Posts tagged ‘Serving Local’
Reaching Union Bridge with Christ
Uniontown Bible Church’s Missions Team has been intentionally involved in reaching Union Bridge since 2001.
2001-Live Nativity-just off the square in UB.
2002-Thanksgiving Outreach-door to door meeting people and handing out light bulbs-Why light bulbs? They are a practical gift everyone can use-attached gospel tract.
2003-Live Nativity-Sharon and Doug Little’s back yard.
2004-Christmas Outreach-on Main Street in front of the pharmacy. Handed out rolls of tape. (Have you ever run out of tape while wrapping your gifts?) The pharmacist welcomed us and offered anything we needed including hot coffee.
2005-The UBC Outreach Team prayerfully stepped out in faith and started the A Little Love food pantry ministry. A.L.L.-for 5 years served out of the Fellowship Hall of the Union Bridge United Methodist Church on Main St. In the year 2010, God nudged again and in obedience the team stepped out to ask our friends we serve, if we could come and deliver to their home. We would go out in the weather and serve them in their homes. Only 1 of the 24 families said they did not want us to come. We were tremendously encouraged that the trusting relationships we had built were real, and we received addresses and phone numbers. A.L.L. currently serves 30 homes. Now under Brian Chapline’s oversight, God is leading to begin a Bible study for our A Little Love friends. Pray with us for God’s timing and we have a clear plan for the study, where, when, etc. Serving in Nov 2011 each home was told about the study and there was a great response. People are bending their knee and acepting Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. Today-Dec. 13 there is a meeting with a A.L.L. family where members are interested in baptism at UBC. Praise the Lord.
Outreach to Stambaugh’s-During the winter and spring months Stambaugh’s Inc. worked on the new church building the Missions Team provided hot chocolate/iced tea and snack for the workers every Friday. Invite cards and gospel tracts were given and the staff followed up with serving them a lunch at the farmhouse.
2010-Shriner Court-is a low-income village in Union Bridge. There is an income requirement to be accepted, but is not subsidized housing. The Missions Team learned about Shriner late 2009. A resident there told us that they were promised by management that there would be activities, and other social events and those promises were not followed through. We asked, what kind of activities would you like? Simple gatherings, games, fellowship. Every Thursday night Bingo in the very small ‘activities building’, began in Jan 2010. No cost, no fees to play. Prizes are practical-postage stamps, food, fresh produce, note cards, toiletries…of the 20 residents, there are usually 10-12 participants for Bingo. All residents are visited regularly. Word got out about Shriner, and Bark Hill Bible offered a weekly Bible study. 5-6 residents attend on a regular basis. Finishing Genesis a field trip to Lancaster to Sight and Sound to see Joseph was a great follow-up. There have been a few trips to Lancaster to visit a huge farm market and farm for homemade ice cream. After months of fun together, our S.C. friends asked ‘what can we do to serve’? Keep in mind-median age of the residents is 70+. For several months we volunteered at Serrv in NW. Once a week we took 6-7 residents to pack health kits. The Union Bridge Church of the Brethren became aware of Shriner, and offered their M&M gathering. Once a month the ‘Modern and Mature’ meet on a Thursday and have lunch together. They invite someone to speak, could be on travel, gardening, health care, and each month the local retired Dr gives health tips as well. Several are attending and look forward to the fellowship each month. The greatest testimony of the this ministry is the real community, the real ‘caring for each other’ relationships that have developed among the residents. They are friends, they care for each other, look out for each other through family issues, health concerns, etc. Getachew has visited with Shriner Ct. as a group a couple of times. Many of the ladies wanted to give back, in appreciation for the things done for them,(a couple dollars for gas money or tip for lunch-things like that). None of the servers want to be ‘paid back’ at least in the world’s terms. So, our Ct friends together (outside of any server knowlege) to come up with a way to give for all they have received. They bring a quarter or dollar or what they can afford to Bingo and with their offerings they are sowing into Getachew’s ministry. You have to know that there are many subsidized homes in UB. There can be a great stigma attached to that way of life. It is the same with the Ct. It is low-income, there is a worldly stigma, and these dear ones were deemed ‘outcasts’, tucked away. Image what a few activities and encouragement does to a body, the emotional, and physical being when gathered with friends to laugh, and have a good times, to forget about struggles for a while. Prayer is part of our gatherings, prayer requests are made and Jesus is made known. A few residents have home churches. A couple have began attending Bark Hill Bible, and a few have visited UBC a few times. Praise the Lord.
