Soularium…it’s just Solarium without “u” [you]…building bridges!

Our Soularium training on Sunday May 6^th was truly a dynamic collaborative partnership with Brian Frye, Collegiate Ministries for State Convention of Baptists in Ohio, Pastor Aaron Taylor [our youth pastor] and me with local missions!

What an awesome time together learning to build bridges to connect with others…even total strangers... and hear some of their “personal stories”. Then we had the opportunity to share our story, our testimony of how Christ has transformed our lives. This built a bridge and connection for us to share the Good News of the gospel with others.

After a time of breaking up into small groups and gaining feedback from all attendees, we learned the 3 primary reasons why we don’t share our faith and the gospel with others:

1. Fear of rejection
2. Apathy toward others
3. Don’t know how to share one’s faith

This training was designed to help us overcome all three of these objections/fears. We partnered 1 on 1 to practice using the 48 pictures of Soularium to engage, listen, and build bridges/connections with others so we could share our story [testimony] and the Gospel.

We had over 70 attendees, foot-soldiers for Christ, who were trained and then deployed throughout Lebanon and Cincinnati Outlet Mall in Monroe. Meeting folks, sharing the Soularium pictures, listening to personal stories, and sharing their personal stories [testimonies].

The beautiful gorgeous Sunday afternoon was a blessing since so many families were enjoying picnics, parks, etc….Our foot-soldiers for Christ saturated the parks, side-walks, downtown and the outlet malls connecting with others.

As planned, we returned back to UBC to share about what God did. Youth and adults shared about how well connecting with others had gone. Everyone was excited about what God did and how they learned to build bridges with others. God even blessed when a boy prayed to accept Christ! Praise the Lord!

Our local mission strategy is to keep building on this momentum for Summer Jam Tour 2012 as our local missions outreach this summer. Check out: www.Urbancrest.org/Summer-Jam-Tour for sign-ups and details. Our vision is to deploy each person trained to use Soularium throughout our Summer Jam Tour events.

Through building this relational “bridge” using the picture stories of Soularium, folks begin to “unpack” their life story…this makes the conversation more personal and relational. Quite frankly, I was surprised what folks were sharing with me in just a few minutes. As this sharing takes place, the barriers to the gospel are reduced as we share our transformational personal stories [testimonies] and the Good News of the gospel as we share scripture.

Hebrews 4:12-13 tells us that God’s Word is powerful and effective. As we combine sharing His Word along with the work of the Holy Spirit, God begins a great work in the lives of those who need Christ.

Our 1^st Summer Jam Tour 2012 [SJT 2012] event is May 30^th, Ultimate Disc Tournament at Warren County Career Center [on 48, just north of Rt. 122].

This is a rallying cry to all of you who are now trained in building these relational bridges through Soularium... we need you to attend all Summer Jam Tour 2012 ministry events, sharing your story through Soularium. See you all there!

Below is our complete summer schedule for SJT 2012. Plan to be there, have fun, and share your faith!

Baskets of Hope Celebrates Third Anniversary at UBC

Volunteers hard at work in the gym preparing our Baskets of Hope.

“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures…”

 [1 Cor. 15: 3-4, NKJV]

During this Easter season, we celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ -- Jesus Christ, the Hope of the Gospel! What a great time to reach out to our community through our Baskets of Hope [BoH] ministry to share this Good News of the Gospel. In addition, we blessed recipients with food to share with their families around their dinner tables while remembering Easter.

Registration is a great time to get to know new members of our community.

On Sunday evening, April 1^st , we blessed families at Urbancrest and Living Word Baptist Church, our new church plant right here in Lebanon, with our Baskets of Hope [BoH]. We celebrated our 3^rd anniversary for BoH too! We also added our third BoH service. Our Hispanic Ministry, lead by Ruben Calzado, met in room 203 where our guests worshiped and heard God’s Word in Spanish and English; this was a bilingual service!

