Points of Prayer:Hampton Roads, VA
Rejoice:
- Since July, we’ve trained and sent out couples to lead in Richmond, VA, Pittsburgh, PA, Lexington, KY, Harrisonburg, VA, Dayton, OH, and (soon) Sydney, Australia.
- In November, we’ll host the ACR Conference in Virginia Beach and anticipate 2000 members in attendance
- Students are back on campus! So far we’ve gathered names and numbers from over 1000 interested students! With 55 university students, we have averaged over 100 visitors to our Bible talks this fall.
- We’ve hired the Bartoli’s as region leaders and David Bliley as a campus intern.
Prayer Needs:
- Since July, we’ve trained and sent out couples to lead in Richmond, VA, Pittsburgh, PA, Lexington, KY, Harrisonburg, VA, Dayton, OH, and (soon) Sydney, Australia. Pray for workers!
Detroit , MI
Rejoice:
- Collected $50,000 for special missions and more is still coming in.
- Sent 10 missionaries to PNG for a couples of weeks in the spring.
- Began the ground work for the church planting to Kalamazoo.
Prayer Needs:
- Unity with the church leadership, Church planting to Kalamazoo
Toledo, OH
Rejoice:
- Collected our Special Contribution of $26,366 which was over 15 times our weekly average!
- We more than doubled the amount collected from the previous year.
- We had over 30 Sunday visitors during our March campaign.
- 8 souls were baptized in a 10 week period.
- Ohio staff meetings have re-started each month.
Prayer Needs:
- More workers for the harvest field to reach our end year goal of 60 disciples.
- Maturity for our young Bible Talk leaders.
- Raising up new Bible Talk leaders.
- Revival on campus!
Northern Virginia, VA
Rejoice:
- New Leadership has been in place for one year with Randy and Kay McKean. By the grace of God, 25 have been baptized into Christ in this first year.
- In the Fall of 2007, a new separate church was established from the former South Region (110 disciples) of the Northern Virginia Church–it is now known as the Potomac Valley Church of Christ
- So far in 2008 the church has grown by 50 with baptisms, restorations and move ins.
- A missions contribution primarily for the Indonesian Churches was collected in June. With a goal of $65,000…..$84,000 was cheerfully given.
- Contribution has grown from $6000 weekly average to over $9000 weekly average in the last year.
- The churches that made up the former DC Church now meet together for worship and fellowship at Regional Services several times each year. The next Regional Service will include the Greater Baltimore Church, the Montgomery County Church, the Frederick Church, the Potomac Valley Church, the DC Church and the Northern Virginia Church. The service and fellowship is always loving, encouraging, inspiring and unifying!
Prayer Needs:
- We need to hire a couple to join our staff of 2 to lead the Teen Ministry as soon as possible. We would like this in place no later than January 2009.
- We need to hire another couple to begin a Campus Ministry here. We would like to begin this in January 2009 if financially possible and certainly no later than August 2009.
- We would like to appoint elders for the congregation in the next year.
Potomac Valley , VA
Rejoice:
- The Potomac Valley Church of Christ was inaugurated in November of 2007. It was formerly the South Sector of the Northern Virginia Church of Christ.
- Behzad & Candice Fathi were hired to lead the church. They had planted the church in Turkey and have served in the ministry for over 13 years.
- Several new BT Leaders and Shepherding Couples have been appointed.
- 3 of the families have baptized their teens since November 2007.
- Currently there are 22 adults and 13 youths studying the Bible.
- The missions contribution collected surpassed the church’s goals by totaling $56,500. ($50,000 for Indonesia & $6,500 for the newly formed EMED region which consists of Turkey, Cyprus and Israel.
- Almost all the members are involved in various service committees ranging from event coordination and facility search to ushering and website design.
Prayer Needs:
- For an intern couple to lead our youth ministry and help us with the campus work.
- For an ideal facility in Stafford that we can lease or purchase.
