Church News and Fellowship Vol 1 No 3


	Church News and Fellowship Report from Halifax Two families and one couple moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 2000 to pioneer a new church. This has been a new experience for all of us. Apart from another sister and her two children (who had moved a year earlier) and a small number of contacts, we knew no other people in this east-coast city with a metropolitan population of 350,000. During these past two years, we have been building relationships with neighbors, work colleagues, and others whom we have met in daily life. In order to contact more people, we have been going to public places to sing and to pass out gospel literature. This has brought us in touch with people from other parts of the city as well as other parts of Eastern Canada. Since the closest church is twelve hours away, we have had to depend more on one another. In the last eight months we have experienced the reality of a vital group, opening to each other, and really bearing one another's burdens. Instead of pretending to be free of problems, we have confided in one another. Now we can bear one another in prayer. We have realized that the Lord's blessing is based upon our labor in oneness. We also realize that it takes time to build credit with people, especially when you come as an outsider into a new environment. This requires us to continue to labor, gradually building relationships with people and not losing heart. There are presently 16 people meeting together. Of these, four are university students who are beginning to labor on the campuses. We are caring for a few new believers, and we fully expect that the Lord will add to our number over the coming years. -D. M., Halifax Children's Service Workshop in Detroit This fall there was a children's service workshop in Detroit. We enjoyed an energizing time with saints in Metro Detroit who have a desire to see children raised up in the Lord. We spent one Saturday morning and afternoon together, and the Lord showed us much concerning the children's work. First, we saw that the children's work is a large field - much larger than we generally think. This field includes not only the children themselves, but also those serving them. It includes young people and new believers among us, giving them an entrance into the practical church life. This field includes the children's families, since this is where children are raised up in the Lord. To serve the children without shepherding families is a shortsighted labor. This field also includes visitors to the church meetings. An attractive, healthy children's work may actually be our most effective means of reaching typical American families with the gospel. We also saw that as we labor in children's service, we exercise our ministry. We can minister the Bible in life and with anointing to the children. Together as a group, we practiced digging out the facts from the word and receiving fresh inspiration from the Lord. With this as a base, we then practiced telling Bible stories with impact. We learned that by telling stories in this way, our fresh touch with the Lord could be expressed through nourishing, nurturing words to the children. -T. N. and A. D., Chicago I appreciated the saints' laboring in the curriculum; it was well done and very attractive. The Take me Home! magazine is a plus, and it is food for the whole family. I am thinking of laboring with some high school young people (including my daughter) for our perfecting and to nourish the young ones at the same time. We need more fellowship and training to build up the children's service here. Thank you for coming. It is a blessing to the churches. -F. H., Detroit I enjoyed the workshop very much and learned a lot from the brothers who came. It seems to me that they have many good ways of imparting the riches of the Bible into the children. I am also impressed with the high quality of their lessons and of the weekly magazine Take me Home! I am sure that if all local churches would follow our brothers' pattern in the children's work, the Lord's recovery would be even more prosperous. May the Lord guide us and bless us. Amen. -C. C., Detroit The Lord's salvation is for households, which includes children! The Bible is a book full of wonderful stories. Children's service can be a bridge to connect those long-ago and far-away stories to the children's own lives. The children's service is also a support to the parents, who are appointed by God to raise their children to love and know Him. -J. F., Windsor, Canada The workshop gave us not only a vision of the children's service, but also a practical, fresh, and living way to let the Lord gain our children in their youth. It is our responsibility to enter into this burden for the future of the Lord's recovery on the earth. -A. H., Detroit