CONNECTIONS
News from Converge
MidAtlantic
May 2010 - Vol 4, Issue
3
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| Greetings! |
 Thank
you for your interest and partnership in Converge
MidAtlantic. May God richly bless you in your lives and
ministries as we look forward to the summer season and
anticipate the fulfillment of God's promises in our
movement. In Christ, Dan
Peterson | | |
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Church Planting
Momentum
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Church planting across Converge MidAtlantic is gaining
increased traction as 12 leaders attend Ignite 2010, 3 couples
are approved at the April assessment center, and 2 new church
planting couples are recently deployed in our District!
Catch the wave and details below!
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Ignite
2010
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Nearly
400 church planting leaders joined together in Phoenix, AZ in
late March for Converge Worldwide's 2010 Ignite Conference on
church planting. What an awesome opportunity for
networking, for training, for focusing on our vision of
multiplication as a national movement. Here's what some
of our Converge MidAtlantic leaders said about their time in
Phoenix:
As a brand new
church plant ourselves, I was inspired to be very intentional
in raising up leaders within our own midst to be the next
generation of church planters. At the core of our DNA needs to
be the vision to reproduce ourselves.
- Jeremy
Copeland
Gary has challenged us to spend time
in prayer and fasting this month to see the direction God
wants us to take in planting more churches. With this
challenge from Gary and the messages from the general speakers
at the Ignite Conference, I feel strongly that we need to move
forward with God's cause to reproduce.
- Ron Crawford
Scott Ridout's
session on how to facilitate change was amazing. He said
up front that it is a scientific approach. He had three
main points: What looks like a people problem is often a
situation problem; What looks like laziness is often emotional
exhaustion, and what looks like resistance is often a lack of
clarity. It fit well with the session by Linn Winters on
the seven answers that will change your church. They
were all great, but the one that stood out to me was the idea
that it's the Senior Pastor's job to create chaos, or to
expose the gap between vision and reality. He said that
we tend to offer a solution to problems they haven't felt the
need for. We have to find ways to make them ache for
what's not there.
- Dave
Knickerbocker
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Assessment Center at New Beginnings
in Charlotte, NC
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Twelve couples from all across
Converge Worldwide were assessed April 27-30 at New Beginnings
Community Church, in Charlotte, NC. Three of these
couples were sponsored by Converge MidAtlantic and churches in
our District that are planning to parent churches or open up
new campuses. Pastor Michael and First Lady Twanna Henderson,
along with Curt Gruber of Converge Worldwide gave leadership
to this four day intense experience. Our couples will be
linked up with sending churches following the assessment, in
preparation for being deployed some time in the future. Our
assessment center continues to serve us by helping to identify
qualified leaders for church planting.
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Two New Church Planting Couples
Deployed
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 Just
recently, Tim and Rebekah Holman were called by our Central OH
LEAD Team as "restart" church planting pastors at New Hope,
Ashland, in Ashland, OH. Following a strong start as New
Hope's third campus, the Ashland ministry fell on hard times
as a result of several changes in leadership over the past
year and a half. Tim and Rebekah Holman will be
re-establishing launch team meetings, focusing on prayer,
vision casting and support development as they prepare to
build a solid foundation for a new launch at New Hope Ashland
in the fall. Please remember to pray for the
Holmans.  In the
State College, PA area, Bruce and Sid Eveleth are being
deployed as the next campus pastor for the newest site Calvary
Church is opening in the Penn State region. Bruce and
Sid and the Calvary leadership are responding to the request
on the part of a group of people living about 30 minutes from
Calvary, to consider opening a campus in their area.
Through prayer, assessment center approval, and the leadership
of Dan Nold, Sr. Pastor at Calvary, this new site is now open
and is reaching people that have not been reached to this
point. Pray for Bruce and Sid as they lead this exciting
new
initiative! |
Global Missions Impact - God
sightings in Ukraine
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Under our
Love Lift Ukraine outreach, Dan Peterson and a team of five
from First Baptist church of Glenarden traveled to Ukraine
from April 12-23. God's work was evidenced in amazing
ways as a result of this global effort!