Our UBC youth praise team led our worship time together [Thanks, Mike Copenhaver], along with our drama team. Our youth were awesome! We thank the Lord for what He is doing in their lives!

Our Youth Praise Team leading worship.

Pastor Tom shared our Easter message with great practical illustrations using his golf club. We had several respond to the Gospel invitation including five [5] who invited Christ into their lives for the first time and several others who made re-commitments or responded in another way to Gospel! Praise the Lord! Pray that these new believers connect with UBC and become Christ-like disciples serving the Lord in their ministry calling.

We served 126 families at UBC and 23 families at Living Word [our new church plant in Lebanon], for a total of 149 families! This is about twice the number of families as we served for our first Easter BoH!

Thanks BoH team for the hard work, calls, and follow-up with our BoH families to make all this possible. The preparation and distribution of our food baskets went very fast and efficiently.

Our BoH team is led by Kristy Purkey with contributing team leaders Nathan Coates, Melanie & Rob Pritchard, Cathy Dwire, Janie Caudill [lead LWBC location], and Sandy Huddleston. Photographs submitted by Dewayne Jeffers. To learn more about BoH and how you may serve in this ministry, please contact Kristy Purkey: ppkp90@embarqmail.com or 937.604.1461.  

Christmas Brings Hope to Local Families

Baskets of Hope reached a new level in Lebanon in December. Three services were held simultaneously for over three hundred families! We praise the Lord for His goodness because we know that without Him, this would not have been possible.

Under the direction of Kristy Purkey, our new BOH leader and her teams, two hundred and seventy-five families received Baskets of Hope at our UBC Christmas event on December 18. Registration team leader, Nathan Coates, reported that families started arriving well before 5 PM for our 6 PM service. The registration team handled the increased number of recipient families with efficiency, enthusiasm and warmth. Thanks, registration team, for your attitude of service!

Over 300 families attended Baskets of Hope services on December 18, 2011.

BoH guests and UBC members came together in our Worship Center to sing Christmas praise-arrangements with our choir and praise team led by Pastor Dave Bickers. A new, added dimension to our BOH service was the baptism of two people from our Thanksgiving BOH event. We all witnessed and celebrated the change that Jesus Christ has made in their lives!

 

After Pastor Tom shared a brief Christmas message from God’s Word, five guests came forward to pray with our counselors who were led by Sandy Huddleston. They invited Jesus into their hearts and lives, truly receiving the Gift of Christmas found only through trusting Christ!

 

After the service, Melanie & Rob Pritchard and our assembly team set a record time of getting all 275 families through the receiving process in 35 minutes! This included the gift area, overseen by Jessica Copenhaver, where over 400 age-appropriate gifts were distributed through the generosity of families at Urbancrest.
Thanks to everyone who stepped up to donate gifts, monies or to help wrap the gifts!



Hispanic BOH families met separately at UBC for their own service in Spanish. We assembled a bilingual team from UBC that served by sharing their testimonies, reading God’s Word, presenting the Gospel and praying, etc. in Spanish! Our Bible study leader Ruben also shared about our plans to begin Bible studies. Ruben hails from Cuba so he is fluent in Spanish and culturally relevant with the Hispanic community. The initial stage in our Hispanic Ministry strategy is to begin Bible studies in homes or apartments in order to develop connections and nurture Christ-like disciples.


Our third BOH service was at a second location in Lebanon, Living Word Bible Church, a church plant that began in September 2011. Their BOH format was very similar to the others with distribution to many families that live close by the 500 West Mulberry Street location. Exciting news: When Pastor Chris Straw gave the Gospel invitation, several guests responded by giving their lives to Christ!


Thanks to all participants for your service and partnership in our Baskets of Hope ministry which is helping so many families and changing lives for eternity as they find the true hope in Christ.


We look forward to our next BOH celebration for Easter, Sunday evening, April 1st! Please mark your calendars now and make plans to serve and join God in His mission as we share the Gospel with our neighbors in need. To serve, please contact Kristy Purkey at ppkp90@embarqmail.com.



