Planning Teams for 2011

The new ministry at EFCC, Connecting With China, decided this week that it would send a women’s team to Beijing in Fall 2011. It is hoped that the Lord will provide 4-6 women to participate in this team.

The focus of the women’s team will be to teach Christian leadership principles to women leaders in Beijing churches. That sounds simple but will entail so much more. There will be opportunities to counsel and mentor one-on-one with these dear women and develop relationships with them. Many Chinese Christians are new believers, even the pastors. We will concentrate on women leaders because then our teaching has the potential to reach hundreds more when they take back what they learn to their churches.

Other Connecting With China team trips planned for 2011 will be a mixed or couples team also in the Fall and a pastor’s team in October.

It is an exciting privilege to be a small part of what God is doing in China. Let me know if you are interested in joining a future trip to China.

To Him be the glory!
Mary

EFCC – GPiH Partnership Signed!

On January 19, 2011 an agreement was signed between Emmanuel Faith Community Church - EFCC and Global Partners in Escondido, California. GPiH is the organization that hosted the EFCC September 2010 team in Beijing. This agreement is great cause for celebration and praise to our Lord. Through the influence of highly placed government officials, GPiH has a unique ‘front door’ opportunity to reach metropolitan Chinese people using the aspects of harmony and unity prevalent in the Christian faith. We are very excited about how God is working through Global Partners in Hope to reach and teach the Chinese people.

This new ministry at EFCC will be called “Connecting With China.”

The purpose of the EFCC September team was to teach, encourage, and counsel mostly new Christians living in an atheistic society. These baby believers do not have parents or grandparents to mentor them and show them how to live like Jesus. The people we worked with had hungry hearts to learn what we had to teach them about our loving God and how He wants us to live. It was stunning to watch how God used us. Our small team of just six had access to over 600 Chinese Christians in 15 separate sessions. This was way beyond our expectations!

GPiH has just opened another avenue to support the Chinese Christian movement. Countless new house churches are being formed in the 20 to 40 age groups, the fastest growing Christian segment in urban China. Many pastors of these churches have little or no seminary training. GPiH is starting new college-level training courses conducted by Crown College for house church pastors.

It will be very exciting to watch how our Lord uses this new agreement between Emmanuel Faith Community Church and Global Partners in Hope. Visit this blog again for the continuing story.

Blessings,

Mary