Month: September 2019

All Souls, Lexington, SC Launching in September

Nancy Bryan ADOC Writings

After 9 months of prayer and planning, Church of the Apostles will be launching a new church plant in Lexington, SC called All Souls Church. We will launch on September 15. Over these last few months, the Lord has gathered a team of 40 people out of both the Apostles family and the town of Lexington to help begin this new work, and we are so excited to see what the Lord will do through us as we seek to spread the good news of Jesus to all people.

Lexington is the largest and fastest growing suburb of Columbia, with nearly 100,000 people in the zip codes where All Souls will be serving. Please pray that the Lord will use us to share Jesus with those who have never heard the gospel and those who haven’t heard it in a long time. We have built a fantastic relationship with Heritage Christian Academy where we will meet for worship, and we are so thankful to have such a wonderful place to start. To learn more about All Souls Church, please visit allsoulslex.com, and be sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Healing Family Wounds Conference

Nancy Bryan ADOC Writings

by All Saints Church, Weddington, NC

Join us for a time of ministry and prayer, as Rev. Rob Kunes explores the healing of families. Many of us carry wounds in our hearts from our families. Rev. Rob will cover praying with confidence, praying for healing of families, the connection between personal and family healing, and inviting the Holy Spirit to bring Jesus’ healing.

This conference is dedicated to bringing us to the fullness of Jesus Christ’s ministry as is directed in the great commission. The Keynote Speaker is The Rev. Robert M. Kunes, Jr. who serves as Chaplain to the Staff and Director of The Prayer Center at St. Christopher Camp & Conference Center, a ministry of the Diocese of South Carolina. Discipleship and teaching people – especially young adults –to hear the voice of the Lord, and to pray expectantly are Rev. Rob’s ministry passion.

“The healing ministry was a large part of my calling to vocational ministry, and it was confirmed by the Lord when I received a huge inner healing, during our first semester of seminary, which cured us of four years of infertility. I love watching the Holy Spirit do His work in and through people. Discipleship is learning and applying the word of God to our lives. This is fruitless without the leadership of the Holy Spirit.”

TO REGISTER ONLINE: allsaintsweddington.org/2019-healing-conference
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Judy Rowe judy@allsaintsweddington.org
Please come with an open heart – expecting a touch from God!

ALL SAINTS ANGLICAN CHURCH. 5328 Hemby Rd Weddington, NC
COST: $60 <> 704-246-8023

 

Build Together Sunday

Nancy Bryan ADOC Writings

by Bishop David Bryan, Suffragan 

We are still a very young movement.  The vast majority of our congregations are first generation churches that have particular needs as well as missional opportunities in their respective communities.  A congregation’s ability to acquire a permanent location and to “place a stake” in their mission field is a very critical indicator of long-term fruitfulness of the congregation, and of our diocese.

Bishop Wood announced at our diocesan Synod last March that we will commence an annual Build Together campaignto help churches of the Diocese of the Carolinas that are making the critical transition into their initial permanent location/building.

The second Sunday of Advent (December 8th this year) is designated as “Build Together Sunday” and churches will have the opportunity to share information (inserts, slides, videos) provided by the diocese with their congregations and receive designated gifts/pledges that Sunday.

The Standing Committee of the Diocese will oversee the development of criteria, administration and distribution of these funds to churches who make appropriate an application and request.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians about congregations helping other congregations:

You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, theywill glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you.  Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!       –2 Corinthians 9:11-15

We are stronger together in the Diocese of the Carolinas and this is a tangible and very strategic way we can advance the kingdom of God in the Carolinas.

Battling for our Buddies in Greenville, SC

Nancy Bryan ADOC Writings

St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Greenville, SC is engaged and bringing change personally to the community they love. They call themselves “Battle Buddies”. Women doing ministry for women with children fighting substance abuse. St. Paul’s knows addiction is a leading cause of family collapse and harm to children in Upstate South Carolina. They are there to battle for their buddies at Serenity Place.

