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The online Mineral Daily News-Tribune has an article called “Operation Christmas Child Begins.” It tells about Fountain United Brethren church, pastored by Daryl Elliott, which is again serving as a collection point for Samaritan Purse’s Christmas Child program. Last year, over 8300 shoeboxes were shipped from Fountain. Sox local “relay centers” (four of them churches) feed shoeboxes to Fountain. This year’s goal is 8500 shoeboxes.
Ron Ramsey, Bishop
Lots of people finding Christ–that’s what I like to hear about. Please be encouraged by this report from Les Smith, pastor of Hillsdale UB church in Hillsdale, Mich.
In October, our church hosted the Power Team for five nights. It resulted in the conversions of 150 kids and teens and of over 20 adults! They were among 400 decisions for Christ of one form or another.
The attendance grew larger every night with a standing room only crowd of over 700 on the final night, the largest gathering at one time in our church’s history.
The Power Team held assemblies at 11 high schools in Hillsdale County during the day and invited everyone to the Hillsdale UB church for the evening event, where the gospel was presented at the conclusion each night. It had such an impact on our community and beyond, a TV camera crew drove down up from Toledo, Ohio, for interviews of church members, etc.
In exchange for two Power Team T-shirts on the last night, the senior pastor is supposed to lie on a bed of nails with a block of ice put on his chest, which a Power Team member then breaks and the the kids go crazy. Fortunately for me, the team forgot the bed of nails at the previous church in another state, and there wasn’t time to ship it here, so I escaped. But, they still gave me the free t-shirts since it wasn’t my fault.
You can watch the TV news report here.
A work group from Prince Street UB (Shippensburg, Pa.) spent October 8-12 at the Laurel Mission in Kentucky. They worked with mission director Titus Boggs in constructing a handicapped ramp for a lady who is a member of his church. The lady found it very difficult to enter her home due to so many steps. The members of the team were: Wayne Hawkins, Anita Brenize, Jack Diehl, Robert Vaughn, Joseph Hawkins,Tanner Hamman, and Patricia Hawkins.
Ron Ramsey, Bishop
Last Sunday at our Imagine This church in Grand Ledge, Mich., I was privileged to watch as 12 people were baptized.
Pastor Gordon Kettel baptized three people in the morning service, all from one family (a couple and a child). They were reached through a VBS which Imagine This took to a mobile home park. They set up grills, grilled hotdogs, and fed kids every night for five nights. During the evening service (the larger of the two services), they baptized another nine people.
They used a blow-up pool with maybe 18 inches of water. The water wasn’t heated. The persons being baptized sat down in the pool, and he bent them back. Gordon baptized two persons by pouring water from a pitcher over their heads.
A lot of the people who have become Christians through Imagine This had no church background. For them, tithing is a foreign concept. But in both services, Gordon explained what tithing means. That impressed me. Many times, that’s the last thing you want to talk about in a church plant, but he’s bold about it.
Ron Ramsey, Bishop
I spent last Sunday with the Imagine This LLC congregation in Grand Ledge, Mich. Over the next few days, I want to share some of my thoughts and observations about this new United Brethren church.
Grand Ledge is a small bedroom community just east of Lansing. The church started a little over a year ago, on October 21, 2007. The pastor is Gordon Kettel (right, with his wife Lori).
They hold two services–at 10:00 Sunday morning and at 6 p.m. When they started a year ago, sharing a building with three other church groups, the only time available was Sunday night. The evening service attracted a number of people, so when they moved into their own building a few months ago, they decided to keep the evening service.
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New Hope Church in Camden, Mich., is looking for a fulltime staffperson to coordinate two areas of the church’s ministry: worship and assimilation. Don Gentry is the pastor.
Todd Fetters, pastor of Devonshire UB church (Harrisburg, Pa.) spoke recently at a youth retreat in Ocean City, N. J. He spoke on the theme “Jesus is Greater Than….” to the 18 students and 9 adults attending. He wrote on his blog about the unique commitment time on Saturday night.
“About a dozen students and adults came forward to commit something in their lives that they were making greater than Jesus. A relationship? Their iPod? Their Facebook or MySpace pages? Their career? Anything. The challenge just kept coming at them, “Who are you making famous with your life? Is it Jesus or you?”
“I shared personally with them that my life has been a series of moments where I had to make Jesus greater than something in my life, i.e. my music, my relationships, my career, etc….Each student and/or adult came to the front of the room to physically turn a makeshift ‘greater-than’ sign (>) that stood beside the hanging letters, J-E-S-U-S. With ‘lesser-than’ pointing at ‘Jesus,’ each individual turned the sign so that ‘lesser-than’ was aimed at them and ‘greater-than’ was directed at J-E-S-U-S.
“As a result of this retreat, I’ve heard students say that they needed to take a closer look at their Myspace and Facebook pages to make changes that will bring less attention to themselves and more on Jesus. Others are going to read a chapter a day from the Gospels and meet weekly to talk about what they are reading. Some were convicted about their movie/entertainment choices and are putting greater time into deciding if the movie is something that helps them honor God.”
It’s great to hear stories like that.
On October 15, Mount Zion United African Church dedicated its new church facility located on 1453 N. 52nd Street in Philadelphia, Pa. They’ve been holding meetings there for a few weeks, but on Sunday, people came from far and wide for the dedication.
In the photo (l-r): Bishop Emeritus Paul Hirschy (guest speaker), Dr. Anthony Blair (former Mid-Atlantic Conference superintendent), and Joe Abu, the church’s pastor.
Pat Jones, Director of Healthy Church Ministries
The South Mountain UB church in Dillsburg, Pa., has withdrawn from the United Brethren church. They do so with our blessing.
Some connections existed between people at South Mountain and at Celebration Church, a local Assemblies of God church plant. Celebration needed a place to meet, and there were conversations about sharing South Mountain’s building. After senior pastor Greg Helman left to become pastor of Blue Rock UB church (Waynesboro, Pa.) earlier this summer, some leaders at South Mountain began pursuing the idea of becoming part of Celebration. I did some checking. Celebration is a good church with a highly regarded pastor.
Bishop Ron Ramsey and I both met with people from South Mountain. We told them, “If you want to withdraw, here’s the proper way to do it.” They followed those steps, which culminated in a congregational meeting on Sunday night, September 28. I was present during that meeting.
Five options were presented:
Of the 52 votes cast, 43 were in favor of joining with Celebration.
South Mountain took all the proper steps. So as of September 28, we consider them to have properly withdrawn from the United Brethren denomination.
Faith Community Church in Findlay, Ohio, has a new name: The ROCK (Reaching Others for Christ’s Kingdom).
The ROCK is a combination of two congregations: the former Faith Community UB church, and a church of the Evangelical Congregational denomination. They formally combined forces on October 3, and about 50 people joined the church.
The senior pastor is Brad Kittle, who was pastor of the EC church. The two congregations had been holding joint services for most of 2008.
