Partnerships Share the Gospel in Rockford Village Youngstown

09/08/2018 0 Comment in Bible Teaching-Leadership by sdhopkins

Pastor Willie Peterson reports, "We have had a great summer at NewBirth Church Youngstown. We kicked off our summer by hosting the Central Baptist Church from Athens Tennessee (Pastor Mike Bernard) who brought 57 people to minister to our neighborhood known as The Rockford Village. On Fathers Day they began with a "Black Light Gospel Puppet Show" with life-size characters. There was 125 in attendance to start our summer. Each day following Fathers Day, they hosted a sports camp at the Center for Community Empowerment, our community outreach partner, where from Monday through Thursday they provided games and activities for the neighborhood youth. Each evening Central Baptist shared their love through VBS to an average of 85 youth each day. Central Baptist not only offered themselves to sports camp and VBS but they provided needed labor to put up a fence in the rear of the church, place a much-needed air conditioner in the wall of the church and remove trees from around our building that had been dying. Central Baptist has been a blessing to NewBirth and the Rockford community for six years now. NewBirth Church will beginning training to be able to host VBS ourselves with the help and leadership of Pastor Mike and CBC. Thanks, Pastor Mike!

When contacted by our Missionary Gary Frost, I responded by saying; “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” I recognize that the help of others can reach many that I may not and that everything is done at God's timing.

In July NewBirth welcomed the Old Fields Baptist Church (Pastor Dan Howard) from Old Fields, West Virginia who because of a mix-up in scheduling came to offer their love again to the Rockford neighborhood. They were in Ohio to offer VBS to another community, but because of a scheduling mix-up NewBirth welcomed them and hosted another week of VBS. When contacted by our Missionary Gary Frost, I responded by saying; “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” I recognize that the help of others can reach many that I may not be able to reach and that everything is done at God's timing. Old Fields Baptist came with 15 helpers for our neighborhood, and we served an average of 45 that week. Twenty of those were not living in the area during the first VBS experience, which is one reason we welcomed the additional opportunity to reach our neighborhood for Christ.

As a result of the love shared by both churches and the people of NewBirth we saw thirteen saved, and we will be baptizing eight of those after they have completed our New Member class."