16 Jun New Website for Bethel UB
The Bethel UB church (Elmore, Ohio) has a new and very attractive website. Check it out at ExperienceBethel.org. Tim Sherman is the pastor of Bethel.
16 Jun 60 UBs Currently in Israel
Sixty people from three UB churches are currently in the Holy Land, June 13-23. The participants come from churches of the West Michigan cluster, which is led by Randy Carpenter, pastor of the UB church in Sunfield, Mich.
Half of the persons are from Homefront UB church in Grandville, Mich.; Josh Good, the senior pastor, is part of that group.
The remaining 30 are from:
- Banner of Christ UB church (Byron Center, Mich.). Pastor Mike Caley and his wife, Lynne, are among the group.
- Sunfield UB church (Sunfield, Mich.). Randy Carpenter and his wife, Crystal, are part of the group.
- Kilpatrick UB church (Woodland, Mich.). Pastor Darrel Bosworth and his wife, Barbara, are part of the group.
Tim Flickinger, pastor of a church plant in Lansing, Mich., is also participating.
The trip is led by Mike Caley (right). This is his third trip to Israel, and the second one he has led since 2010.
“Josh Good and I have headed this up, and it has grown out of the enthusiasm generated by dozens of folks at Banner and now HomeFront church who have attended our Grow in the Word courses,” says Caley. Grow in the Word is a discipleship curriculum written by Dennis Miller, pastor of Emmanuel UB church in Fort Wayne, Ind.
30 May A Cluster in Search of Walleye
Mark Ralph and his prize catch.
To wind up the cluster season, the pastors of the Findlay cluster spent Thursday, May 29, fishing Lake Erie. The winner of the largest walleye caught goes to Pastor Mark Ralph, pastor of Mt. Zion United Brethren Church in Wayne, Ohio. Mark caught a 22.5 inch walleye and broke his pole doing it. Congratulations, Mark!
19 May Eagle Quest Raises $2500 for Haiti
Tim Scroggs, pastor of Eagle Quest Church, at the benefit dinner.
Eagle Quest Church hosted a fundraiser on Wednesday, May 14, 2014, to help provide clean water to Haitian homes. The Water for Life Benefit dinner raised $1250 for Water Project Haiti, which provides pure water filters that are made with materials and labor found in Haiti. These filters remove up to 99% of the contaminants in the water supply, greatly reducing sickness and mortality.
Thanks to a matching grant, $2500 will go toward manufacturing and installing 50 filters!
Columbia City High School’s Whitley Street Jazz provided great entertainment and Bruno’s Barbeque catered a delicious dinner. It was a memorable evening for those who attended. Many sponsors helped make this event possible.
12 May A UB Haitian Church in Central Pennsylvania
Art Page (right), senior pastor, Salem UB church (Chambersburg, Pa.)
For several years, Salem UB church hosted a Haitian ministry in “The Chapel,” the smaller of the two buildings on our campus. Most of the Haitians are migrant farm workers who practically live on our doorstep in migrant worker camps. They come to do fruit-picking in the area. We had been longing to impact this community for Christ.
The Haitian ministry grew and thrived. Last summer, we helped them take the next step. They are now called “Salem Haitian Congregation.” They hold multiple services each week in a rented facility in downtown Chambersburg, closer to where most of the Haitian community lives. They use the lower level of a Lutheran church.
The pastor is Gener Lascase, a Haitian who arrived one fall to do fruit-picking at the migrant camp next to our church. He speaks English well, and started attending Salem. Gener, an ordained minister, indicated a desire to minister to his own people. We let him lead a small Bible-teaching service for Haitians. That grew into a worship service, prayer service, Sunday school–a lot of services on our campus during the week.
This continued for three years. We ran out of room. Another problem is that Salem is located well outside of town, and many of the Haitian people had difficulty getting there. Relocating to downtown Chambersburg solved both of these problems.
They hold a Friday night prayer meeting, a Saturday afternoon Bible study, Sunday morning Sunday school and worship, and Sunday night worship. Pastor Jason Bakker, the associate pastor of Salem, and I take turns preaching the Sunday night service. They use the Haitian Creole language, so when Jason and I preach, it’s translated.
They are very committed and joyful, and outwardly expressive. It makes the rest of us feel pretty lukewarm. They have vibrant services with a lot of singing, testimonies, and very long prayers. They can sing the same song for ten minutes. It’s not Pentecostal, but in the direction of charismatic.
