Summer Missions Update
This week, Pastor John hands over the TAGD keyboard to Pastor Brent Whitefield, Northpoint’s Pastor of Missions and Outreach.
Summer Missions Update
Hello Family,
I want to take this space this week to give you an update on some of the overseas missionary endeavors and summer activities with which we are involved, to keep in your prayers.
Next week, I will be in Botswana, visiting our church plant partnership there and encouraging Pastor Lamaz in his ongoing work. Our formal partnership with Gaborone Community Chapel will be coming to an end in a few months. Our agreement stipulated two years of support for the church, after which time they would function on their own. I am happy to report that the church plant is going very well and they are prepared to move toward self-sufficiency. The church has achieved many of the milestones that it established for itself in terms of leadership development, evangelism, and numbers. They will soon be starting a second worship service in the local language. This is a very important and encouraging development. They have been able to engage in youth and college ministry on a larger scale and see young people come to Christ through the ministry. I want to thank all of you who have given up a few dollars a week to support this ministry, and encourage you to help us see it through to the end. By God’s grace, we have been able to achieve much with little.
While in Africa, I will be meeting with Pastor Oscar and Nairobi Chapel to discuss our next partnership possibilities. The more I have a chance to observe it, the more impressed I am with the church planting model that they have pioneered. It is allowing for rapid church planting progress without creating unhelpful dependencies on Western money and input. They have established church plants in most of the larger African capitals and are moving on to other important world cities such as London and Sydney. I am anxious to see what God has in store for us as we continue to pursue these partnerships.
‘Greece’ is the word at Northpoint this summer. It is our privilege to host our missionaries to Greece, Stefanos and Manon Mihalios, as they spend a portion of their furlough with us this year. They will be here ministering and interacting with us until the end of June. Please make it a point to seek them out and get to know them if you haven’t had a chance already.
On July 5, we have a team of twenty leaving from Northpoint to minister in Greece for ten days. The trip will have two main purposes: first is to support the church planting ministry in downtown Athens by hosting two street festivals that help create awareness for the church in the community. And second, after a few days in Athens, the team will make its way to the island of Lesbos where they will spend a week working with refugees from the Middle East and Africa who are there in the largest refugee camp in Europe. The team will have many opportunities to share the good news about Jesus Christ while helping people with their basic needs for food, clothing, etc. You can be praying that in both places where they will minister, hearts will be prepared to open to the gospel, as many hear it for the first time.
If you are interested in learning more about what our team will be doing, mark your calendar to join us Friday night, June 16, at 7:00 p.m., in Heritage Hall for a Greek-themed dessert night. You will have a chance to hear from our missionaries and from the team that is going out, and to find out how to pray for, and support them.
Those are just a couple of updates from the twenty or so different cross-cultural fields in which we are engaged. As a church, God has given us a unique set of talents and opportunities to use in service of his kingdom. Pray that whether we do evangelism, plant churches, or train leaders, we will maximize our effectiveness and faithfulness to his glory.
In him,
Pastor Brent