The Church of the Messiah

At Church on Sunday morning many people asked about taking up an offering to aid victims of Hurricane Matthew.  Fr. Looker intentionally delayed such a collection in anticipation of receiving word from Bishop Simpson on how the Diocese of Florida as a whole would respond to the catastrophe.  Today we heard from Bp. Simpson.  We already knew that the Bahamas were particularly hard hit, but we have learned that the home of one of our own clergy, Deacon Hermes Laing II, was practically destroyed and that they have lost most of their belongings.  Bp. Simpson is creating Hurricane Relief Fund to assist the people of the Bahamas, Haiti, and Cuba in rebuilding their lives and homes.  If you would like to donate to the Hurricane Relief Fund, you may do so in two ways: you may put a check in the offering basket earmarked “Hurricane Relief” or you can visit our donate page, choose “Other” from the drop-down menu and enter “Hurricane Relief.”  All donations are tax-deductible and will be sent to the Cathedral and distributed to those in the affected area.  Thank you for your generosity.

In the wake of Hurricane Matthew, it appears we have much to be thankful for.  Saturday morning, Fr. Looker contacted most members of the parish who had not evacuated and most had a similar report.  The majority of the parish had only minimal damage to their home, with a few limbs and trees coming down during the storm.  While many are without power, most were prepared for that beforehand.  Church of the Messiah’s building sustained no apparent damage and still has power, so services will continue as planned Sunday morning at 10 o’clock.  Fusion, as previously announced, has been cancelled and will hold its next service on November 12th.  While the people of Church of the Messiah seem to have been spared much of the full force of Hurricane Matthew, please remember that there are many who felt the effects much more severely than we did and many who are still being affected by this storm.  Please continue to pray for those in the path of this catastrophic storm.

In order to provide everyone with ample time to prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Matthew, Church of the Messiah is cancelling service for Wednesday night, October 5th.  While we do not anticipate that weather would disrupt our service tonight, we want to give all of our members plenty of time to exercise all due prudence in making all necessary preparations before the storm’s arrival late Thursday night.  This cancellation will affect our Wednesday night service on October 5th, the Intercessors’ Meeting on Friday morning, October 7th, and Fusion on Saturday, October 8th.  It will not affect our Sunday morning service which will continue as normal at 10 o’clock on Sunday, October 9th.   Please be in prayer for all those who are in the path of Hurricane Matthew and those who have already been affected by this storm.

Early this morning we received another email from Len Showalter and the missionary team traveling with Carla.  Here is the email:

    Wednesday began with Danielle doing a devotion from Matthew 12 and then prayed for the class.  We then broke into groups and prayed for about 10 minutes.  Then the lectures began and the students continued with Pastor Len and Robert teaching.

     Later in the morning, the team went to a school, Future Vision Junior School that is a private school with mostly Muslim Children.  The Administrator goes to Lifehouse Community Church and allowed us to tell about ourselves and share the Gospel with the children.  There were 330 children and about 248 of them prayed to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. (All of them prayed, but that was the older children)         Pastor Len was able to join us on this visit and had fun with the children.  Pastor Guy taught the children how to say goodbye in Russian and they loved it.

     Wednesday afternoon, the 7 teams went out to different areas witnessing.  The students shared their testimonies and the Gospel portion of the material.  All of them did well.  There were 44 contacts; The Gospel was shared 18 times to 42 people; and there were 32 professions of faith and 2 assurances of salvation.

     Thursday morning, Marcia did a devotion about children.  (Mark 10:13-16; Matt 19:13-15; 1 Tim 4:12) She then shared the Gospel with the big Kids’ EE Cube, and did some illustrations for children, and then the students broke into groups and prayed for the children.  After a group photo and some personal prayer time for the students, Pastor Guy began teaching the students.

     This afternoon the students will go out witnessing by themselves (without a trainer) and then go out later with their trainer.

This afternoon Fr. Looker received another update from Len Showalter and the Len Ministries Team in Uganda.  Here is their most recent update:

    Monday morning Pastor Robert picked the team up at 7:30am and took them to his church, Lifehouse Community Church here in Mityana, Uganda.  During registration, a hard rain came and lasted for a few hours.  It was very noisy on the tin roof.  The power seems to be off more than it is on here.  Because it is the rainy season, they turn off the power during rain, thunder, or lightning storms.  This is a difficult concept for us Americans as we are used to our power companies fixing such a problem quickly.

