SEASON OF GIVING
During this season, we'd like to invite you to make a year end gift to the Mission Igniter 2025 fund to help with the recruiting and training of new plants in this next year. We know many of you are investing financially in Mission Igniter church planters and initiatives. We want to say THANK YOU. Your investment is producing eternal fruit.
Reminder: Year-end giving must be made online or post-marked no later than December 31, 2024.
Please join us in prayer, that God continues to move in these new expressions of church in many unique contexts across the country!
Mission Igniter 2024 Highlights
PRAY WITH US IN 2025
From Megan Weber, Mission Igniter Prayer Mobilizer
I did a thing last month and I tried trapezing for the first time as a celebration to enter into my fourth decade. There was divine invitation that put the desire in my heart in the first place. It was an invitation to practice letting go and being caught by the catcher. That sums up our spiritual formation pretty well.
It was everything I wanted it to be and more. In the beginning you have a five minute overview of the instructions and commands they will give. You must get all the skills they give and do them in a certain flow before you can move on to the catch. As a former gymnast, I had a decent amount of muscle memory and was getting the skills but was missing the flow.
That was until the coach on the ladder reminded me that the coach at the bottom had a command for “legs up” and I needed to wait to hear his voice, not listen to the false momentum of my swing. As soon as I started listening for his voice, I got the flow immediately and was able to move on to the catch.
Isn’t that how it can be in our prayer lives and our lives of ministry? What muscle memory are we relying on when the invitation is to listen God’s written and spoken word?
Jeremiah 33:3 says: Call to me and I will show you great and unsearchable things which you do not yet know.
What if our ears become the womb of a movement of God?
What if we hear his leading and prompting to abandon all muscle memory and seek His voice? And in that secret place we hear… what a felt need is in our community, what will be the needed and encouraging word, who we are to be investing in even if it doesn’t make sense. What if waiting and listening is obedience more than relying on false momentum?
Could this be the invitation for 2025? To not depend on false momentum of “we have always done it that way” or muscle memory and going through the motions. But what if in 2025 we were desperate enough to incline our ear in such a way that we make space and give time to hear what insights, instructions and revelation might be gifted to us from the Spirit of God who knows all things, knows the end from the beginning and can perceive from a perspective that we might not have. What if in the year of 2025 listening prayer is a form of groundbreaking prayer that the Lord is inviting us into: individually, as churches and church planters, and as a denomination?
What if he wants to develop our hunger and transforms apathy? What if hunger has no words but groans? Are we willing to carry, to steward the groans. Maybe we need groan rooms and listening rooms.
Maybe God’s next outpouring is a groan room away. As he breaks our heart for what breaks his, let us listen to whom He is calling us and how He is calling us to come alongside those where he is already at work.
It’s incredible to see what the Lord has done through Mission Igniter since its launch in 2017. In partnering with four different annual conferences, we’ve helped plant 42 new churches collectively. We’ve trained hundreds of pastors and church leaders in the principles of church multiplication, and we’ve helped mobilize more $6 Million for church planting! What an incredible thing.
With any growing movement, shifts and changes must be made to accommodate future growth and opportunities. Mission Igniter is no different. As a Mission Igniter partner, I want to share with you some upcoming shifts and developments and invite you to join us in praying, working, and leaning in for greater kingdom multiplication in the months and years ahead.
Expanding Partnerships
Over the past several years, Mission Igniter has expanded partnerships across the country throughout the FMC. The Pacific Northwest Conference is now an equal partner with the Southern Michigan Conference and provides critical funding for the development and delivery of our core services. Oregon Conference and North Central Conference are also partners with whom we help facilitate the vision of multiplying churches. In addition to these four conferences, we are serving churches from multiple other FM conferences as well and we are in talks with two conferences/districts from two other sister denominations about how we may be able to serve them and help them foster a multiplying church planting movement. Please be in prayer for how we can come alongside and help foster movement in these areas.
This winter we entered into a formal partnership with Peyton Jones and his “New Breed” ministry to deliver the church plantology training to the FMC. We have now replaced the DCPI Church Planting Essentials training track with our adapted material from Payton which we have branded “Planter’s Journey.” It is a great step forward in resourcing emerging planters with basic tools for fulfilling their God-given visions.
We also began partnering more closely with Church Development Network (CDN) to bring Encounter weekends to our partner conferences and integrate these weekends with our Mission Igniter Core Services. Encounter weekends have proven to be a powerful tool in launching emerging lay leaders into multiplication, a great front door to helping people step into planting.
