The Cedarbrook Campground Ministry Team is planning Pancake Breakfasts on June 5, July 10, July 24, August 14 and August 28. They will meet for food prep these dates at the campground pavilion at 8 AM and will serve breakfast guests around 8:30 AM. Besides volunteers, this team could also use extra griddles to get the food ready on time! Interested in helping? Please email Team Leader Terri Lipot at jlipot@embarqmail.com with dates your family can flip some flapjacks!
In addition, this ministry team will host Backyard Kids Clubs July 20-22 and August 10-12. Plans are to use the 2010 VBS (Saddle Ridge Ranch) crafts and stories. It’s an easy way to plug in and serve the families who are camping at Cedarbrook. Contact Terri if you are available any of these dates.
An exciting update is the opportunity to do family ministry at the campground. Cedarbrook Campground has stipulated that the gospel must be presented in some way and we’re sure happy to abide by their wishes! The first weekend for this outreach is tentatively set for Friday, June 17, but there are many more to choose from. Send Terri an email to find out more.
Last year we hosted face painting, water games, bubble gum blowing contests, Derek Dye the juggler, a scavenger hunt and a hymn sing. This year, Urbancrest families can camp out, host an activity, present the Gospel and make new friends. It’s a great chance to minister as a family during the summer months!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
What’s New in Summer Missions at Urbancrest?
This summer we will unveil our new Kiddie Train at the June 8 Block Party at Tecumseh Trails Park! Pick up a flyer at the Block Party table in the foyer beginning May 29 for the details on each week’s Block Party this summer. Block party leaders Kelli Hundley (kellihundley@yahoo.com or 937-367-8429) and Deanne Clem (clemje@embarqmail.com) are looking for a Transportation Coordinator who will organize workers to move the Block Party Trailer from UBC to the block party location and back to UBC each week. A complete Block Party schedule is available on the Urbancrest missions webpage, http://www.urbancrest.info/missions/local_missions/lmissions.htm.
Urbancrest will host a Habitat for Humanity building day on June 18. Team Leader Danny Mitchell (mitchdj@go-concepts.com or 513-282-6397) is holding an informational meeting this Sunday, May 15 at 12:30 PM in Room 201. A construction, photography and feeding teams will assist Randy Fields and his two sons, Brandon and Robert, to build their new home and document the experience. UBC folks can invite their non-believing friends or relations to participate too. This kind of work opens up the door to conversations about faith and the love of Jesus.
For many families, summer means camping out at Cedarbrook Campground in Lebanon, OH. UBC is sponsoring a family-friendly summer ministry that includes weekend outreach events and a Wednesday night Block Party with Dale McCloud and his horse Spirit! Urbancrest families can camp for free on Saturday night, work with the Family Night outreach and then again at the pancake breakfast and devotion service on Sunday morning. Last year’s outreach events touched families from as far away as Australia! Team Leaders Jeff and Terri Lipot (jlipot@embarqmail.com or 513-897-2335) would love to have you work with them this summer.
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| Praise & Worship at Cedarbrook |
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| Juggler Derek entertains & shares the Gospel |
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| A bubble blowing contest brings out the kid in everyone! |
Friday, April 22, 2011
Proclaiming Christ (our Hope) at Easter through Baskets of Hope!
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead….” [1 Peter 1:3, NJKV]
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On Sunday evening, April 17th, we celebrated our 2nd year anniversary for our Baskets of Hope [BoH] ministry which we launched here at UBC three years ago! We blessed 126 families Sunday evening with complete Easter dinner and trimmings for them to prepare and share with their families to celebrate Easter together! In addition, we blessed 26 families on Thursday, April 14th, partnering with our new church planter Chris Straw, Living Word Bible Church. So our total number of families blessed through Easter Baskets of Hope was 152 this year compared to less than half that number our 1st Easter BoH!
At our Sunday evening service on April 17th, we worshiped together with our UBC praise team, Kids for Christ [KFC] choir, and our hand-bell choir! Pastor Tom shared a devotional message about the encounter with Christ by the two men on the road to Emmaus. What a change Christ’encounter made in their lives!
