Is it really helpful to make too much of adistinction between local ministry and mis-sions? Does the Bible treat missions as some-thing that just happens somewhere else, while ministryis what happens here?

A foundational passage for missions is Acts 1:8. Just beforeHe ascended into heaven, Jesus said, “But you will receivepower when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will bemy witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, andto the end of the earth.” There is no distinction here betweenlocal and foreign. The disciples are to be witnesses whereverthe Lord sends them.In this issue of

Outreach

, we feature an article abouthow one church in the Washington, D.C. area applied locallysome of what they had learned during a mission trip to Wales.In Wales, our mission trips use a multi-faceted approach toreaching youth. They use kids club (like VBS), sports outreach,and a coffee house to have maximum impact during the oneweek they are there.

Church of the Atonement in Silver Spring, MD, applied asimilar multi-faceted approach to reaching their community inWashington, D.C. As you read this article, ask yourself, “whatcould my church do as a mission outreach to our community?”

OutreachNewsletter

A Publication of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian ChurchBoard of Outreach North America

Inside this Issue...

• Invitation to Christ Church• Parenting Church Community• Church Planting in Scotland• What is Reformission Scotland?• Open House with Marcus Hamilton• News and Notes from the Field

ona

Outreach North America

Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church

Mission to the City

Fall 2009

By Rev. Fred Carr

Church of the Atonement is an ARP church located justnorth of the capital beltway around Washington, D.C. Whilethe name of our community, Silver Spring, sounds like a quaint,rural village, we share the features of America’s metropolitanareas. Life is fast paced. Space is congested. Prices are high.Crime is of concern. Like most American cities, we have a largeimmigrant population.This past summer, Church of the Atonement began an ini-tiative to be a full member of our neighborhood. Our vision isto identify ourselves to the community, to build friendship-re-

lationships, and to assist the community in nding answers to

our local problems. More than 85 members of the church wereinvolved in our outreach. Two of our efforts were directed to-ward children and families; two were service oriented.Atonement sponsored a Vacation Bible School to serve un-churched families living near our buildings as well as our ownchildren. A related effort grew out of applying locally our pre-vious experience from short term mission trips to Wales. Wesponsored sports camps including soccer, football and basket-ball. Participation peaked at 42 young people.Our second thrust was in service to the community. Wecalled one effort our “Water Works Campaign.” At local gro-cery stores and at metro sta-tions, we gave away bottles of water with an invitation to visitAtonement. Our second serviceopportunity was in partnershipwith the Silver Spring InterfaithHousing Coalition. Our work fo-cused on improving the yard andfacilities of multifamily homesin the community. Not only did we improve the local quality of life, but we let other concerned citizens know of our interestin wholesome living conditions in the city. Our efforts endedwith a church-sponsored BBQ for all the people and familieswe had gotten acquainted with during the week.This overall initiative is a missions outreach directed lo-cally. We reached local commuters and shoppers, neighbor-hood youth and children, and served disadvantaged persons/

families. The congregation as a whole beneted as we caught

the common vision, and worked side by side to reach out asevangelical Christians to our neighbors. One measure of suc-cess was the large number of people from the congregationmobilized to use their varying gifts, abilities, and interests inlocal missions outreach.

Sports Camp at Atonement

From the Director

Alan J. Avera, D.Min.

By Rev. Kyle E. Sims

Three ARP churches in Rock Hill es-tablished a Parenting Church Communi-ty at the end of October. This is part of ONA’s strategy of helping build commu-nities to support church planters and is

designed specically to help established

churches plant new churches. The ideaof churches planting daughter churchesis not a new one. Many ARP churcheswere started by a mother church. TheParenting Church Community is a returnto our roots and to a holistic approachto church planting. It seeks to developnurturing relationships between severalestablished churches and their daugh-ter churches. Ebenezer, First Rock Hill,and Tirzah have formed a communityfor mutual encouragement, training,support, and prayer. Rev. Andrew Stagerand I have been asked to help with thiscommunity. We are very excited aboutthe potential for the Kingdom in RockHill and beyond!

Page 2 Outreach

the folks in Denver, NC to invite them tocome to his church.

Christ Church is a sanctuary with aChristian message that welcomes all indi-viduals and families. Members and guestswith backgrounds and lives as diverseas our surrounding communities join to-gether each Sunday morning for worship.They create a wonderful Christian familywith common interests and purpose un-der one roof.

By Rev. Morrie LawingThe following is written by a man whohad not entered a church in nearly forty years and had no interest in God. Not toolong ago, he came to Christ Church and his life has profoundly changed. He of-

ten testies to the work of grace in his

life. Truly the words of the hymn “Amaz-ing Grace” could be his own. For him,Christ Church is not just a church, it ishome. He wrote the following article for

Invitation to Christ Church

Christ Church is also a place of unityin spiritual growth and understanding of God and those who trust in Him. Unity of-fers an opportunity to join with others incelebrating and exploring the assuranceof God’s grace and the promise of eternalsalvation.Under the guidance and leadership of Rev. Morrie Lawing, members and guestsexperience the Word of God and the

promise of God’s innite love for us. After

our Sunday worship, adults and childrenare invited to participate in Bible studiesthat provide a sound foundation of faith.These classes are led by congregationallay-leaders who help guide participantsin understanding and becoming morefamiliar with the Bible’s application foreveryday living. During the week we alsohave separate men’s and women’s Biblestudies that focus on knowing God.Christ Church is much more than sim-ply a Sunday center of spiritual worship!It is a place and a people encouraging

a personal growth in condence for liv

-ing in the comfort of God’s love and HisWord. This means that Christ Church isproviding a community service every dayof the week and for people of all ages.Please join us at Christ Church Sunday forworship at 9:30 am.