Executive Director Relocation to the Pacific Northwest Region
With the added partnerships on the West Coast, the volume of Mission Igniter work in this region has grown significantly over the past several years. As we have prayerfully discerned how best to serve and support this growing opportunity, Dustin Weber, Executive Director of Mission Igniter, has felt that relocation to the Northwest for the next couple of years could strategically help get the needed team in place to serve multiplication in this region.
Because of the transition of the Mission Igniter Executive Director Dustin Weber’s relocation to the Pacific Northwest, and the partnership expansion Mission Igniter is experiencing, staff changes were necessary so that the services to church planters can continue and grow. Please pray for the staff transitions during this season.
CHURCH PLANTS ARE IGNITING
Ahava Java
Celebrates their Grand Opening
Led by Pastor Carlene Nisley, Ahava Java, A Coffee Shop with a Purpose in Hillsboro, Oregon, celebrated its grand opening on October 4th with a special ribbon cutting ceremony. It's been a journey, but we celebrate with them for all that God has in store for this fresh expression of church.
EVERGREEN CHURCH
Evergreen Church was one of the first church plants to be planted through the help and support of Mission Igniter! We are now in our 7th year of ministry in the greater Ann Arbor, Michigan area! We just completed an 18 month discernment and sabbatical season as a missional community network. During this time we were seeking the Lord’s guidance around what He has for us next, as well as simplifying and clarifying who we are as a church.
The vision the Lord’s given us is summarized as, “Deeper Roots. Denser Forest. 817 Disciples.” The Lord gave us an exponential vision for gospel saturation and multiplicative disciplemaking which is utterly dependent on the Holy Spirit! As such, we have restructured ourselves to be more reproducible and movemental, which was in large part due to the Multiplier’s Journey Training that Mission Igniter now offers churches. We continue to disciple deeply, equip people to engage as everyday missionaries, develop new Local Ministerial Candidates, and create space for everyone to participate in the mission of God.
Currently, we are working on developing resources to equip Evergreen to fulfill the mission God’s given us, live out our values, and see our discipleship outcomes become a reality. One resource we’re developing is for “New Disciples” to be discipled through the Gospel of Mark utilizing the Discovery Bible Study method. This will be a 24 session guidebook through Mark with 12 sessions being done with a disciplemaker and 12 being done individually. Our goal is to have our first draft completed by January 2025! Another resource is our Everyday Evergreen Podcast which releases a new episode every Wednesday morning. It’s made primarily for those within our Evergreen Network but secondarily for friends who want to glean wisdom from our experiences as a missional community/micro-church network.
Lastly, we have always wanted to be a church known more for its sending capacity than its seating capacity. I stopped saying this for awhile because sending out workers and multiplying has pain involved with the transitions and change it brings. YET, this is the way the Kingdom of God is meant to work. To date, Evergreen has sent out 66 people (intentionally and unintentionally) to new harvest fields all across the world both within and outside the Free Methodist Church. We have planted in 5 distinct cities, replanting every 18-24 months in many cases as we’ve sent new people AND we have helped daughter The Harbor Network of Missional Communities in Buenos Aires, Argentina with Tanya and Rodrigo Rosado. With the help of the Lord we’ve been able to see much fruit and we’re currently only seating 45 people in 4 Missional Communities! Pray with us as we partner with the Spirit to press into our 2028 GOD-SIZED vision of “Deeper Roots. Denser Forest. 817 Disciples.”
Pastor Derik Heumann
MARKETPLACE MANNA
Marketplace Manna is a different kind of Missional Community than most church plants. They engage in the marketplace to serve folks in need. They started as a fair-trade shop selling items from Bulgaria where Al & Diane Mellinger were serving as missionaries to now partnering with 30 organizations working in 50 countries.
Located in Jackson, Michigan, they now also have programs locally, helping the poor, persecuted, disenfranchised and unemployed. They work with the Interfaith Shelter (homeless shelter) and low-income elderly homes, paying a few of their residents to upcycle items that are then add to the stores inventory.