- For the recently launched Campus and Singles Ministries to grow and become effective and productive.
- For the church to grow in the counties of Prince William, Stafford, Spottsylvania and King George.
- For God to raise up future elders in our congregation.
Dayton, OH
Rejoice:
- Dayton has hired the Loneys and they are now in place
- Dayton has also hired a part time campus intern
- Dayton has baptised its first teen and a new teen ministry group has been established
- We have 11 people studying the Bible
- Goal for special was 10,000.00 and over 15,000.00 was given
- Unity among Ohio churches is at a 5 year high
Prayer Needs :
- Pray for Eleanor to be hired full time
- We would like to hire a sister in 2009 to work with campus (based on finances)
- Ohio wants to plant a new church in 2009
Baltimore, MD
Rejoice:
- Campus ministry grown to 42 students on 12 campuses
- 3 full-time staff couples including full-time campus leaders
- Successful transition from Doug and Joyce Arthur leadership in spring of 2008-09-06
- 80 baptisms and restorations in 2 ½ years
- Hosted worship service for African American Heritage Festival in Baltimore. First ever worship service at 7 year old festival
- HOPE Baltimore led by Al Essien raised funding of over 2 ½ million dollars for projects
- Started Young Marrieds ministry
Prayer Needs:
- Church plantings in Maryland- where, when, and leaders. To plant 1st church in fall of 09
- Ministry to the inner city of Baltimore
- Transition to regions
- Appointment of elders
- To start ministries on the 6 unreached campuses
- Continued growth of regional unity
- Baptisms of kingdom kids teens
- Growth in contribution to maintain and continue growth of church
Lexington, KY
Rejoice:
- Brian Majors (single father, 32yrs old) was baptized last August. He is doing good thus far. Brian is the church’s first baptism since Sonny left in Dec.2007.
- The teen ministry is revived! We have about 12 teens and 3 of them are currently studying the bible and one of them (Brittany Clark) should be getting baptized by the end of September.
- The church went from meeting in three separate house churches every Sunday and sparingly on Wednesdays for most of the year to worshiping together every Sunday and Wednesday since last month! God has provided us a venue to meet 3x a week for about $230/wk which a few dollars under our budget (a miracle indeed!) This is an answered prayer!
- For a church membership size of 34, we have been blessed with an average of 5 visitors every Sunday. Our prayer is for God to provide us at least 5 open bible studies every month with the hope of baptizing at least one soul every month. Right now, we have 3 open bible studies. Please pray for our goal growth to be met.
Prayer Needs:
- Need to get our campus ministry restarted Please pray that Lexington can be connected with the Louisville church again.
Columbus, OH
Rejoice:
- HERO Service (coming up Sunday 14th) The church has been very focused and excited about our upcoming Hero Service. We have been inviting people who regularly act/live in heroic ways – sacrificing in many different yet daily ways reflecting the heart and character of God – those in the military, medical and teaching professions, law enforcement, caregivers. Whole fire and police stations have been invited, doctors, nurses, soldiers… We’re looking forward to not only honoring them but seeing many turn to God and honor Him! Restorations We have a number of people from campus, singles, and married ministries who are somewhere in the spectrum of being restored to the church here.
Lansing, MI
Rejoice:
- Currently 7 solid bible studies, 5 with teens/singles/campus
- Many members read entire New Testament for our March campaign
- Worship services have been super awesome
- Had first ever family camp in June, like a mini out door conference, it was great for our unity and faith
- Looking at renting a building 24/7 that is near Michigan State for services and events
- 4 people doing restoration studies
- Met our goal of $5000 in special contribution for Kerala India
- Church team won sand volleyball league and tournament!
Prayer Needs:
- Pray for continued growth of campus ministry at MSU
- Pray for wisdom as the leadership is very young
- Pray for humility as the leadership group is very young
- Pray for continued unity with the other Michigan churches, Toledo OH, and Fort Wayne IN
- Pray for statewide October campaign
Pittsburgh, PA
Rejoice:
- The Millers are full time here since June 1, 2008. We moved in to our home on July 18th and are now fully focused on the local ministry.