Church Planting in Scotland

By Rev. Athole Rennie

I have been commis-sioned by First Presby-tery to plant a church inthe Leith area of Edin-burgh, Scotland. My wifeRosalynd and I (picturedleft at my ordination)

will ofcially begin the

work on December 1. We have been mar-ried for four years and God willing, we

are expecting the arrival of our rst child

in January.We are both native Scots, Rosalyndis from a small village north of Glasgow,and I grew up the son of a Church of Scotland minister in central Scotland. Wehave been living in Edinburgh for the pastthree years, where Rosalynd has beentraining as an attorney and working as aHuman Resources consultant while I haveundergone training for ordination into theministry of the Church of Scotland. As mytraining has progressed I have increasing-ly felt God’s call away from the Church of Scotland to the work of churchplanting. I am delighted that the ARPhas afforded me the opportunity to an-swer this call.Edinburgh is Scotland’s capital cityand has a population of around 400,000people. Leith is situated in the north of the city on the shores of the River Forthabout a mile from the city centre. Tra-ditionally, Leith has been an industrialarea based around shipping. The docksare still operational but not on the samescale as in former years as industrialbuildings are being replaced by bars andrestaurants. The social mix in the areacan be described as deprived residentialareas only a stone’s throw from brandnew luxury apartments. In recent yearsthere has been increased migration tothe city and there is a fairly prominentPolish community in the area.Leith has been earmarked for consid-erable further development with plansto build 16,000 homes over the next 20years. Those plans do not seem to in-clude provision for the development of new churches to reach out to the grow-

Parenting ChurchCommunity

What is Reformission Scotland?

evangelicalism has been inltrated by

theological liberals. We concluded thata new, more radical approach was need-ed. In England, we could see that theReformed Church was growing throughthe planting of new, missional churchescommitted to the doctrines of grace. Welonged to see that happen in Scotland,but we knew that it could not happenthrough our own denomination.We started to think of a partner churchto work with us. Working alongside an-other Reformed Church would provide anumber of advantages including the doc-trinal anchor and accountability needed.Dr. Sinclair Ferguson recommendedthat we consider the ARP Church. In2007, Rev. David Court and I met with Dr.John Carson in St. Andrews, Scotland toshare our vision for a new presbytery of churches committed to Reformed doc-trine, cultural engagement, and radical

church planting. This rst step was hum

-bly taken in a town steeped in associa-tions with reformers such as John Knox,Patrick Hamilton, and George Wishart.We found the ARP Church to be likea family; a body of believers who have aScottish heritage and yet remain true tothe Westminster standards. It has been aprivilege to feel welcomed and to knowthe warmth and concern of new foundfriends. The strong but gentle hand of Providence has brought us together witha partner denomination that has a com-

Fall 2009 Page 3

By Ivor MacDonald

Chairman, Reformission Scotland

Scotland, the spiritual homeof the ARP Church, mightseem an unlikely mission

eld. However, the church

is only one generation awayfrom extinction, and for some time theChurch of Scotland has been blighted byliberalism of ancient and modern variet-ies. Today there are many places in thecountry where the people are two orthree generations removed from any realacquaintance with the Gospel of JesusChrist.Notable ministries from the 1950s on-wards led to a rebirth of interest in ex-pository preaching. However, despite thefact that today there are now more evan-gelical ministries than before in Scot-land, there are very few evangelical con-gregations. In addition, a willingness toembrace the notion of a “broad church”and make the necessary adjustments hasgreatly weakened evangelicalism.Some of us began to realize that in-

stead of evangelicalism quietly inltrating

the national church (as had been hoped),ing population. However, there is sometalk of having an interfaith centre in thearea where all religions can come andworship together. Sadly, this is not sur-prising in 21st Century Scotland wherethe overwhelming worldview is secularpluralism. Scotland is now very much apost-Christian society where most peo-ple under 40 have rarely been anywherenear a church and most have never heardthe Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.This situation presents a tremendouschallenge but it also gives a wonderfulopportunity as we seek to plant a churchin the area. In the next month, Rosalyndand I will move into the heart of Leithand begin making contact with the peo-ple. We will start to gather a core groupof believers together to pray and planfor the launch of the mission. We wouldgreatly appreciate your prayers that theLord would lead us to the right peopleto form the core group as well as givingus an open door into the lives of thoseHe has called us to reach. We long tosee lives changed through this ministryand have been so blessed by the supportand care shown by our American broth-ers and sisters as we begin this work.mitment to the Great Commission andevangelism through church planting.In Scotland, ten men with the samevision from three denominations formedan advisory committee called Reformis-sion Scotland. We asked First Presbyteryto help with this mission, and on Septem-

ber 24, 2009 our rst church planter, At

-hole Rennie, was licensed to preach theGospel. He was ordained in Scotland bya commission of First Presbytery on No-vember 3. Athole will be working in theLeith area in the northern part of Edin-burgh.It is our prayer that this would be the

rst of ve church plants in the next ve

years. Reformission Scotland will be re-sponsible for seeking prospective church

planters within Scotland, raising nance,

strategic planning, and on the ground su-pervision. The new church plants will bepart of First Presbytery until such timeas a Scottish Presbytery can be formed.Pray that God will bless us as we worktogether for better days for the Gospelin Scotland.

Free brochures about ChurchPlanting in Scotland are availablefrom ONA.

Send

fnancial contributions to:

First PresbyteryMr. Terry Wallace, Treasurer65 Drayton CircleFlat Rock, NC 28731(Tag checks for ScotlandChurch Plant)