The store is in the lobby of an old Hotel – now converted into low-income elderly housing (70 units). As the business was settling in, it noticed that many of the elderly come out and just sit on the sidewalk everyday with little to do. Al Mellinger had a dream to not only use the workshop space they have in the store for making things but also offer classes and lectures to these folks regularly. The first such class was launched this month with a lap quilt class. Additionally, the local Chamber has chosen Marketplace Manna as one of the non-profits that this year’s Young Leaders will be coming along side to help – for Marketplace Manna that will be promoting and recruiting people to come and share their crafts, hobbies or skills with the elderly, so that they will have weekly sessions for the residents to participate in. The goal of offering the sessions is not just to keep them busy but to get to know them and serve them. It is not uncommon for those of the streets to ask for prayer, which the Mellinger’s do on the spot.
Marketplace Manna is more than a store and is engaged in every and all possible ways in the community they live. (marketplacemanna.org – store marketplacemanna.biz – charity work)
SAM DILLA ACCEPTED INTO ASBURY MULTIPLICATION FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
Sam Dilla, Pastor of South Sudanese Church, a church plant in the Portland Oregon area, has been accepted in to the Asbury Theological Seminary's Multiplication Fellowship program. This program provides wonderful resources, opportunity to join a cohort of diverse church leaders, multiplication coaching, and an invitation to attend ATS Center for Church Multiplication Conference. Congratulations to Pastor Sam! What a wonderful opportunity for Sam in his church multiplication journey.
South Sudanese Bible Church - Portland, Oregon
The South Sudanese Bible Church is a church plant of the Oregon Conference of the Free Methodist Church. The primary focus of this church is to reach out with the Gospel of Jesus to the Sudanese refugees who have been settled in the Portland metro area including South West Washington. Over the years many South Sudanese have attempted to join main American churches. However, due to language and cultural differences in worship styles, some of the people could not continue to attend churches. They avoided going to church and kept their children home with them. In addition to those who don’t attend church because of cultural and language issues, there are muslims and animists South Sudanese who don’t have any relationship with Jesus.
Over the years, we started as a Bible Study group and met in various church buildings. Just before the COVID-19, we were meeting at a Presbyterian Church building. We became a church Plant of the ORFMC towards the end of 2021. Our first service was on Jan 16, 2022 at the current location; East Side Collaboration Center in South East Portland.
We have been under the mentorship of the Mission Igniter from the start. Mission Igniter helped us greatly with the church plan, including budgeting and the launch which happened on 25-26, November 2023.
Since we started the church we have seen God work in lives of those who came to our services.
One memorable story is a young lady that received Christ and dedicated her life to following Jesus. The lady had escaped home at 18. The parents never gave up searching for her. When they found her five years later, her life was completely messed up. She was used as a stripper and completely numbed by the drugs she was taking. She had a baby in that situation. She couldn’t communicate well at all. After our prayers over her on the third week, she testified of the goodness of God. We assured her that God is a God of second chances and has received her back. She has improved, is working and planning to go back to school.
This is worth the efforts we have put to launch the church for there is joy in heaven for a sinner who has repented and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal savior. We have see her life transformed because of the Word of God.
Please pray for us to get a Youth Leader to guide our Youth and teach keyboard, drums and other musical instruments. Also, pray for us to host a Family Conference this year to commemorate our first year since launching the church. Further, pray for our mission's vision that we could support a new church plan in the refuge camps of Uganda where one of the leaders recently came from.
Pastor Sam Dilla
New Life Christian Church/Nueva Vida Comunidad Cristiana Michigan
A Spanish-speaking Church plant in the metro Detroit area, are dedicated to spreading the word of God and helping their community. Led by Pastor Alan Muñiz, a Conference Ministerial Candidate, began meeting in January of this year. Pastor Alan shares, "Nueva Vida is realizing the objective of connecting with the Hispanic community through different programs and thus achieving the mission that is to lay the foundations for building character, morality and Christian values in children and parents; using creative and innovative methods to motivate, inspire and capture children for Christ." Nueva Vida and Mission Igniter recently sponsored a soccer tournament where many transformative relationships were made.
SAMARA CHURCH
A Mission Igniter Church Plant in the Greater Lansing, Michigan Area
Samara Church is ordinary people sharing extraordinary conversations at dinner tables throughout the Greater Lansing area. They provide a place at the table unlike any other – a network of families bringing faith to life through cooperative living and Christian discipleship over delicious, sustainably-sourced meals made with indigenous Mid-Michigan ingredients. Meeting weekly, all meals are free to participants, who are encouraged to contribute to the meal in some way. They share communion during or after the meal, followed by a scripture reading and facilitated discussion to apply the reading to daily life. Jesus said “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” Gatherings are planned with them in mind. No childcare required - they dine and worship with the adults.
