The New England
District Association
of
Evangelical Free
NEDA Highlights
Volume 16 March
2, 2007
Growing
Deeper and Wider
The church
plant in 
Teaching Pastor Sam Huggard
(Wendy) is not satisfied with that. So in January, they ended a service
early. The entire congregation retreated to the cafeteria (the church
meets for worship in a H.S. auditorium) where they spent some time getting to
know one another and dividing into Next Step Groups for a ten-week
winter season of growing deeper. Fifty people jumped into the fray in
this simultaneous launch event that is all about connecting with each other and
growing deeper in Christ.
New
Church holds first Baptism – at the ‘Y’
"I want to be baptized because I want to show God and
everyone else that God has saved me....and also to show how much love I have
for him," wrote Kim before being baptized along with her boyfriend
Matt at the local YMCA pool. Both received Christ recently at the dinner
table of Church Planter Russ Hadley (Carol) who baptized his grandson Nathan
and son-in-law Chris as well. Look for more exciting faith stories to
come from
In
the Church Planting Pipeline
With seven “Mission
Status” church plants underway in NEDA (3 of them brand new in 2006), you
might ask, “What can we expect in the near future?” Well here’s the
rundown: Affiliations – not really church plants – these are
existing churches – either independent or from another denomination - but since
they want to identify with our vision to plant 300 churches, that’s a good
thing: Two churches are expected to affiliate later this month at the
District Conference. I know of two more that are in the process.
There are 8 projects that we consider “Target Status.” This is our
handle for those communities, locations, or people groups within NEDA being
considered in any way by churches/individuals as a target for a new
church. Usually this means the effort is on someone’s agenda in some
way. Half of these could bust loose as Mission Status projects this
year. We are also developing another list called “Prayer Focus.”
This label is used of any community, location or people group for which there
is a concerted prayer effort being made to seek God’s guidance concerning a
possible church plant. I only know of one location on this list.
But with your help, that list can grow. If you have been praying for or
planning for a church plant – please see that I put it on the appropriate list
by contacting me at mark@efcneda.org. In case you are
wondering, there are 49 fully adopted NEDA churches.
Also
in the Pipeline
It’s clear from
the enthusiasm of prospective Church planters that God is up to something in
Ves
Sheely
Superintendent
Church Planting