On Sunday evenings, many of the evangelists and women’s ministry leaders in the SoldOut Movement graciously send me their “good news” for the week. On Monday mornings, I gather the most exciting of the reports and send them out to all of our leaders around the world, accompanied by some heartfelt admonitions for the movement. This keeps us connected and encouraged by the Spirit of God working in our family of churches. The following is this past week’s “Good News Email!”
KM
Dear All,
Greetings from the City of Angels Church! Given the devastation to the island nation of Haiti by a 7.0 earthquake, the Central Leadership Council is proclaiming Friday, January 22, 2010 as a Day of Prayer & Fasting for all of the congregations of the SoldOut Movement. The BBC estimated 200,000 deaths, and perhaps even more remain trapped alive under the debris, crying out for help. MERCYworldwide is donating funds to the Haitian families of disciples in our movement. Sadly, one of our brothers in DC lost his cousin in the quake. Let us resolve to have an even greater urgency to preach the Word, as this catastrophe parallels the condition of the “spiritual world” that has been shaken and devastated by Satan and his demons; many are trapped in their sin and circumstances, and crying out for help. We must rise up and be the answer to their prayers.
DJ Comisford of NYC and Carlos Mejia of Washington DC combine good news from both churches and share, “The DC Church, Empire City Church and the new Charlotte International Christian Church had an amazing Winter Workshop in DC! The theme was I Am With You. Chris and Theresa Broom came down from Chicago and preached powerfully about how God is working in His new movement. Chris challenged the Bible Talk Leaders on Friday night to imitate God’s heart for the lost, the weak and the lukewarm. On Saturday during the Men’s Program, Mike Underhill and Dustin Miller from New York, as well as Ken Chin and Carlos from DC, preached on Righteousness, Humility, Sacrifice and Evangelism. On the women’s side, Theresa Broom, Lucy Mejia and Cheryl Chin from DC, and Kacie Comisford and Amanda Miller from New York, preached on the same subjects. Sunday morning, the fellowship was electric as 135 people gathered to worship! Bill Hamilton, leader of the Charlotte Remnant Group, led a heart-moving communion about his decision to join God’s new movement and DJ preached the message, God is With Us. Afterwards, we celebrated two baptisms from the DC Church, Mackensie – DC’s first teen – and Johweyeh, who studied the Bible in just seven days! The workshop melded the hearts of the disciples from DC, NYC and Charlotte together and we are ready for 2010 because God Is With Us!”
Chris Broom adds, “Theresa and I had an incredible time in DC with the Mejias and McGees. They are incredible couples and I believe they are just what the DC Church needs after losing the Smellies! It was inspiring to see the Comisfords and the NYC crew as well as the Hamiltons and the disciples from North Carolina!
We flew back to be with the Chicago Church on Sunday and God blessed us with three baptisms and one restoration. Two women, Mel and Michelle, from South Africa were baptized after hearing their fellow country-woman Sonja Chloupek preach last week at our workshop! A man named David was also baptized: he approached Carl, one of our young brothers, at a bus stop because he recognized him from a rap video he had seen online! Carl admitted that it was him and quickly made it clear that he has changed his life and his music and that now he is doing Gospel Rap! Today, after baptizing David, Carl and Theo performed a new song for the church entitled “Spiritual Warfare!” It was hot! Finally, Gabe was restored today. Gabe used to be in the ministry in Atlanta and God used him to bring 14 of his family members into our former fellowship! However, after drifting from God, Gabe’s life was in shambles. We have restored several of his family members here in Chicago and they pleaded with him to move back and see what God was doing here. Today, several others from his family were in attendance and saw a renewed fire in Gabe as he was restored!
Great news from the Hawaiian Islands! Evan Bartholomew in Hilo writes, “Nate was baptized on Wednesday night just before Men’s Night Out! His mom is also studying the Bible currently, even after she freaked-out when she looked us up on the web! Church membership is at 28 in Hilo, and we are looking forward to it being well above 30 when Jay and Angie Hernandez get here!” (Evan & Kelly Bartholomew are moving to Honolulu on March 1st to strengthen this great planting, and the Hernandezs are being sent from LA to Hilo on April 4th to once again realize their dream of being full-time in the Lord’s work!)