The Lutheran Church in UB has a weekly food pantry that has begun serving dinner the 4th Monday each month on their serving evening-5pm. A.L.L. friends attend this opportunity as well the residents of Shriner Ct. Shriner Ct friends have helped to serve at this pantry. Bark Hill Bible now serves regularly, and the Brethren church has provided food and servers from time to time. This pantry does a Christmas ‘adopt a family’. This year the Lutheran church will provide a Bible for each child served. This is a huge step for this ministry. God is working.
Bridges-a Union Bridge Youth outreach made up of a few UB residents under the Community Foundation of Carroll County. The focus of this organization is to provide opportunities for young people and their families in UB. Twice a week there is a computer lab at the Community Center. Once a month activites are planned for all ages-year round. Servantsof A Little Love attend the annual Christmas party, a family event. We provide 15-20 food bags containing an entire ham dinner and other food items. Great opportunity to tell of Jesus, and invite to UBC Christmas opportunites and connect with A Little Love.
Reaching out to our neighbors. Serving and partnering with the local churches. Impacting a community that they might know Jesus Christ.
UBC Missions Team’s Annual Retreat
UBC Missions Team Annual Retreat
Retreat: a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study.
The UBC Missions Team is inviting you to retreat from the daily hustle and bustle and come join us on Saturday November 5, 2011 to hear how God is using His people to make His glory known around the world. We will pray for local serving, short term missions and our missionaries. We will meditate on Acts:1:8 and Matt 28. We will study, through hearing about what God is doing here and abroad.
The day: Sign in begins at 8 a.m. followed by Worship at 8:30
With your group (and a passport) you will travel to 3 ‘destinations’ : Africa, Appalachia, and Arizona, to hear the trip reports from 2011 short term mission trips. The 4th stop is a tour of UBC Local Outreaches, did you know there are serving opportunities from Union Bridge to Westminster, to Baltimore and Appalachia? The Missions Team takes a Serve Local, Go Global approach to world missions believing that sharing Christ begins at home, our communities and reaching the nations.
Pastor Steve will serve children of attendees grades 1-5 with a children’s missions program.
After everyone has completed their missions tour everyone will gather back in the multi-purpose room for closing statements, then lunch will be served.
It’s all FREE! Sign up at the kiosk on Sunday!
The title of this year’s Retreat is: Passport to Missions-Where is God Sending You?
Missions and Outreach: Serving Local and Sending Global at UBC
UBC Missions Policy: DEFINITION OF MISSIONS AND LOCAL OUTREACH
Missions at Uniontown Bible Church is defined as “The sending out and supporting of equipped disciple-makers who cross barriers of distance, culture and language in order to establish and strengthen the church in places beyond the normal sphere of influence of our members, both within and outside the USA.” Uniontown Bible Church’s normal sphere of influence is defined as the area of Local Outreach. Examples are Uniontown and the Carroll County region.
Local Outreach includes presenting the gospel and meeting the spiritual, social and physical needs of people within the local community. Local Outreach involves more of our people’s time and personal efforts locally. Missions, on the other hand, involves sending our people into and investing more of our finances outside our normal sphere of influence. At UBC, the Missions Leadership Team, (MLT) is committed to mobilization of the body to be involved in Missions and Church Planting. Church Planting is described as sending teams from UBC anywhere around the world to make disciple makers.
Uniontown Bible Church prayerfully and financially supports people in:
Missions: (missionaries who are equipped disciple-makers who cross barriers of distance, culture and language in order to establish and strengthen the church in places beyond the normal sphere of influence of our members, both within and outside the USA) —and in—
Outreach: (outreach servants work in local ministries who may also have to raise their financial support. We also financially help 3 pastors in the economically depressed Appalachia regions of Jolo, WV and Big Rock VA. The outreach servant’s ministry includes presenting the gospel and meeting the spiritual, social and physical needs of people within their normal sphere of influence-local communities), click on the Sending Global page.
UBC is also blessed by the many outreach servants within our church body who coordinate and lead several outreach ministries at UBC-found on the Serving Local page.
Carrera Prayer Requests~thank you for praying!
Pray for Missionaries and Missions Trips.