Personal lives were also changed at Baskets of Hope as they encountered Christ through the gospel message. We had a total of 2 folks who invited Christ into their hearts and lives [one on Sunday and one on Thursday] and 2 re-dedications on Sunday night! Praise the Lord…new believers were added to the Kingdom of God
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| 4H Group |
Our BoH ministry is also expanding out into the community as well. Irene Parent from our UBC congregation, invited the youth and parents from Warren County
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Our Baskets of Hope initiatives for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are led by Cheryl Kemp. Thanks to our great team leaders that work with her to make all this possible: Kelly Cummings, Nathan Coates, Susan Byrd, Sandy Huddleston, Cathy Dwire and Pat Mitchell. More leaders and helpers are needed to grow this ministry. To learn more about how you may serve in this awesome ministry, contact Cheryl Kemp at ckemp4@woh.rr.com or Mike Wright, UBC local mission’s strategist at mwright@urbancrest.org.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
UBC Workshop on sharing your faith: Share Jesus without Fear
Acts 1:8: "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (NKJV).
In addition, the scripture found in 1 Peter 3:15 teaches us that we are to always be ready to give the reason for the hope we have in Christ. Therefore, learning from this workshop on sharing your faith helps prepare you to give an answer for the hope you have in Christ as His witness.
Here are just a few highlights from the DVD and interactive workshop series to further develop your interest:
- Do you know the average number of times a person hears the gospel before they choose Christ?
- Learn 5 basic questions to ask in order to learn more about a person's Spiritual condition rather than having them ask all the questions!
- Have problems remembering or quoting scripture? You need to attend this workshop.
- This is a highly recommended workshop for UBC folks involved with local missions, global missions and for our UBC counselors at block parties, Judgement House, VBS, etc. Be prepared to counsel others directly from God's Word as well as learning to share the gospel.
How about learning answers to people's questions and objections? Answers to objections are included in the back of the New Testament resource (additional available resource).
Be prepared.......make an eternal difference in sowing the gospel seed so the Word of God and the Holy Spirit can yield a great harvest! Sign-up today! I look forward to seeing you there!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Prayer-Walking: The Prayer of Jericho
On April 10th this year, we will launch our local mission's prayer-walking ministry. We plan to prayer-walk strategic target neighborhoods for 7 consecutive weeks (representing the 7 times around the walls of Jericho.) We often refer to this ministry initiative and experience as "The Prayer of Jericho"We are beginning to recruit prayer-walkers now. On March 27th (Sunday after GIC), we will have a display in our UBC foyer and you can sign-up to prayer-walk within our community of Lebanon. Please stop by and sign up to join us. We begin our prayer-walking at 4:30 PM on these Sunday nights and return to hear the personal testimonies of our encounters with God working within our community of Lebanon.
Why prayer-walk? From the passage in 2 Corinthians 5: 12-21, we learn that we are God's ambassadors and as His ambassadors, we are to intercede on behalf of the residents and children within our community to be reconciled to God. God's love compels us to go, pray, and share the gospel.
Here are some key aspects of prayer-walking which you can develop in your life as you join God in His work through prayer-walking:
"Prayer is not incessant talking with God but unceasing walking with God" 1 Our mission is to develop our personal walk with God through prayer-walking.
"We define prayer-walking simply as praying on-site with insight" 2
Praying:
a. "Prayer-walking is genuine prayer--God working with and through people, on earth and in heaven--prayer-walking is essentially relationship with God--talking and walking with God Himself through Jesus". 3
- Directed, intercessory prayer: praying for others, neighborhoods, homes, and people encountered while walking.
- Intentional prayer
On-site:
b. Praying where we expect our prayers to be answered.
c." Sounds, sights, and smells, far from distracting your prayer, engage both body and mind in the art of praying." 4
d. "Walking seems to create opportunities to help or to pray for new friends on the spot, right at the times of great need." 5
e. "The act of walking emboldens pray-ers to push through feelings of futility and intimidation...Prayer-walkers gently defy such fraudulent claims of darkness over their community." 6
With Insight:
f. Responsive insight. "Prayer-walkers do their work with their eyes open, allowing the sights of people, objects, events and entire communities to flood their prayers with significance. Ordinary powers of observation yield abundant insights about the best focus of prayer."7
g. Researched insight. Examine history and settings, determine influence of crime, injustice, occult practices.
h. Illuminated insight. "When believers pray according to the Bible, very often God's Spirit illumines His Word with extra candlepower." 8 They subject themselves to God's Spirit.