Kyle and Joan Bartholomew report from Honolulu, “Met by Ashley Godwin and baptized in December, Phil (the friend of Bill Bright – who founded Campus Crusade – and Billy Graham) was able to see his son David and his son’s wife, Beth, get baptized on Monday night! His two other sons Paul and Daniel have hooked up with Ken Zindler of LA and Chris Broom of Chicago, respectively, and have begun studying the Bible. Both have expressed to their father and brother that they want to get baptized. Pray for us as many more are on the way!”
From Oregon, Jeremiah Clark shares, “Greetings from the Emerald City! The Lord continues to bless and increase our numbers in the Eugene Church. Hillary was baptized today! She is an Architecture major working towards her Master’s Degree at the University of Oregon. Hillary was valedictorian in high school and graduated from college with honors. Until now, her god was success and achievement but today she made the one true God both her Lord and Savior. Amen!” Matt Sullivan in Santiago, Chile reports, “Brian – our musician (plays keyboard, guitar and sings) – shares his faith radically all the time. Early this year, he shared with Bernardo near the metro and this man was totally seeking God, but in a ton of sin! He began studying just two weeks ago and was baptized Friday night after service! It was cool because the pool at the hotel we rent was ‘officially closed’ for a party, but the manager allowed us to quickly run in, baptize him, and run out! We came back to singing and everyone cheered as they saw their new brother Bernardo! It was awesome! Also, we are now in the process of planning a huge MERCYworldwide event with a very famous soccer player, Romario. The plan is to have him come to Chile with Michael Hart of Curacao, who organized a similar event with him a few months back on the island that was hugely successful! Romario gave a moving speech at a dinner and then the following day conducted a soccer clinic for kids. When Romario is involved, the potential is enormous financially and we are praying for $50K or more for MERCYworldwide!
Pray for us.” Maria Hart of Curacao shares, “Yesterday, in spite of having three disciples absent because of work or illness, the remaining 10 disciples had 22 visitors at church! An attendance of 40! We have many people studying the Bible and one or two of them should make it to the water very soon! We also made a special collection to help in Haiti and collected $700. We are inspired by all that is going on all over the world!”
Chris Chloupek reports, “In Phoenix, we had an incredible amazing Winter Workshop entitled, Thy Will Be Done. Kip and Elena McKean came out as our guest speakers. They blew it out! Kip inspired the entire church as we now are going to help to support the Sullivans and the Santiago Church through our Missions Contribution! Elena spoke to the women on “gentleness.” She really is an incredible example of what a woman of God is. Sonja and I are very honored and encouraged to be moving to LA on July 1st, to be with the City of Angels Church. Luke and Brandyn Speckman will be assuming the leadership in the Phoenix Church. The church is totally fired-up and ready to support them. We had a campus woman baptized into Christ on Thursday night. Her parents are remnant people from the ICOC – now worshipping in a mainline church – and came to our Workshop. Also encouraging, Mark and Keri Garrido had 19 visitors at their Bible Talk last week! This is the same Bible Talk that baptized a married couple the week before! Sunday, we collected $3,800 in our contribution! We are at 95 disciples and moving towards ‘100 for the Lord!’ Please remember us in your prayers as we make these transitions. All glory be to God! Go movement!”
Such an exciting weekend for Elena and me! The Workshop
in Phoenix was awesome, as Chris & Sonja Chloupek have done an outstanding job continuing to build on the sold-out foundation the Sullivans laid. Throughout our time there, the four of us shared several laughs and tears as we reminisced about the Chloupeks visiting the Portland Church and then stepping out on faith in September 2005 to start the Phoenix International Christian Church – the first remnant group! We are so excited about their arrival in LA in July to restart the AMS Ministry, as both were baptized through this specialized outreach to actors, singers, models and others in the business! I too share Chris’ heart that Luke & Brandyn will do incredible things for our Lord when they become the leaders of the Phoenix Church. (The Chloupeks will continue to disciple them, when they join us.) This Sunday in LA, the Lord blessed us with an historic harvest – three baptisms, one place membership and an amazing five restorations! Andrew Smellie – our West Region Leader and leader of the Johannesburg Mission Team of 2011 – preached a tremendous lesson for the congregation on Sunday! Chris & Theresa did a fantastic job training Andrew & Patrique! Elena and I are greatly humbled to become another “mom and dad in the faith” for the Smellies.
Let’s be mindful of the “spiritual Haiti” in every nation, as we fast as one church on Friday! (Philippians 1:27-28) And to God be all the glory!
Your partner in the gospel,
Kip