Serenity Place and is a residential drug and alcohol treatment facility for women.  Serenity Place is part of the larger umbrella of the Family Effect which has various residential and outpatient treatment facilities in the area.  The mission of the Serenity Place is to heal the mother’s addiction and also keep families intact.  Many of the women are pregnant and have preschool school age children.  SP is unique because the mothers can bring their younger children with them to treatment.  The women receive group counseling, classes, mentoring, individual counseling, planning for the future.  In addition individuals from the community come and teach basic life skill classes such as budgeting, parenting skills, etc.  Many of the children come to the Serenity Place with development and emotional needs from living with a parent or parents who use.  The children are treated, cared for and educated with while their moms attend their classes.  In fact, a new child therapeutic center is under construction right now with plans for completion this year.

St. Pauls member Jen Harding says, “From a spiritual perspective, the women are hungry.  I was thinking a couple of weeks ago about it in the sense that these women are lost in a deep, dark cave.  No hope, no idea if they will ever be free, wondering if people on the outside have forgotten about them or worse yet, if God has forgotten about them.  What does one do if lost in a deep dark cave but search for a source of Light.  For these women, the Light is Jesus.  As the women get closer to the light that is Jesus, hope emerges and it is beautiful thing”.

There are many churches and religious organizations of all denominations serving as the Body of Christ for the women and children of the Serenity Place. St. Paul’s journeys with the women through Bible Study groups, prayer group, serving homemade meals and providing hand crocheted baby blankets and prayer squares.

The women really are the Same Kind of Different as me OR as put another way, the ground at the base of the cross is level.  Brothers and Sisters, like the friends of the Paralytic Man let us join together and lower the women and children of the SP on their mats to the feet of Jesus and just as in the parable, the faith of the women will be seen and they will be healed AND the faith of the friends will be seen and we will all be part of the blessing.

www.stpaulsgreenville.org

Where is your Treasure?

Nancy Bryan ADOC Writings, Perspectives

A note from Bishop Wood…

Some of the clearest statements in Scripture concern giving. The first murder in the Bible was rooted in God’s acceptance of Abel’s offering and His rejection of Cain’s offering. Genesis 4 tells us that Abel brought both the first and the best to the Lord while Cain brought neither. The worshipper and his/her offerings are inseparable; a reflection of their heart and what they hold most dear. We see this again and again throughout the biblical record.

400 years before the Law was given Abraham, by faith, set the pattern of giving when he gave a 10th – a tithe – of all that he had to the priest, Melchizedek.

The Lord, through the prophet Malachi (3.6-12), said to the people of Israel – and to people of faith through the ages, “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.”

That’s an extraordinary statement – and an even more extraordinary promise – the Lord says, “test me in this and see if I am faithful.”

And the pattern is the same in the New Testament. Did you know that Jesus talked about money more than He did Heaven and Hell combined?

Jesus talked about money more than anything else except the Kingdom of God.

11 of 39 parables talk about money.
1 of every 7 verses in the Gospel of Luke talk about money.

In one of his more well-known parables in Luke (16) Jesus says this: “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust thetrue riches?”​

What’s he saying? Well, what is mammon? What are “true riches?”

Quite simply mammon is money, yes, but it’s more. It’s everything – it’s our wealth, it’s our investments, it’s our possessions. It’s what so many strive for, give themselves for, sacrifice their families for. And note this, elsewhere in this same parable Jesus calls all of this that we value so much “little,” insignificant, temporal, passing.

And then Jesus speaks of true riches. What are true riches? True riches are spiritual treasure given to us by the Holy Spirit – spiritual stewardship and responsibility in God’s kingdom.

So, what’s Jesus saying? He’s saying if you – if I’m not faithful with something as temporal and insignificant as earthy treasure and possessions with which I am entrusted to steward for His purposes during my lifetime, why would I ever expect the Holy Spirit to entrust to me real treasure, with spiritual treasure, with eternal treasure?

So if the Bible is so consistent and clear – so encouraging in its teaching on how we handle our money – why are we so hesitant?

Let me tell you what I see in my life and in the lives of folks I’ve spoken with over the years: fear. We’re afraid. We think to ourselves, “It’s unreasonable to live like this. It doesn’t make sense. If I live like this, if I give like this, will I have enough?” And behind these questions lies the deepest question revealing our deepest fear: “Is God faithful? Will God really come through?” And in this sense, mammon, money, possessions are a wonderful diagnostic test. How so? Well, Jesus again. In Matthew 6 (21), He says, “where your treasure is, there will be your what? There will your heart be also . . . Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Friends, where’s your treasure? There’s your heart.