To sign up Sundays for our Prayer of Jericho (prayer-walking) please see our prayer-walking team in our UBC foyer March 27-April 10th, or contact Sandy Huddleston: SCHudd1@yahoo.com or contact Mike Wright: mwright@urbancrest.org
1 Sprinkle, Randy. Follow Me: Lessons for becoming a Prayerwalker. New Hope Publishers, Birmingham: AL, 2001 p14
2 Hawthorne, Steve & Kendrick, Graham, Prayer-walking: Praying on Site with Insight (Lake Mary: FL. Charisma House, 1993)
3 Ibid., p.1
4 Ibid
5 Ibid., p. 17
6 Ibid., p. 18
7 Ibid
8 Ibid., p. 20
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
UBC local mission’s partners with Student Venture, Sunday Jan. 16
When someone like Keith Ray calls you on the phone and asks if we could take a team of Student Venture students to help us with outreach, well….you say “yes”. That’s how all this began, our UBC and Student Venture collaborative partnership to reach out to our community of Lebanon.
“Could you take a bus load of students who are giving away boxes of food and use them for outreach in January?” Did he say “January”? Did he say a bus load of students? Awesome…we’ll figure something out…sounds like God has a plan for us to join Him in His work! So I began to work with Keith Ray and Brian Clark of Student Venture to put together our collaborative outreach plan.
Our collaborative partnership moved forward with these key ministry objectives:
- Students will have boxes of food to give away to folks in need, free food!
- Students will be intent on sharing the gospel
- Students will complete surveys for our new church plant, Living Word Bible Church [Chris and Janella Straw], to help us learn more about folks in our area of our new church launch
- UBC will provide the survey forms, maps, UBC brochures, and meet the team and assist as needed
So, on Sunday afternoon January 16, about 3 PM, temperature hovering around 27 degrees, Student Venture students showed up in a school bus and other vehicles to hit the neighborhood of Pleasant Park, in the area of our Lebanon post office. There were 11 teams, totaling about 55 students and leaders.
I distributed and explained our awesome Google maps with color-coded routes for each of the 11 teams. [Cheryl Kemp made these maps and what a great help these were!]. Each team also was given a clip board with survey forms, UBC brochures, and pens. After a brief time of instruction, the teams were off to their assigned streets and homes!
What an awesome God we serve! There was one 16 year old young man that prayed to accept Christ, they gave away about 30 boxes of food, they shared the gospel with those that would listen, prayed with other folks in need, and completed 25 surveys to help us with our new church plant. These results and connections made this day will help our new church planting team of Living Word Bible Church as they develop strategies and add to our new body of believers.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Lebanon Country Manor [LCM] UBC Christmas Program
On Saturday, December 18th, our Lebanon Country Manor nursing home multi-housing team blessed the residents of LCM with a special Christmas Program.
Galen Eschleman led the residents and team in our Christmas Carols while Jeannie Ponder played the piano. The twenty residents along with visitors sang their hearts out! Rita Simms distributed jingle-bell bracelets so the residents could “jingle” while they sang the Christmas carols. Everyone seemed to have a great time!
The local boy scouts showed up during our Christmas program too. They sang some Christmas carols to our residents as well. Then we all joined in along with the scouts singing a few carols. What perfect timing, that we could all sing together!
Darrell Coley shared a wonderful heartfelt Christmas devotional and the gospel to those attending our Christmas celebration. Before the residents went back to their rooms, our LCM ministry team blessed the residents with knitted shawls and hats made by the ladies at Urbancrest through Dawn’s Light ministry. They seemed so happy to get something that could help keep them warm during these cold winter months.
Our multi-housing LCM team meets at Lebanon Country Manor each Wednesday night. They typically begin gathering folks around 6 PM in the cafeteria, then sing together, have a brief devotional, and pray together. The team teachers are Tony Overbey and Darrell Coley. Galen leads the singing accompanied by Jeannie Ponder playing the piano.
Donna Zalatoris is our director and coordinator of this particular multi-housing ministry at Lebanon Country Manor nursing home. If you would like to be a part of this ministry team, please contact Donna Zalatoris, sdzalatoris@gmail.com or Mike Wright, mwright@urbancrest.org.
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