Each Basket of Hope included ham, two cans of green beans,
two cans of corn, a gallon of milk, butter, salad, salad dressing,
boxed potatoes, cookie mix, sugar and other
trimmings for a family Christmas dinner.



Hope for Thanksgiving



Volunteers assembled 298 Baskets of Hope in 2 locations.



We served 298 families in Lebanon, OH with our Baskets of Hope [BoH] on Sunday, November 20, 2011! This set a new record for families who attended our Baskets of Hope service and received food for their holiday celebration. What a blessing to share the hope we have in Christ with folks from our community!

In addition to the record attendance,
services were held and baskets distributed simultaneously at
two [2] locations that evening...
at Urbancrest and at our new church plant, Living Word Bible Church
meeting in the Professional Services Unlimited building on Columbus Avenue.

Families at both locations received turkey, corn, green beans, boxed potatoes, milk, cookie mix, and more! More importantly, after the gospel was shared in both Baskets of Hope services, God moved and blessed as people came forward during Pastor Tom’s invitation. We had nine [9] new believers and three [3] people re-dedicating their lives to Christ! In addition, five [5] people came forward requesting to be baptized here at Urbancrest during our Christmas BoH service.



Families picked up their Baskets of Hope in our gymnasium
after attending a special Thanksgiving worship service.


Our Christmas BoH services will be Sunday evening, December 18th at Urbancrest and Living Word Bible Church [LWBC]. LWBC has moved to their new location, 500 W. Mulberry Street, here in Lebanon, to better serve our community and grow as a church.

If you know of a family that needs a Basket of Hope for Christmas, please call 49HOPE4 (494-6734) and leave their name, phone number, and address so we can add them to our Christmas BoH list.

Your family can help serve our community through BoH Christmas the evening of December 18th. For more BoH details, either for recipients or to volunteer, please contact our BoH leader, Kristy Purkey at ppkp90@embarqmail.com.



Greeters in the gym made guests feel welcome as they
went through the lines to pick up the Baskets of Hope.



Great Pumpkin Give Away at Iron's Fruit Farm

What a beautiful day God blessed us with on Saturday, Oct. 8th for the Great Pumpkin
Give-Away at Iron’s Fruit Farm [right here in Lebanon]! The weather was warm,
the sun was shining, and our UBC folks were smiling!

Bill and Beth Irons partner with UBC for this event, by using their family business [fruit farm] as a local mission’s platform to plant and share Gospel through this ministry opportunity. The Irons provide the free pumpkins and the room for us to set up our tents for popcorn and face-painting along with our awesome bounce house.

Some of our volunteers were stationed in various locations throughout the fruit farm to distribute Challenge Newspapers to hundreds of visitors that day. The Challenge Newspapers were full of personal testimonies from believers around the world.

In addition, we had Derrick Dye, the Christian juggler, share the Gospel while juggling at 11:30 AM and 1:30 PM. Beth Irons coordinated our face painters who blessed many children with awesome face art! Folks were amazed that this too was free! What a blessing!

We gave away hundreds of bags of popcorn, too, [Did I mentioned this was also free?] keeping our folks busy while satisfying the hunger of both kids and adults while many waited in line for the hayride and maze obstacle course!

Thanks to all 25 of our UBC folks who served, reaching out to our community in Jesus’ name. We had some families that chose to serve together emphasizing the “family-friendly” benefit for such an event. They helped plant gospel seeds and touch many lives.

Plan to join us next year in October. You can serve for a few hours, reaching out to our community, then enjoy the hay-ride, maze, fresh apples, cider, cider doughnuts, and awesome apple fritters too!

Teaching Important Biblical Life Lessons Not Mere “Horse Sense’



“…I was in prison and you visited me…Lord, when ... did we see You in prison?...And the King [Jesus] will answer them, ‘I assure you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it for Me’” (Matt. 25:36c, 37, 40) HCSB.