Salem Haitian Congregation has 30-70 people at most services. We still get a bump in the fall, when new Haitians arrive from Haiti or Florida to pick apples. A lot of Haitians have moved into Chambersburg permanently, and are seeking employment outside of fruit-picking. We estimate that about 500 Haitians live in Chambersburg.
Salem established a Haitian oversight board, and we provide a lot of mentoring and guidance. We’ve provided food and furniture for Haitian families. Some of their kids come to Salem’s youth activities. We are also collaborating with them to rebuild a church-based school in Haiti which was destroyed by the earthquake. Pastor Jason has made a couple of fact-finding expeditions to see how things are going.
Pastor Gener is very friendly, warm-hearted, and hard-working. He’s a tent-making pastor, working fulltime in a factory in Chambersburg. He and his wife, Aurora, have five children ages 10-18. He ministers all the time, basically for very little pay. The Haitian church gives Salem a certain amount of money each month for rent, and part of that is turned over to him as salary.
So Salem has planted a church! For now, the Haitians operate under Salem’s umbrella as a congregation within a congregation. We hope and pray that in the next few years, they will become a fully functioning United Brethren church in their own right.
02 May Easter at Our Church: Dayton, Iowa
Holly Lundberg, McGuire Bend UB church (Dayton, Iowa)
On Good Friday, we were blessed to have with us Jeff Bleijerveld, the Director of Global Ministries. After enjoying a potluck supper, Jeff shared with us the work and goals of Global Ministries. We traveled through the different countries and learned of the mission work going on in each one. It is such a big world with an even bigger God!
On Easter Sunday, Dan Carrow was our lay speaker. He spoke about how Jesus conquered death.
02 May Easter at Our Church: Freetown, Sierra Leone
Francis George, Emeric young UBC Church (Freetown, Sierra Leone)
Easter at our church was very exciting, starting from Good Friday, when we had planned to paint our church. The board decided to do the painting on Saturday. Some youths and young adults offered themselves to do the painting, and the board chairman was their to supervise. We painted from morning until evening just to see our church beautiful while celebrating the resurrection of our savior.
On Easter the church was full with old members who have not been coming for services for a long time.We really thank God and hope they will stay forever.
02 May Easter at Our Church: New Lebanon, Ohio
Tracy Sturgill, Olivet UB church (New Lebanon, Ohio)
Pastor Michael Sturgill (right) from Olivet UB was very happy to welcome Bishop Phil Whipple (and his wife Sandie) as our speaker at our afternoon Easter Sunday service. Our musical group, The Southern-Aires, provided southern gospel music for our congregation. This was followed by a nice dinner.
Our cluster and cluster leader William Flamer helped make this possible. Two other pastors in our cluster attended: Pastor Ed Harvey, (Lighthouse Community Church in Dayton) and Pastor Roland Albert (Park Layne UB Church in Dayton), along with some members of their congregation. The cluster also helped by passing out flyers in the area. This made the service a great time for outreach.
23 Apr Easter at Our Church: Dansville, Mich.
Alice Belen, Heritage UB church (Dansville, Mich.)
We had a full day on Saturday morning and afternoon on April 19 with about 240 kids gathering Easter eggs on the Heritage church grounds and then going inside the youth center for entertainment by a magician and munching on a bag of popcorn. By 3:30 p.m., we were more than ready to head home.
Then we were back Easter Sunday morning at 10 a.m. for breakfast, sitting family style while Pastor Cal Hodgson brought a stirring sermon on the reason for Easter. We are a small, growing church in a very small community and thought we had set up enough tables and chairs for the expected service, but several more tables had to be set up in order to have room for all those who had come to worship with us. What a wonderful problem that was for us. All in all, a wonderful and meaningful Easter Sunday!
23 Apr Easter at Our Church: Goshen, Ind.
Margarita Mojica, Clearview UB church (Goshen, Ind.)
We have the great opportunity in our church to have two congregations but one church. Let me explain: We have an English-only speaking congregation and a Spanish-speaking congregation (some of us are bilingual), but yet we are ONE. Although we normally have separate times for our services, it’s always a pleasure when we can get together. And that we did! We got together for Resurrection Sunrise Service at 7 am, praising our risen Savior in song and adoration! What a blessing to be able to praise the Lord in different languages!