They hold quarterly gatherings which have become one of Samara Church’s core strategies to bless their neighbors, build strong networks, and form “nodes” in the Church as it spreads through the community. A recent attender/neighbor shared that she was saved during the Jesus Movement but has since struggled to find a Christian community where her spiritual gifts are accepted and put to use. She said "What I'm seeing here is it! I'm so encouraged to see you have the Spirit and I can't believe God is doing this in my backyard." Both she and her family have since joined the church on mission.
Please pray for Pastor Justin Fast and Samara church as they reach their neighbors with the love of Christ in this fresh expression of church.
Iowa City Free Methodist Church
A neighborhood church seeking to share Jesus with those in our community through intentional relationships and hospitality.
Led by Jenna & Keith Battleson and Erin and Dustin Swarm.
As they work through their church plant development plan, the Battleson's and Swarm's worship together weekly and take turns teaching through Paul's missionary journey.
We praise God for these worship times! The Free Methodist Church North Central Conference asked us to participate in a six-month coaching program through Mission Igniter which we started last February. During this season, we are becoming more and more familiar with the context in which God placed us. All around we see indicators that people in our neighborhood and city value peace, justice, love, and healing - all things Jesus offers. We envision each of these values as a hook, ready for someone to attach Jesus to.
Prayer Requests:
For curious neighbors we have encountered, for discerning ways to deepen these relationships.
For creative love and connection with our neighbors, especially all the neighborhood children.
For neighbors to join us as we sit in our driveway, seeking connections with those that pass by.
For receptivity as our children invite their school friends to the church plant.
For strength as we are living co-vocationally.
For a fruitful team coaching experience and collaboration over the next several months.
We praise God that Iowa City is primed and ready!
Erin Swarm for the The Iowa City Team
Edificando Vidas....Westland Church Plant
We are thrilled to announce that a new church plant, Edificando Vidas, celebrated its launch service this past month at Westland Free Methodist Church, Westland, Michigan (Detroit area). The church plant is led by Pastor Danny Gomez. The launch was filled with joyous worship, heartfelt prayers, and a powerful message from Pastor Mark VanValin. Attendees also enjoyed delicious food and meaningful fellowship before the service began. Edificando Vidas, which translates to "Building Lives," aims to enrich the relationship with God, family, and the community. We look forward to what God has in store for Edificando Vidas, as lives are transformed, creating a lasting impact in Westland and beyond.
UNION Church
A new church plant launching in Tacoma, Washington
For years Annie and Adam Roberts have had a growing love and burden for the city of Tacoma, WA, and recently sensed a clear call to plant a church there. UNION CHURCH held their first pre-launch worship gathering on June 10, 2024, with a great night of worship and prayer~
Once a place to be feared—torn apart by gang violence and poverty, Tacoma is now experiencing a renaissance and was recently ranked as the 3rd most desirable place to live. Tacoma is hopping with activity and life—full of new business development, education, vibey coffee shops, green spaces, and new housing.
Yet, despite its economic resurgence, the spiritual climate hasn’t followed suit. Fifty percent of the people in the city are under 40 and Tacoma ranks as the 10th most unchurched city (no faith) and the 3rd most dechurched city (left their faith or untethered from a church) in America. But these numbers are not intimidating to God. We believe that the city of Tacoma is ripe with Gospel opportunity and is poised for a spiritual renaissance and cultural renewal.
We long to see a generation of people who are burned out, broken and bored, transformed by Jesus, connected into authentic community, and empowered to be a force for good.
Pray for this new church plant as they seek to cross dividing lines to turn strangers into family through the power of the Gospel!
Annie and Adam Roberts
THE BRIDGE
Mission Igniter Church Plant, launching April 28th!
After a season of church planter residency at Rainier Avenue Church, Pastor Fred and Aretha TenEyck are launching a new church plant on April 28th in Kent, Washington, to share God's love in this community. Join us in praying for them as their continue to form their new team and raise funds.