     During the lecture time, Pastor’s Len, and Guy; and Danielle taught the students.  By the end of the day, there were 28 students.  Out of these students, 14 of them had either a profession or assurance of their salvation! The class finished up around 7:00pm.

     Tuesday morning Carla shared the devotion from Isaiah 43 – about being a witness.  The students then broke into groups to pray for the harvest.  They then took a test to see how much of the Gospel part of the outline they knew and were then on to working on their testimonies.

     While the students were learning, Pastor Guy, Danielle, Carla, and Marcia went to the school and shared about the USA, Cameroon, and Russia as well as the Gospel.  They first shared with the older children where there were 96 children.  25-30 children raised their hands to pray the prayer of Salvation.  All 96 children prayed the prayer.  The team then went and met with the younger children.  They shared about themselves and then shared the Gospel with them.  There were 105 children and most all of them prayed to receive Jesus into their hearts.

     During the street witnessing time, (OJT – On Job Training) there were 7 trainers with 3-5 students in each group. The teams went out into the neighboring streets to Share the Gospel.  The students shared their testimonies and did very well.  Unfortunately, there isn’t this evangelism material in Ugandan, only English.  This has been a challenge, but the students are pressing in and overcoming the obstacles.  Although English is spoken here in Mityana, many do not know how to speak it because they don’t use it.

Tonight there were:  39 people contacted

The Gospel was shared 27 times to 37 people

There were 18 professions of faith

and 2 assurances of salvation!

This year’s 40 Days for Life campaign begins on Wednesday morning, but the Kick Off Rally to start the campaign off in prayer is this Tuesday night!  The Rally will start at the Women’s Help Center (click HERE for a map) at 6:45 pm.  Prior to the the Rally, there will be a Holy Hour at five o’clock and Holy Mass at six o’clock.  Both of those services will be at Prince of Peace Roman-Catholic Church.  (Click HERE for a map)  Prince of Peace has also offered up there parking for the Rally that evening.  Fr. Scott Looker has been asked to pray during the Rally that God’s blessing be upon the work of all the volunteers this year. Please join us this Tuesday night to hear more about 40 Days for Life and to get involved with this incredible powerful movement in Jacksonville and abroad.

On Sunday night, Fr. Looker received an e-mail from Len Showalter of Len Ministries updating everyone on their safe arrival and progress thus far.  Here is the email in its entirety.

   Our team arrived safely in Mityana after traveling for 32 hours.  We were greeted by Elisha who then drove us for about a two-hour drive to the hotel we are staying at.  It is very clean and we feel safe which is important here.  We arrived at the hotel a little after 2:00 AM and didn’t get to sleep until after 3:30. We were very tired.

     We all rested off and on most of Saturday.  We saw our first wedding celebration here at the hotel, Enro Hotel. Since it is the rainy season, the power is turned off when it rains or there is thunder and lightning. It was off most of Saturday. Pastor Robert and Esther Mponye joined us for dinner. It was wonderful getting to visit with them and we are looking forward to being with them this coming week.

     Sunday morning, we were united with Pastor Guy and Danielle Yetna at breakfast. They arrived around 2:00 AM. It was wonderful seeing the again.  Pastor Guy came from Ivanovo, Russia to help teach this training and his travel was 42 hours to Mityana.  Danielle came from Cameroon, so her travel wasn’t as long.  Next year we will be doing this same training in an English speaking church in Cameroon.

     Pastor Robert picked us up for church.  When we arrived at the church, praise and worship began and it was lively and anointed, (led by Esther).  Pastor Len preached a powerful word about the importance of Christians to plant “spiritual” seed (Matthew 13).  While Len was sharing, Pastor Robert interpreted English into Ugandan.  When Len did an alter call, there were over 60 people that came forward for salvation or assurance of their salvation.  He did another alter call for people that wanted to be led by the Holy Spirit to go out into the world and share the Gospel. There were over a hundred that came forward for that alter call. It was a powerful time!While we were at Robert’s church, Pastor Guy preached at a church out in the bush, about a half hour away.

     Please continue to pray for the pastors and leaders that will be taking this training this week.  Pray that God will give them the mind of Christ and that the people we come in contact with will be open to the Gospel.

     May you be blessed abundantly for going on this journey with us.

