Bishop Milton Wright. The denomination came to Canada in the 1800s.
“We are an old denomination but no one has heard of us,” Elizabeth Cudney said.
Mill Crossing’s mother church is Parkwood Gardens in Guelph. Mill Crossing has been financially self-sufficient for two years, relying on offerings and tithes from members to pay its costs.
About 80 people call the church home, many of them young families.
“We are the oldies in the group,” chuckles Elizabeth Cudney, 50.
She said a church community is important during times of economic uncertainty.
“We need each other especially in these crazy times,” she said. “I really don’t understand why people don’t flock to churches. We really need each other.”
“You can never realize true community until we are in community with God,” said Neil, who is the director of pastoral ministries at Christian Horizons.
Elizabeth said some members may have difficulty with organized churches.
“We are careful about earning trust. We want to be honest and real and not push money in their face,” she said.
The Cudneys, like most Christian evangelicals, believe that salvation is found only through Jesus.
“I believe that to be the truth. I live my life in accordance with that,” said Neil Cudney.
But for those who have another point of view, Neil says “it does not change my value placed on understanding you or working with you. It’s God that holds the door.”
Although these three groups may be attracting similar followers, they say there’s room for all of them.
Elizabeth Cudney said she’s thrilled other similar groups exist in the region. “We want to see God’s kingdom expand.”
Sam Ward (right), Pastor of Creative Worship and Drama, Emmanuel Community Church (Fort Wayne, Ind.)
It seems like we’re listening to more music than we ever have. We listen to music in our cars, on headphones, at the gas station, and even at the grocery store, but we make music less and less. We are singing together less and less. Think about it…50 to 60 years ago, it was a common occurrence for people to get together and sing on a Wednesday or Sunday night. But not anymore. Our music production values are getting better, but when do we join with a small group of believers to sing?
When I grew up, my Dad played guitar and led worship for our small church of 100 people or so. A close family friend would always call at Christmas and invite our whole family over. He would also always remind my Dad to bring his guitar. And then we would sing, eat, laugh, and tell stories for the whole night. That was it.
Thinking back to those times…what I found out is that there are not a whole lot of things that you really need to have a time of fellowship and worship. So we created times like this at Emmanuel Community Church this Christmas.
The ECC Worship Arts and Warmth Ministries joined forces and called it the ECC HOME TOUR. This was a time of us coming together to participate in something together. It wasn’t a time to come and be fed, but a time to sing, eat, laugh, tell stories, and celebrate that Jesus, God with us, was born in a barn. He wasn’t born in a palace or a temple or a synagogue or a church. He was born in a barn.
So we thought it appropriate that these happened in various homes, a log cabin and…even a barn. While all the events were similar, we had three different teams to pull off the 9 different HOME TOURS that took place on different nights and in different places.
A team–in this case, a baseball team–left for Nicaragua on Wednesday, January 4. This group, organized by missionary Jeff Dice, consists of college-level baseball players. They will conduct baseball camps and play baseball games in Nicaragua through January 17. This is Nicaragua’s “spring training” time of year. The group includes 14 players, plus Jeff Dice and Josh Kesler, pastor of The Well in Huntington, Ind.
On December 10-11 (Saturday and Sunday), “The Gift of Christmas” was presented by the choir, orchestra, praise teams, kid’s choir, and drama and tech ministries of King Street Church (Chambersburg, Pa.). It featured anthems for choir and orchestra arranged by Bradley Knight, a beautiful worship musical entitled “Behold the Lamb of God” by Andrew Peterson and a live nativity (which included a donkey, calf, 2 roosters, 2 goats, 2 sheep and a lamb).
The 70 voice choir, under the direction of Pastor Jonathan Ford, spanned in age from 13 to 80+. All instrumental ensembles were directed by Mckendree Tucker, the newest member of the King Street Worship staff. With 4 performances over the course of 2 days, more than 2,000 people were able to come and see this cast of more than 200 volunteers present their sacrifice of praise to the Lord Jesus Christ in honor of his birthday!
You can watch segments of this program on YouTube.
If you would like a DVD or audio CD of this program please contact King Street Church by email.
Ralph Butzow, Claytonville UB Church (Claytonville, Ill.)
We continued a church tradition by inviting neighbors and friends of our congregation to join
us for an evening of singing Christmas carols around the lighted evergreen tree on our church lawn. After the singing, we enjoyed a time of food and fellowship in the church basement. This was a good
time of renewing friendships and sharing the Christmas message.
Our congregation started this annual event to replace a similar event that had been sponsored for
many years by the merchants of the town.
Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries
Francisco Najera (right) is the superintendent of our Guatemalan Conference. He is also the oldest son in his family and as such is responsible for the care of his elderly father who is passing away. This responsibility has not only kept him away from his duties as superintendent and as the pastor of his church, but has left him responsible for the mounting medical bills.
Would you help us provide a “Love Gift” for the Najera family to help them with this need? Gifts should be made payable to “Global Ministries” and ought to indicate on the memo line or in your correspondence that the gift is intended for the Najera Family.
Thank you in advance for your willingness to share in this need.
Global Ministries is sponsoring two seminars for persons interested in leading or participating in a short-term cross-cultural ministry. It’s a very informative, interactive, and fun seminar.
March 2-3, 2012: Monroe, Ind.
Monroe UB Church
205 South Adams Street
Monroe, Indiana 46772
March 9-10, 2012: Grandville, Mich.
Homefront UB Church
6265 8th Avenue SW
Grandville, MI 49418
Cost: $50 per person
The Sierra Leone team at the airport, ready to leave. Mick Bates is on the far right, and Jeff Sherlock is fourth from the right. (click to enlarge)
Today, January 4, a team of 10 persons is leaving for Sierra Leone, where they will train local people to identify opportunities and start up small businesses. Jeff Sherlock (left), a member of the Global Ministries Leadership Team, and Mick Bates are leading a group of 8 students from Taylor University on this Business as Mission trip. Both Sherlock and Bates are professors at Taylor.
At the request of the Sierra Leone United Brethren Church, the team will:
The team asks for prayer for the following needs:
If you are interested in updates on the team’s work, join their Facebook group.
Mark Smith, Morocco UB church (Temperance, Mich.)
On Saturday, December 3, at Christmas In Ida, we had a table this year at the craft show. We gave away cloth shopping bags with our name on them, along with free Bibles and information about our church and service times. It was a great day of sharing. Two people who took information attended our Christmas Eve service.
Our church Christmas program was on Sunday night, December 11, with almost everyone from the congregation taking part. It was wonderful seeing the church almost filled, and sharing the joys of Christmas not only with each other but with the visitors who attended. A fellowship time followed with plenty of treats.
We had a wonderful service on Christmas Eve. Pastor Todd Greenman served communion, with an elder and his wife assisting. On Christmas Day we had our regular service at the normal time, and again God blessed us with visitors who heard our church was having services. We praise God for the excitment of seeing him work not only in our families but in seeing new faces almost weekly.
Tell us something special your church did during the Christmas season–events, programs, ministries, anything. You can use this form or send an email.