As one of the newest additions to the Mission Igniter community, I have the honor of introducing myself and our vision to you. My name is Matt Taylor. For those who may not be acquainted with my story, I certainly do not have the usual “Free Methodist pedigree.” I recently retired after 23 years with the Detroit Police Department, where virtually my whole career was spent in some sort of critical incident/emergency response role. Most famously, I was in charge of the Bomb Squad for many years. Yes, I wore the armored suit, drove the robot, cut the wires, all that jazz. Alongside that, I was active for many years with the Detroit Free Methodist church as “the senior layman.” You know the type: conference delegate, Sunday School teacher, tech support, snow shoveling, and lifting heavy things.
The Lord orchestrated a big change in our family recently. I retired from law enforcement, and we have moved to the historic small town of Marshall, Michigan, where my wife and her family have deep roots. I have started a small computer business, and my beautiful first grandchild is now about nine months old and lives a few blocks away. If you had tried to tell me in the summer of 2022 what 2023 and 2024 would look like for me, I would have laughed at you.
As there is no Free Methodist fellowship in our little town, we have begun the process of forming one, with a focus on healing prayer. This is traditionally the part where I share the stories and statistics on the big things happening in my little town. I’ve been seeking and finding opportunities to share the Kingdom through my small business and have even had some chances to speak of the Kingdom and a new fellowship with Marshall community leaders, but quite frankly there hasn’t been a whole lot going on externally as far as “souls saved and newsletter stories.” I am far from discouraged, however. It’s been readily apparent that the work the Lord Jesus is doing here in this season has focused squarely on me. I’ve been participating consistently in the coaching process as we flesh out our vision for the new fellowship. More importantly, though, I have greatly deepened in my personal intimacy with our Lord and in my practice and understanding of prayer. I don’t want to tell people Jesus Christ is Lord of Heaven, Earth, Time and Space; I want to show them. We’re not just believing for “big things,” we’re believing for the miraculous here in Marshall, Michigan.
We’re looking forward to a formal launch later this spring as we wind down the initial phase of the coaching process. Our first steps will involve an online/social media launch with in-person meetings to follow as the fellowship grows. We will emphasize a non-traditional format with gatherings focused on healing prayer and candid discussion of spiritual things. Think “Tuesday Evening Group Therapy” rather than “Sunday Morning Sing-Along.” The long-term goal is to mature into a fully-formed Free Methodist Society. I look forward to sharing the stories of God’s Mighty Hand at work here. In the meantime, I ask you to pray for continued clarity and guidance for me and our tiny fellowship as I transition from sirens and explosions to prayer and healing.
City Free@ Chalet
A Fresh Expression of Church in Jackson Michigan
“City Free” brings the presence of Jesus into any Jackson community (harbor) where God leads us – beginning in the Chalet neighborhood. This is a low-income housing development. These harbors are transformed into safe communities where love and life flourish. That’s a piece of our vision picture, and God has given us favor.
These are our friends, this is our kingdom community. We’ve baptized 5 people recently (yayyy!!) – one of those in a hot tub loaded on a truck. Kids have put on a play, we enjoyed a Chalet Big Table Thanksgiving, did Christmas kazoo caroling, and so much more! We have a blast together and are becoming a church together.
Please pray for us as we are launching a City Free@ Chalet youth group. Pray for fruit in changing the trajectory of individuals, families, and a neighborhood with the gospel!
Pastor Tim Flickinger, Jackson Free Methodist Church
THE GATHERING PLACE
A CHURCH PLANT JOURNEY IN NORTH SEATTLE
On November 4, 2018 a handful of former Lakeview Free Methodist members (Seattle, WA) joined together for the first meeting of The Gathering Place. We began with the mission to “offer Christ’s hospitality to the world;” and the long-term vision of opening a coffee shop.
With the arrival of COVID 19 all plans were re-imagined as we, along with the rest of the world, adjusted to life in the pandemic. In 2022 we were struggling to move beyond the world of Zoom and back to meeting in person. Our leadership began praying for discernment, part of the answer to that prayer came in the form of the Mission Igniter training offered in Longview Washington. After attending the training, pastor Jodi began working with a Mission Igniter coach. After spending the first months of 2023 focusing our Sunday gatherings on the series, “We Are A People Who…” God began moving mountains that had seems immovable. Pastor Jodi asked our group to focus our prayer on God’s provision, discernment, and boldness. This prayer began to be answered immediately as we started meeting in the Maple Leaf Collaborative facility and were indefinitely loaned a mobile coffee trailer by Epic Life church (a Southern Baptist church that has opened a successful coffee shop).
