The Brethren Church

2005 was a year of positioning! It was a year that was dedicated to the theme “I Willâ€? as response to God’s call in Isaiah 6:8: “Whom shall I send, who will go?â€? We were challenged to position ourselves to be people who would also respond to God’s call on our lives by stepping up saying, “I will.â€?

2005 was a year of watching the Lord provide many opportunities to build community, reach people for Jesus, promote growth, and celebrate ministry. We were able to see the implementation and expansion of many different areas of ministry. In October we were able to send the first of many disaster relief teams to the Biloxi, MS area shortly after Hurricane Katrina. We passed out Thanksgiving dinners to 100 of our neighbors and sent about 175 shoe box gifts with Samaritan’s Purse.

As it is today, 2005 has come and gone and I can say that there are many people at The Lighthouse who have stepped into that place with God where they were willing to respond to His call on their lives by saying “I will.â€? Now we are ready to put feet to our faith by expressing “Love in Action,â€? (1 John 3:18) our theme for 2006.

We’re providing ways for our people to work this out locally by providing monthly Love in Action Opportunities in the Goshen area. These are opportunities that have been arranged to serve   local organizations that are responsible for touching the lives of many people (La Casa, Boys and Girls Club, Goshen Housing Authority, etc.). We’re serving the schools, the city, and even other churches, all for the purpose of loving our community in a Christlike way. We’ll continue to travel to the south to aid in hurricane recovery. In 2006 we’ll have traveled in January, April, July, and October. Finally, we’ve provided an international Love in Action ministry outlet by calling for our people to engage in the $10,000 challenge that was issued at General Conference. We took one of the 12 coins so as to be able to partner with and support the ministers overseas who are reaching people with the gospel that we ourselves would never be able to reach. It really is an exciting time as we are watching people connect with the eternal value of crawling out of themselves!