The gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are the biblical basis for the birth and model for growth of CTM – Called to Missions, our newest church started in this city. It is through the life of Jesus and the leading of the Holy Spirit that CTM is convinced and committed to disciple-making as a necessary and inevitable way forward for the church.
CTM began from a cell group started in mid-March this year. God led the group to study and reflect upon the gospel of Luke. As we progressed on this bible study, the attendance grew steadily. From the few of us meeting every week, we once had 25 people come for one meeting in our tiny apartment. As we encouraged these disciples to attend our partner churches on Sundays, we discovered that they came back with more questions than answers in their faith. After four months of having to address their increasing number of questions, re-imparting and re-teaching them every week, we felt a strong prompting from the Holy Spirit to pray and consider pioneering a church ourselves! Hence in July, CTM started her first Sunday service on 3rd July with an attendance of about 10.
All glory to God for His impeccable timing! Do you still remember “Little” – the lady we mentioned in the last update? When CTM started, she began to take the lead in facilitating the Alpha Course for pre-believers and seekers. When they came to the topic on Holy Spirit and Divine Healing, 4 believers and 1 pre-believer were baptized in the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues. Some even experienced physical healing! Amen! Even as we come to the end on the first run of this Alpha Course, we are already in the midst of starting a Christian Education and Evangelism team to reach out as well as to train teachers.
The average attendance in church and cell group today has already reached 25, with an occasional high of 30. Apart from being prompted by the Holy Spirit and seeing the vision of CTM gradually becoming a reality – we are all saved and called to Missions, God has also at the same time, used CTM as a platform and channel for these disciples to exercise their gifts and calling courageously. This has given us much encouragement and faith in pursuing God’s call to go out and make more disciples – till we enter in to His rest!
On the other hand, we experienced the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the most unexpected way. We had been waiting 3 months for our promised land – a bigger premise for CTM, when suddenly, we received a letter from the bank informing us that our current landlady has defaulted on her repayments. We tried to contact her but to no avail. Then our previous agent contacted us out of the blue to start viewing alternative places. Although none that were suggested were suitable, we chanced upon the ‘promised land’ ourselves through the process. CTM is currently in the midst of renovation, and prayerfully we’ll be able to hold our first thanksgiving service there soon.
Thank you and blessings for 2012!