After taking possession of the trailer, we began working to refurbish and set it up, but ran into a problem with electricity. We continued to pray for provision, discernment, and boldness. In October our leadership team met with the PNWC Grant board and presented our vision for both The Gathering Place and Gathering Grounds Coffee. Once again God answered our prayers and we not only received the grant, but the conference agreed to take care of our electricity problem.
As we begin 2024, we are excited to open Gathering Grounds Coffee and seeing how God is going to use us in the coming year.
Prayer requests:
1. Leaders (especially leaders with business experience)
2. Obtaining permits and necessary licenses to open for business.
3. God to use this ministry to bring transformation to people and the community.
4. God’s continued provision, discernment, and boldness.
Jodi Gatlin, Lead Pastor and Teri Gent, Executive Pastor
LOVE DETROIT, A church planting initiative under Mission Igniter
Executive Director Mark VanValin
D. lives in an old RV in the driveway of an abandoned house less than a mile from where I live. Over the past year, he has been my main set-up and tear-down helper for our dinners at the park. He is always glad to help. He started attending our Detroit Redford Church last summer. He also attends my Friday Bible study at a nearby Wendy's. He suffers from alcohol abuse. He wants to be free and get his life in order. The mountain is steep. D. faces a myriad of choices that are needed to lift him out of his predicament. I encourage him one step at a time and pray with him. He needs the power of the Lord in his life and is growing close to surrendering his life to the Lordship and saving grace of Jesus. I helped him apply for work and also loaned him a space heater for his van to help get him through the winter. His only close family was his aunt who recently died.
I think of all the ongoing support throughout my life that I too often have taken for granted. I am rich with family, friends, and extended church family around the world. I am so blessed, and yet there are times when I still feel alone and discouraged. I cannot imagine what it must be like to wake up every day alone in a cold RV.
Psalm 68:6 says that the Lord sets the lonely in families. The church is His vehicle for doing this - the unremarkable bodies of believers in out of the way spaces who open their hearts and lives to the lonely, the strange, the awkward, the broken, and the addicted. The real cost of doing church is not in buildings or utility bills or staffing or programming. The real cost is to love - to enter the vulnerable spaces to do life with the most broken.
Mark VanValin, Director, Detroit Initiative
The mission of the Detroit Initiative is to partner with what God is doing to bring His Shalom to Detroit by multiplying disciples through the multiplication of leaders and churches.
We celebrate a new church plant in Mallot, Washington , launched on October 22! After attending a Mission Igniter Church Planting Essentials training in October, 2021, Pastor Mike McCune from Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Omak, began praying about what it would look like to plant a church in their community. After much prayer, many conversations, location considerations, the Lord miraculously brought about a team to plant. The Lord led Pastor Mike to two other pastors in the community, Jaime Mesa and Max Meadows, who were excited about the opportunity to join Cornerstone in this planting endeavor.
With the answered prayers of the two pastors, and a facility coming available, they still needed a target audience. After looking through the families from Cornerstone, Pastor Mike noticed a number of them that drive out of their community because there is no church available to them in the Malott community which totaled between 25-30 families. This was enough that could assist with the church plant. While Cornerstone will miss these families, they are sending them out with their blessing to be a part of this exciting adventure.
Cornerstone was the last church to be planted in this community which was 80 years ago! They were able to announce this new church plant at their 80th Anniversary celebration in September. It was exactly two years from the time Pastor Mike and his team sought the Lord at the CPE training until the Lord moved them into this church plant opportunity. Please keep this Mallot Christian Fellowship in your prayers!
The first time I met Al was at the 4th Street Laundromat in Central Point, Oregon. He had no idea that he had stumbled upon a free laundry day or a church plant that primarily functions out of a laundromat. The Fold, a fresh expression of church, is demonstrating God’s love by offering a practical and meaningful service to our community. It's a simple act — asking someone their name and loading their washing machine with quarters — but the impact is incredible.
We often encounter people that are navigating many challenges, things like housing and food instability, addiction, unemployment, mental health issues, and lack of transportation to name a few. Al was dealing with a variety of these problems on the day we met. He was living in a tent, estranged from family, and wondering how he had gotten to this place in his life as a 72-year-old-man.
We believe that one of the tasks God has given our church is to affirm and nurture a sense of belonging within the family of God. In just a few short months Al has found his place in our community and is now using his gifts on our team. In the past month alone Al has shared his testimony at a Free Methodist Church in our conference, started having daily devotions with another houseless community member, is leading prayer time at the laundromat, and is offering insight to our leadership team that makes us more culturally competent.
