January / February 2025
I recently came across this quote,
“The thing that prepared me for my most effective ministry is the very thing that I kind of wish I would have never walked through.”
Lysa Terkeurst
Often it is our pain that connects us with others. Our ability to understand, empathize and encourage others often stems from walking a difficult road. Our ladies Bible study will meet next Wednesday and begin studying the life of Joseph for the spring semester. Joseph astounds me as I ponder his life not for his rise to power in Egypt but for his faithful love and obedience to God in the time in-between. Rejection and abandonment displayed by his brothers. The time in the pit as he wondered if he would make it out alive. The harsh reality of being wrongly accused. The years he spent in jail knowing he had been forgotten by the man who “promised” to not forget.
However, never once does the Bible record him crying out to God accusing Him of being forgotten. Genesis 39:2a says, “The Lord was with Joseph.” The life of Joseph is a great example of one who God did not remove the trouble but instead promised His presence.
In my own life I often pray for the difficult or painful circumstance to be removed. Desiring comfort over God’s gentle pruning in my life. I am coming to understand a bit more, the tremendous promise of Deuteronomy 31:6,
“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
God does not promise to always remove the thing that is so difficult in our lives. But He always promises Himself. Through Him we have the strength and the grace to get up again today and walk the path He has set. For God is with us.
Ministry Update
January and February tend to be dark, cold months in Berlin. It is a time of year that one can easily become discouraged or isolated. In these seasons we have found the importance of recognizing how are ministry should reflect the needs of those we minister to and what we’ve found is that these winter months are great opportunities for encouraging discipleship and gathering people together in community.
Cherry has focused on this by leading our women’s Bible study and teaching regularly in our children’s ministry at our church plant. Both Quinn and Gracie are involved regularly Sunday mornings in this ministry. We have also taken a greater engagement this year with our youth group as both our girls are involved in this ministry. We hosted the teens in our home two weeks ago and Chad has been involved with supporting this ministry, especially engaging with the teen boys.
Chad has also been involved with organizing and helping lead classes for our church that break out after our afternoon service. We just finished a class called Abide and are currently offering a Foundations course that walks through the key doctrines of our faith. Both these classes were designed to meet people in our church where they are in their walk.
Much of what we feel called to in this season is developing leaders for church ministry and in January one of the elders from our sending church presented at our Leadership Roundtable for this purpose. We talked about how we can be on mission as a church in Christ’s mission, specifically what as leaders we are doing to make disciples.
A lot of this work with leaders happens in one-on-one meetings throughout the week and Chad spends a lot of time meeting with men in our church. This is work that doesn’t always seem to have an immediate return on this investment, but we believe it is vital for the growth of our church. Part of this focus is equipping other men to preach and teach in our churches. We currently have four young men who are involved with teaching regularly in our Sunday services, and a number of others that are teaching in small group settings. These men are contributing to what we desire to be known for in our city, which are churches that teach God’s Word effectively and accurately.
We have also focused on meeting with unbelievers in the past two months and encouraging our church families to be involved in evangelism in our city. The Language Cafe continues to be a great opportunity to meet other immigrants and refugees. We have found in this setting many opportunities to have spiritual conversations and we hope to get more people from our church involved in this ministry in the future. Chad also regularly works with children from one of the socially depressed areas of our city in Reinickendorf. In this group we meet with the kids weekly after school and spend time with them for this purpose of them knowing Jesus. Please continue to pray that these interactions will bear fruit. We also look forward to opportunities this spring to do street evangelism and a VBS Camp.
Family Update
We’ve been fighting sickness a lot over the past month unfortunately. This has kept each of us sidelined at times, but we’ve enjoyed the time we’ve had together and with others regardless of the weather outside. Here are some good memories from the past two months.
Prayer Update
We have a number of decisions we are making as a church in the coming month from bringing on new deacons and elders, to joining a network of churches. We would appreciate prayer for wisdom and discernment in each of these things.
We are looking forward to April and May with many outreach opportunities taking place these months. Please pray for preparations that are underway for a city wide Easter Outreach, as well as for our English speaking Kids Camp that will take place in May.
We are also planning retreats for our men, women, and teens. Please pray for those planning these retreats and that they would be opportunities to encourage those in our church.
We would appreciate prayers for strength in fighting through sickness and for opportunities to rest in the busyness of everything going on.