On Tuesday, August 23 we celebrated our 10th UBC summer block party with the young men at Mary Haven (MH) youth center in Lebanon, Ohio. This was our third year to partner with Mary Haven officials and Dale McCloud (and of course Spirit the horse) to share positive life lessons and the Gospel.

God blessed with favorable weather in the 80’s with a breeze, too. There were fifteen young men and at least six different counselors and staff from MH. Wow…those guys sure did pound down hot-dogs, cotton candy, nachos, and snow cones... even the staff! (Don’t they feed these guys?)

It was an evening of significant impact. Our UBC team of men that teaches and serves every Tuesday night at Warren County Juvenile Detention Center (WCJDC) re-connected with some of the young men who have transitioned to the MH program. Our team was able to have fun and connect casually with these young men for the first time. The young men were encouraged and this event furthered the discipleship of those that accepted Christ in the WCJDC over the past years.

Dale McCloud illustrated life lessons through his interaction with Spirit and drew prallels to how we interact with God, demonstrating that we have an innate tendency to go our own way. He also explained that we must come to the end of ourselves, ask Christ into our hearts, and follow Him since He has the best plan for our lives.

As Dale concluded his life lesson and sharing the gospel, we had two young men respond and ask for one of our guys to talk and pray with them. Both young men professed to be Christians but just needed some additional help as they shared their specific needs with our counselors.

Great thanks to our WCJDC teams that served at the ministry event. Many of our UBC block party team members helped to make all this possible. Young men at WCJDC and MH are being transformed through the power and work of God’s Word and the Holy Spirit. Thanks UBC team for your faithful weekly service at WCJDC.

Sharing the Hope of Christ and Restocking Bare Shelves

“…For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat …Lord, when ... did we see You hungry and feed You?...And the King [Jesus] will answer them, ‘I assure you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it for Me’” [Ma. 25:35a, 37a, 40], Holman Christian Standard Bible.

For 3 consecutive weeks UBC local missions has spearheaded “Challenge the Hood”. Our strategy was two-pronged, to share the good news of the gospel through distributing Challenge Newspaper and to replenish the food for the empty shelves of the Lebanon Food Pantry.

Cliff Glenn, our local summer missionary intern, led this local mission initiative preparing the distribution packets, Lebanon Food Pantry collection bags, maps, and coordinating our leaders and volunteers.

“Challenge the Hood” was conducted on Wednesday nights, August 10th, 17th, and 24th through 3 key UBC leaders within 3 targeted neighborhoods in Lebanon. Neighborhoods included Revere’s Run, Turtle Creek Village, and Garfield Park sub-divisions. Our awesome neighborhood leaders included Rhonda Kuntz, Rick and Barb Oppy, and Dewayne Jeffers.

Our UBC volunteers went door-to-door each Wednesday night, distributing Challenge and asking for donations of non-perishable food for our local food pantry. After the process of distribution, teams collected all the bags of food and then delivered the food to the Lebanon Food Pantry. Barb Gregory from UBC, who coordinates our Food Pantry ministry, met our teams at the Pantry. The food was so desperately needed that some food was handed directly to the recipients at the Food Pantry while other food was immediately re-stocked on the shelves for future needs. We praise the Lord for His provision of food for this initiative!

The Food Pantry served 76 families with food on Wednesday night, August 24th, alone. Those 3 SUV’s of food collected were an answer to prayer! Thanks to Cliff Glenn, our local summer missionary, and our faithful volunteers that helped to meet the needs of families in Lebanon.

In addition to this initiative, we have asked our UBC congregation to personally bring in food to re-stock the shelves of the Food Pantry and our UBC Resource Center.The response has been wonderful! Just bring your donations to the Worship Center so we can all celebrate God's goodness to those in need.

If you have any questions relating to this initiative for collecting food to re-stock our local food pantry and UBC resource center, please contact UBC local mission’s strategist, Mike Wright: mwright@urbancrest.org or call 932-4405, x32.