All of our stories are unique and sometimes that uniqueness can lead us to the erroneous conclusion that we don’t have much in common with the people around us. But it turns out that we all have laundry to do and every one of us is on the lifelong journey of becoming like Jesus, and these are beautiful ways we can relate to one another.
A laundry ministry located in Central Point, Oregon!
The Lord is at work in the Arab community in Dearborn, Michigan, through Jiran Collective, a Mission Igniter ministry seeking to make Jesus’ love tangible to Arab refugees and immigrants. At one of their recent gatherings, after the story was told about Jesus healing the daughter of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15, a Muslim man stood up and asked, “Does Jesus still heal today or was that only for 2000 years ago?” To answer him, Pastor Raouf asked the question to the congregation, “Is there anyone here who has been sick or known of anyone sick and you prayed to Jesus and Jesus healed?” Several stood up and told personal stories about how they had prayed for Jesus to heal someone they loved who had a sickness or an injury and their loved ones were miraculously healed. This was a powerful time when the presence of God was so wonderful.
Pastor Raouf shares, “It was like Jesus opened the door of the church that evening and just came in. Everyone was on the edge of their seats, listening how Jesus still heals.”
For the first time, many Arab seekers at the gathering heard about the healing power of Jesus! This has opened up amazing doors of opportunity for further conversations on healing and on prayer.
Please keep Jiran in your prayers as the Lord opens doors to share about the love and hope of Jesus! They offer opportunities to serve in various ways, especially in their kids ministries. If your church would like to know more about ways to serve, contact Pastor Raouf.
Pastor Raouf and his family raise their complete support through donations. We invite you to partner with them in their ministry in Dearborn, click on this link: Partner Financially with Pastor Raouf & Jiran Collective
Jiran Collective holds regular gatherings, worshipping and building community, in English and Arabic. Praise God for the 75 who attended their last gathering!
A special prayer request:
Because of the Arab population in Dearborn, the unrest in the Middle East has caused much emotion and stress to this community. Would you join with us in prayer in the following ways:
Pray with Jiran as they connect regularly with the Arab community.
Pray for Jesus love to be made tangible, for violence and killing to stop on both sides, for help for those who need it on both sides and for restoration and reconciliation to be a reality.
Pray for God to silence and thwart aggressors and empower the oppressed on both sides.
Pray for the Prince of Peace to manifest His peace in supernatural ways and for the Church to be a force in peacemaking.
Movements Start with Prayer
Mission Igniter longs to see “an expression of church for all people in all places.” In short, we desire to participate in a church planting movement in America. In "Leading Church Multiplication," Tom Nebel and Steve Pike contend that church planting movements require the following “essential systems:” spiritual dependence, recruiting, assessment, coaching, training, funding, and helping churches plant churches. To that end, Mission Igniter has developed eight core systems to serve and support our planters. While each of our systems is important, spiritual dependence is most important. Nebel and Pike also identified a “greater interest in prayer and intercession” as a critical indicator of a movement’s spiritual condition.
As we look upon the landscape across our contexts, communities, and country, we recognize great brokenness and spiritual darkness. John Wesley referred to the pervasiveness of sin as “complicated wickedness.”
Planting new expressions of church in hard times and hard places seems like a daunting task, and that is because it is. We must, therefore, recognize right from the start that we will never see transformation in our communities unless we are utterly dependent upon the redemptive work of Jesus, and one of the primary ways we express our dependence upon God is through prayer. In 2 Chronicles 7.14, we read, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” When we humble ourselves, seek the Lord in prayer, and turn from our wickedness, God brings forgiveness and healing. Prayer is essential to God’s mission of healing our communities and world. While personal intercessory prayer is important, it’s worth noting that these words, and much of the Bible’s teaching on prayer, are directed at a community. Let’s pray that God would use church planting movements to heal our world, but let’s do it corporately as well.
Mission Igniter hosts a virtual prayer call twice a month, where our planters bear witness to what they see God doing in their context, and then they share requests and pray with and for one another. These are simple yet sweet times of intercession together. We invite you to join us on the first and third Thursday of each month from 9:00-9:40 AM EDT. You can join us here: Mission Igniter Virtual Prayer Time. Let’s humble ourselves, pray, and seek the Lord’s face together, trusting Him to use our churches as agents of healing in our communities and our world.