 Pastor
Voladia and his wife Natasha have been supported and prayed
for by Calvary Baptist in Avon Lake. Pastor Dave Skelton
has visited with Voladia while in Ukraine, and Dan Peterson
has provided coaching and encouragement over the past two
years as this new church plant has reached out to children and
youth in the town of Dubno, Ukraine. This spring, I
(Dan) had the opportunity to preach in this 2 year old church
plant, and I had the opportunity to visit with Pastor Voladia
and many of the people in the church. What an amazing
thing to see a church of nearly 100 young couples and young
adults, worshiping Jesus, hearing His Word, and eager to reach
out to friends with the good news of the Gospel. Plans
are in place for four youth and children's camps this summer
in an effort to touch more young families for Jesus. A
small financial investment from the U.S, prayer from some of
us, and simple times of encouragement, has made a big impact
in people's lives in this town in Ukraine.
 Another
cool God sighting was seeing nearly 80 adults come out to a
marriage conference led by Rev. Belynda Gentry, Pastor Billy
Covington of First Baptist, Glenarden, and Dan Peterson of
Converge MidAtlantic. Throughout the day, as we talked about
Love and Respect through men's and women's interactions,
through large group lectures, and through one on one couple
time, these Ukrainian couples were encouraged and
challenged. Even non-churched couples were in attendance
and were heard to say: "we never heard anything quite like
this before". Others said "this was one of the most
helpful things I've ever received for my marriage".
Pastors and their wives were smiling and feeling encouraged as
couples from their churches were receiving practical
help. What a blessing to have just a small part in this
ministry to Ukrainian couples. Yes, God is at
work!
Plans are being put together for a Love
Lift Ukraine Summit experience this fall for Pastors and
leaders from our district. Be watching for info and for
the opportunity to be
involved.
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Overseers
Update
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At our
April 29 Overseers Board meeting in Cleveland, OH, CMA leaders
heard excellent reports of God at work across our movement,
and we made decisions to move into a new fiscal year with
great hope for an even more exciting year ahead. The
Overseers approved our ministry budgets for 2010-11. New
Board members were elected including Pastor Chris McCloskey of
Grace Point Church in Newtown, PA, and Bob McClain, lay member
of Old North Church in Canfield, OH. Four churches were
welcomed into our CMA family including CityLight Church of
Roanoke, VA, Brandywine Valley Church of Wilmington, DE, First
Filipino Baptist Church of Philadelphia, PA and New Hope
Chapel of Annapolis, MD. Our Board of Overseers deserves
much thanks for their willingness to serve our churches and
our District in this important role. Praise God for the
blessings He has showered upon us through quality leaders and
people.
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Summer Camping Opportunities at Camp
Burton
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 Associate
Minister of Camping and Student Ministries for CMA, Dave Scull
is enthusiastic and optimistic as a new camping season is
ready to begin at Camp Burton next month. It's not too
late to register students for an exciting week of summer camp.
Our theme for this year is "Path Finders" with
Proverbs 3:5-6 being our key passage "Trust in the LORD with
all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all
your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths
straight." Our desire is to share with the kids how to
make God honoring choices on the paths they follow in life.
 Please
encourage the youth from your church to attend camp this
summer and bring a friend. We're also asking our
district churches to continue sponsoring unchurched kids from
your community through our Power of 10 program. For
$2,500 you can send 10 unchurched kids to camp. It's a
wonderful way to encourage your youth to share camp and the
gospel with a friend, grow God's kingdom, and support the
ministry at Camp Burton. If you can't find 10 kids in
your area, make the funds available to Camp, and we will find
unchurched kids in the Cleveland area to come. Last year 51
kids were sponsored through the Power of 10 and 45 accepted
Jesus as their Lord and Savior!
We are very
thankful for this summer's camp pastors: Nate Meiers - Berean,
Larry Shallenberger - Grace, Shawn Sprouse - Old North,
Brandon Byler - Highland Sixth Presbyterian, Jon Pickens -
First Baptist New Castle, and Dave Knickerbocker - The
Gate.
Please pray that God will continue to use
our staff and the summer camp experience to grow His kingdom
and sharpen disciples.
In Christ,
Dave
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Upcoming
Opportunities
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Connect 2010 - June 30-July
2; Bethel University/Converge Worldwide Biennial Meetings in
Denver, Co.
Assessment
Center - June 22-25 at Heartland Church in
Indianapolis, IN
Mighty Men
of Valor Conference - November 5-7 at the Radisson
Valley Forge Convention Center in King of Prussia, PA; planned
by Cliff Ashe
First
Steps - November 1-5 at New Beginnings Church in
Matthews, NC
Ignite
2011 - May 12-13; Converge MidAtlantic Leadership
Conference at First Baptist Church of Glenarden, Landover,
MD.
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Mideast Baptist
Conference
20 E. McKinley Way, Poland,
Ohio 44514 · 330-757-7970 ·
convergemidatlantic.com
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