With our love,

Pastor Len, Marcia, and Carla

As Fr. Shiell discussed in his sermon on Sunday, The March For Life will be January 27th, 2017, in Washington, D.C., and we should all begin preparing to head to our nation’s capital now in order to be ready when the big day arrives.  But we do not have to wait until January to start choosing Life right here in Jacksonville today!  There are plenty of opportunities in the upcoming weeks to show your support for local Pro-Life ministries.  Below is information on some of these upcoming events.

Jericho March on September 24th—Saturday morning beginning at nine o’clock, Christians from throughout Jacksonville will begin walking around the property surrounding Jacksonville’s Planned Parenthood.  They will march around the property a full seven time and pray for the facility to close and for abortion to come to an end in Jacksonville and throughout America.  For more information contact Rob Barnaby at (904) 504-1412.

40 Days For Life Kick Off Rally Events on Tuesday, September 27th—An evening of special events begin the annual 40 Days for Life campaign.  Prince of Peace Roman-Catholic Church will observe and celebrate a Holy Hour and Mass from five o’clock until 6:30.  Following the Mass, there will be a Kick Off Rally at the Women’s Help Center (a Pro-Life center located in between two abortion clinics) from 6:45 to 7:30.  The Kick Off Rally will include an overview of the 40 Days For Life campaign, an invitation to join in, an opportunity to tour the Women’s Help Center, as well as light refreshments.  Church of the Messiah’s Fr. Scott Looker has been invited to lead one of the opening prayers at this year’s rally.

40 Days for Life Annual Campaign, September 28th—November 6th—Since 2004, Pro-Life activists in over 25 different countries have taken a peaceful and prayerful stand against a culture of death.

40 Days for Life is a focused pro-life campaign with a vision to access God’s power through prayer, fasting, and peaceful vigil to end abortion. The mission of the campaign is to bring together the body of Christ in a spirit of unity during a focused 40 day campaign of prayer, fasting, and peaceful activism, with the purpose of repentance, to seek God’s favor to turn hearts and minds from a culture of death to a culture of life, thus bringing an end to abortion.

This year, the 40 Days for Life campaign will be gathering in the public right-of-way outside A Woman’s Choice of Jacksonville from 7 am to 7 pm.  To get involved or stay up to date on upcoming events in the 40 Days For Life campaign, visits Jacksonville’s 40 Days For Life web-site.

This Wednesday night, September 14th, Church of the Messiah will begin is newest Bible study series.  The title of the study will be “The History of the Biblical Church.”  Fr. Looker will be leading the study and he wants to make it clear that that this Bible study will not be a “Church History 101” class but rather,

We are going to look at The Acts of the Apostles in combination with the various Letters of St. Paul to put pieces together and get a more complete picture of what was going on in the Church during Biblical times.  We are going to see things that are in the Bible.  You’ve just probably never noticed them before.

This Bible study is going to be a fascinating look at the ministry and missionary work of the very first Christians.

“The History of the Biblical Church” will be part of Church of the Messiah’s regular Wednesday night services which begin with a soup supper from 6:00-6:45.  The service itself is a Eucharistic service which begins at seven o’clock.  Childcare is provided throughout the service which ends by 8:30 so that those who need to prepare for work or school the next day can be home early enough to do so promptly.  We invite everyone to join us and learn more about what happened in the earliest days of Christianity.

Last night, during the amazing night of worship and intercession, Fr. Scott Looker announced the title and topic of the new, upcoming Bible study series for Church of the Messiah’s Wednesday night services.  The title of the study will be “The History of the Biblical Church.”  It will be a five-week series beginning September 14th and concluding October 12th.  Fr. Looker was quick to point out that this would not be a “Church History 101” class but rather,

We are going to look at The Acts of the Apostles in combination with the various Letters of St. Paul to put pieces together and get a more complete picture of what was going on in the Church during Biblical times.  We are going to see things that are in the Bible.  You’ve just probably never noticed them before.

This Bible study is going to be a fascinating look at the ministry and missionary work of the very first Christians.

“The History of the Biblical Church” will be part of Church of the Messiah’s regular Wednesday night services which begin with a soup supper from 6:00-6:45.  The service itself is a Eucharistic service which begins at seven o’clock.  Childcare is provided throughout the service which ends by 8:30 so that those who need to prepare for work or school the next day can be home early enough to do so promptly.  We invite everyone to join us and learn more about what happened in the earliest days of Christianity.