Happy Thanksgiving~
From the UBC Missions Team. We are so very thankful for the encouragement you give our missionaries. When you connect with and build relationships with our missionaries, you increase your Biblical worldview, but you also grow your family, because caring for and praying for and encouraging our missionaries, they become like part of your family. Each UBC Missions Team supported missionary, (though they serve in many different ways), serve for one purpose and one purpose only. So that the people in the villages and communities where they serve might one day know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Each one has stories and burdens for the physical needs of the people in their part of the world, some are extreme and devastating, but it is the eternal suffering that breaks the heart of our God and our missionaries.
It takes our Church family to keep Local Missions happening at UBC. Your prayers, donations and your time in serving is vital for reaching our local communities with the gospel of Christ Jesus. Thank you.
We are thankful that you take the time to read through the blog posts and check out these pages to keep updated on our missionary news, and our Local Missions opportunities.
I could not end this note without thanking each and every one of my Missions Team members. I am privileged to serve alongside each of these brothers and sisters in the many areas of missions, local and foreign. They each serve tirelessly and give sacrificially all year-long. There is no slow season for meeting the needs of others and each one knows that it will only be in heaven alone where we will no longer be able to give Christ to others. To them I am truly grateful.
Love in Christ, Pastor Jay
We are privileged to announce the Missions Team Short Term Missions Trips for 2011: UBC Missions Team Announces 2011 Short Term Trips
The Missions Team focus for Short Term Missions at UBC is to plan trips and prepare teams to go support and encourage our missionaries wherever they are serving.
Location: Kenya, Africa-Missionary
People: unreached peoples of N E Kenya
Team: Pastor Tim Webster and Pastor Jay Bubel
Dates: April 3-14, 2011
Purpose-Pastor Training-3-day seminar
Location: Sells, AZ-Missionary Sherrie Dodson
People: Native American Reservation of the Tohono O ‘odham Nation
Team: Denise Velte, Sheila Ramsey and Dana Weaver
Dates: April 4-11, 2011
Purpose: Lead ladies retreat for women of 5 local churches and 2 after school programs for children.
Location: Jolo, WV/Grundy VA-Missionary Pastors Rose, May and Cooper
People: local communities
*Team: 1) Youth/Youth Leader
Dates: TBD
*Team: 2) Open to individuals and families
Dates: TBD
Purpose: Support and encourage the pastors, helping in the community through building projects, nursing home and neighborhood home visits.
Location: New Zealand-Missionary Scott Brown
People: Jewish people
Team: Doug Groft, Dennis Unglesbee
*Room for 1-2 more people ages 21 and older willing to spend much time preparing and training in Jewish evangelism.
Dates: Oct 2011 for 2+weeks
Purpose: campground upkeep and relationship building with the Brown family.
*All Trips-1)there will be team number limits, 2) mandatory meetings and 3) local missions participation are required prior to trip departure-Deadline for sign-up with commitment deposits for both Appalachia and NZ trips-no later than- April 3, 2011.
- For more information on these trips, contact Pastor Jay Bubel-bubels@comcast.net
- Support these trips with your finances: Make your check out to UBC-write Missions 2011 on the memo line.
November 6th~UBC Missions Retreat
Doors at Uniontown Bible Church Open at 8 a.m.
Come early and meet the speakers, check out the Local Missions tables, have a cup of coffee or orange juice, a pastry and enjoy some fellowship. Worship begins at 9.
*Hear reports from the Kenyan Mission field
*Bob Kimmel is UBC’s newest missionary-Chaplain Bob of the Carroll County Detention Center serves with the Good News Jail and Prison Ministry.
*Pastor Steve May-pastors a church in the Appalachia region of Grundy, VA. This is Pastor Steve and his wife Donna’s first visit to UBC.
*Hear testimonies from UBC 2010 Youth and August Appalachia Trips
*2011 UBC Missions Team Mission Trips announced!
Get involved in the life of a UBC Missionary-You Will Never Be the Same…click on the Missionaries tab to get their latest update.
Admission-Lunch and refreshments are free—information learned at this retreat could cost you…time in your lazy boy…this is a call to ACTION-
Acts 1:8- ”But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
At Uniontown Bible Church there is a place for everyone in missions, serving locally and maybe one day going out cross-culturally. Whatever your gifts, no matter your age, there is a mission for you-click the Local Missions tab…find your Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria…
Sunday October 31st is the LAST day to sign up…
World’s 3rd Largest Mission Field – America.
