Detroit Church of Christ - Articles

Vision - Detroit Church of Christ Update

By Allan Aubert; October 5, 2005

 

For God does speak—now one way, now another— though man may not perceive it.  In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword.  Job 33:14-18

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below“ - Acts 2:14-19

“So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.” – Acts 26:19-20

 

The Detroit church welcomes you to the Great Lakes Regional Conference weekend, entitled: “A Heart for God.” With lessons and events designed to encourage you and challenge you, it promises to be a powerful time! We in Detroit are grateful for your fellowship, and for the Great Lakes and ACR churches joining us to reinvigorate our vision, faith and hearts for God as we all strive to build the walls of God’s kingdom in our home cities.

 

2005 has been a tremendous year of change for the Detroit Church of Christ (DCOC). Not to say that it has been all victory and no defeats! However, we are called by the scriptures, through the Apostle Paul, not to be “spin doctors”, but rather to have a better memory for our victories than for our defeats. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Phil 4:8). This is because, in our human weakness, our faith is so easy to damage, and we need to personally put in constant effort to build it up! 2005 has seen tremendous progress in building the faith and vision of the Detroit church. The healing hand of God is evident everywhere I look. The atmosphere and buzz of conversation at services is so much more faithful than it was a year ago. In this article, I want to encourage you with some of the tremendous things God has done in, and through the Detroit church this year.

 

A) Missions Contribution: In January, at our yearly Jubilee, we set the faithful goal that we would give $120,000 for world missions (later amended to $100,000) this year. This represented about ten times our normal weekly giving. We further expressed our faith in God, not men, by celebrating the victory in advance, at our August 31 missions victory service. God has answered our faith when, as of mid-September, with 2 ½ months still to go, the goal was effectively met with over $97K given to date! Of this, $80,000 was sent to the Kerala churches of India, which is more than their request, and that will help support other parts of India whose US support did not come through. Earlier in the year we had already sent, by faith, $10,000 to help Tony and Tasha Williams move to PNG and take up leadership of the Port Moresby, PNG church. The final $10K is being held as we continue to pray and work with our dear brothers and sisters in Grand Rapids toward finding them a full time ministry couple. Praise be to God for moving his people to give like this!

 

B) Mission India 2005: God put it on the heart of our ministry staff last year that we must build a bridge of relationship with our sister churches we support financially in India. We selected our missionaries from among those with a dream for the ministry or mission work in the future. All of them came back after three weeks in India deeply impacted. The word back from Raj Mohan Paul was that the Michigan missionaries also strongly impacted our brothers and sisters in the Kerala and Tamil Nadu states of India with their faith, preaching, energy and willingness to serve and love. We thank God for using his people on both sides of the world to impact each other!

 

C) Re-establishment of Full Time Region Leadership: After many years of decline in our Detroit leadership group, it is so refreshing to see Rick and Judy Lewis give up a beautiful home, warm weather, and great relationships in San Diego to come back to Michigan to give their lives to reenter the full time ministry. Many in the Oakland / Macomb Region, and throughout the church are praising God for the faith, love and maturity they bring to us after their many years of experience working for God in a variety of capacities. It is a blessing of God whenever he gives us people with great abilities to love and lead!

 

D) Re-establishment of Full Time Campus Leadership: With Collin and Beth Sherrill stepping in, in August, to lead both Washtenaw, and the DCOC campus ministry, it is the first time in many years that we have been able to focus full time leadership at the campus. The Sherrills are likewise the first young disciples, with no prior ministry experience, I have heard of anywhere in the ICC churches to recently step into the paid ministry. Praise God for using the Detroit church to break this drought!

 

E) Repentance in our Marriages: It was back in January that Pat and Phil Morr stepped out of their real-estate business by faith, to use their latter years, that most reserve for retirement, to have an impact on the marriages in our church. After being trained to teach & lead the powerful “Family Dynamics” marriage workshops, they have had a huge impact in healing the marriages of so many in our church. Praise God for putting it on the hearts of disciples like Pat and Phil to spend their lives to serve, teach and disciple!

 

F) Growth in our Membership: While not yet where we want to be, we praise God that he has blessed the Detroit church with 10 souls being baptized and 11 souls being restored to a relationship with God this year, thru August. Meanwhile, our leadership has boldly yet lovingly worked with, and spoken with the membership of the church to call all to be New Testament disciples, to participate in weekly discipling, to be active in an evangelistic small group, and to be giving in the regular contribution to the work of the church. After several months of patient work over the summer, and a night of rededication and confession, many have recommitted themselves and seen a revival in their faith. Our goal is to be a sold out church that loves God and walks as disciples. While we continue to pray for and reach out to our former brothers and sisters, we are overjoyed to see a great jump in the number of people studying the Bible to become disciples, and the number of those wanting to be restored to a relationship with God and the church. Praise God for growth! Despite the number of names taken off our membership list in the past few months, God has blessed the hearts of the disciples to give, and our contribution has risen from an average of $8,827 per week in May & June to an average of over $10,000 per week in September, even while we gave our Missions Contribution!

 

G) Unity in our Leadership: With the additions to our paid staff, the MLG is again re-defining the leadership roles and responsibilities in the church. Most of the normal activities of the church are now run, much more capably, by the paid staff, allowing the MLG to cut back its meeting schedule. The Detroit MLG is now made up of Tim & Wendy Sherrill, Brian & Shann Perkins, Pat & Phil Morr, Rick & Judy Lewis, Roy and Lisa Chow and Allan & Sandy Aubert. The MLG is now focusing more on working toward establishing an Eldership and on resolving some of the doctrinal issues that now face us. It is so encouraging, at MLG meetings, to see that though there are frequent differences of opinion and perspective, that we love, submit to, respect and are committed to being unified with God and each other, and giving our lives to build his church. Please pray for God to bless this group with the wisdom and vision to navigate the times to come in Detroit!

 

H) The Detroit School of World Missions(DSWM): Brian and Shann, our Lead Evangelist and Women’s Ministry leader (WML) have been training a special group of disciples who have the vision to lead more powerfully in the ministry. Each of the members works in an unpaid capacity to lead a small evangelistic group, and are being trained to lead effectively by the DSWM D-group. Collin & Beth Sherrill were prepared, in this way, to lead the Washtenaw Region and Campus ministry, and are the first of many that we plan to raise up to serve in the full time ministry, and to be future missionaries. We hereby invite any of you who aspire to be trained for the ministry in its various forms, to approach Brian & Shann and make known to them your dream for the ministry. Our plan is to provide a setting and situation where all with the heart, dream and vision to devote themselves to the ministry of Christ may be in a DSWM discipleship group led by one of our trained ministry leaders, with the purpose to be trained and sent out. It is our dream to be able to raise up many trained leaders to serve and grow our church locally, many to be sent out to evangelize the rest of Michigan, and many to help elsewhere in the world! Finally, this does not only include those who aspire to the role of evangelist & WML, but also those who aspire to other roles such as Eldership, administration and various other forms of service & ministry.

 

I am so eager to see how God will bless us this fall through our conference and the rest of the year. With many studying the Bible to make Jesus Lord, and so many older members coming back to give their hearts to God and his Body, the church, by being willing to serve and lead, God is building the “wall” of his kingdom in Detroit. Thank you God!