- We had five new freshmen join our campus group this fall, and now have a campus ministry of 21 students. All major campuses now have a bible talk.
- We have four rising teenagers and are launching a teen ministry with dedicated teen workers in October.
- The church just concluded our first marriage retreat in over 5 years. We had great participation, several visitors and a new married couple has asked to study the bible as a result.
- We have 11 people currently studying the bible, and two men close to baptism as of this writing. Several of the studies are parents of current members both here and elsewhere.
- The church is now having regular leadership meetings and bible talks. We will have our first evangelistic campaign in October.
- We are very fired up to have the support of so many to live our dream in the full-time ministry.
Prayer Needs:
- For the married ministry to see the need to lead in spirituality and service to the church, the lost.
- For the Millers to have humility, wisdom and patience as we learn the full-time ministry.
- To formalize our core leadership group and be united in our standards and practices.
- For the Pittsburgh church to embrace unity with other congregations.
- For God to send a genuine spirit of revival through our fellowship.
Montgomery County and Frederick, MD
Rejoice:
- We are half-way to our goal to baptize/restore 40 people into Christ this year for the Montgomery County and Frederick churches. Already we are heading towards our most fruitful year in the past 6 years.
- Since the Frederick church was planted one year ago, they had had 10 baptisms and restorations
- Six churches in the DC area all met together in Montgomery County September 7 for a regional worship service (potomac valley, Baltimore, Montgomery County, Northern VA, Frederick and DC) there were well over 1300 adults, teens and campus at the service.
- One of the original Frederick team members reached out to her cousin who had fallen away from a church in California and moved back to her home town in Frederick. Her cousin was restored the same night as her husbands baptism. Later her sister-in-law and her husband were baptized. This was followed by her niece being baptized. Finally, her mother was baptized. In one year, a grandmother, daughter and grandaughter were added to the kingdom.
Prayer Needs:
- Please pray for our marrieds ministry and singles. There are pockets of encouragement, but there needs to be a much greater outwards focus as a whole for both groups.
- Raise up and appoint elders within our congregation
- Continue to increase our contribution in order to hire additional staff
Philadelphia, PA
Rejoice:
- The Philadelphia staff has grown from 5 to 11 within the past year. Will and Tosha Archer (teens), Marcos and Amarillas Mercado (regional), Jamison Malcolm (campus) and Lauren Cramer (campus) were all hired.
- The church has had 27 baptisms and many restorations so far in 2008.
- The State College (Penn State Univ) church was planted by Kip and Bethany Harms.
- 2008 Missions – $235,000 was collected for missions and given to strengthen the churches in Northern India, Pakistan, Nepal, Pittsburgh and State College.
- Over 1500 youth attended the Teen Camp/Rcamp / Camp Miracles in Pennsylvania this summer.
- We hosted the Teen Bash where over 300 teens from around the country attended.
- Our Easter Sunday and Friends and Family days had attendences over 1060. Our regular Sunday attendance averages over 850. Our Women’s Day program had over 500 women. Our Super Sunday Evangelistic event had over 1200 people attend.
- God continues to strengthen and encourage us to be our best for him.
Grand Rapids, MI
Prayer Needs:
- Rodney and Jodi Robinson’s five year old son, Matthew recovering from a bone marrow transplant due to liver cancer. He is now recovering at home under six week isolation while he builds up his immune system again.
- We are praying for campus workers; possibly an intern to work on 5 local campuses.
Rejoice:
- We now have five disciples on campus here in Grand Rapids
- We joined the Detroit church in a campaigne on WMU campus this summer
- We surpassed our goal for special missions contribution for India by $3,000
- Marriages were strengthened when 90% of our marrieds participated in “Family Dynamics” marriage classes