“America used to send out missionaries, now it’s the third-largest mission field itself. People from Africa are coming to help us. What does that say?”
“America is a nation in great spiritual decline evidenced by current statistics which show that only 17 percent of Americans attend church on any given Sunday and that America is the third largest mission field in the world.”
“In 2001 extremist enemies assaulted America with the terrorists attacks of 9/11. These acts of aggression signaled a physical wake up call for our nation as we entered the new millennium. Our lives were changed forever—millions of Americans fell to their knees in prayer.”
“For the last 40 plus years our nation has increasingly drifted lazily toward the falls of godless postmodern values, rejecting God’s standards in favor of a reinterpreted anything goes morality. Soon we will reach the precipice of no return unless we act quickly,” said John Franklin, member of the Cry Out America. On one level the events of 9/11 awakened us to the threat of radical Islamic fundamentalism, but the greater threat confronting us is our departure from God.”
“….and cry out to the Lord.” Joel 1:14
Withdrawal for Prayer and Study and Meditation…
…Retreat!
Saturday November 6, 8 a.m. at UBC-the Missions Team is inviting you to our Missions Retreat~Proclaim Christ!
Withdrawl from the world-Pray for missions and missionaries-Study-learn what God is doing in missions in Union Bridge, Westminster, Appalachia, Arizona, and Kenya-Meditate-what will you do next? How will you respond to the call to Go and Tell.
Acts 1:8- ”But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Sign up Sunday mornings-Uniontown Bible Church
Please don’t send me to Africa… or my neighbor
I remember hearing that song when I was a kid…
Please don’t send me to Africa
I don’t think I got what it takes
I’m just a man, I’m not a Tarzan
Don’t like lions, gorillas or snakes
I’ll serve you here in suburbia
In my comfortable middle class life
But please don’t send me out into the bush
Where the natives are restless at night
This has never been my song or my fear. I’ve always been the opposite… Jesus don’t make me stay in suburbia, send me to Africa!
Recently I’ve been hanging out with my friends Jess and Mike and they have inspired me to consider Africa AND the suburbs.
Last year Mike and Jess tried to sell their house in order to move to a bigger house for their growing family of 4. No matter how hard they tried or what gimmicks they used, their house wouldn’t sell. So they just figured that meant God wanted them to stay there for a while longer. They realized that they had lived in the same house for 6 years and the only way they knew their neighbors was by an occasional wave or “How’s it going?” That’s how Mission 5 started. They decided to be intentional in their outreach to the 5 neighbors they have on all sides of them. Mike began taking the boys to go and say hi, Jess baked cookies and they began to invite people to church one by one. As Jess and Mike were telling me this story, I got super excited to see what God was doing in middle class suburbia through two of his faithful servants who were willing to love people.
Just a month ago, Jessica told me, “I’ve built a protective Christian bubble around myself and its just about time I got out!” She and Mike have decided to live missionally. For Jess, that means she wants to take a short term mission trip to another country, but more than that, she wants to take her CHURCH. And for Mike, that means Mission 5. The greatest part about this story is that they are NOT just talking about it, they are doing it. They have approached their pastor and said it was just about time that they had short term missions and the pastor said, “GO! You’re in charge!” For most people, that would stop the idea in its tracks, but not these two. They are stepping up to the challenge though they don’t know how they are going to swing it financially or gather people to go. BUT they are stepping OUT and trusting God who began this work to complete it.
Just yesterday I was asking Jess how Mission 5 was going and she told me that Mike decided to just be up front and ask one of their neighbors, “So what do you believe?” As the family explained their dislike for religion due to the massive amount of hypocrisy found in the church, Mike chimed in, “Me too! I hate religion and hypocrisy!” I can only imagine the man’s stunned face as Mike went on to say that Jesus wasn’t about a religion but a relationship and that he never meant for his church to talk one way and act another. Wow, talk about saying it how it is! As Jess and Mike have committed to pray and love on all 5 of these families, I cannot wait to see what God does with their faithfulness…
Be careful when you tell Jesus to burst your “Christian bubble,” he might send you to Africa or worse yet, your neighbors. Written by a former SIM Missionary
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