<p>Man-Sask Church Planting Newsletter, April 1, 2013</p><p>Winnipeg Central Church Prepares to Launch The “Winnipeg Central” Church Plant will begin meeting in a rented venue on Sabbath, April 13. They have just signed a rental contract with the Home Street Mennonite Church to use their facility, located at 318 Home Street in Winnipeg. The church planting team will spend the next several Sabbaths fine-tuning their Sabbath services, and preparing for their Grand Opening. Pray for Enock Oduro and his team members as they prepare for their public launch. Pray that everyone on the church planting team will bring at least one non-Adventist friend to the Grand Opening Celebration. I have challenged the team to set a goal of at least 50 non-Adventist guests on their launch day.</p><p>Alex Portillo Accepts Invitation to Plant A Church at the U of Manitoba Another exciting development in Man-Sask Church Planting is that Alex Portillo has accepted a call to launch a new church on the campus of the University of Manitoba. Alex graduates this month from CUC with his B.A. in Religious Studies. He is gifted speaker, and a talented worship leader. Alex has a passion for reaching secular young adults. Pastor Alex is from Silver Spring , MD. He’ll be arriving in Winnipeg on July 1. He will have some support for a few months from another CUC student, Seth Bussey, who will be serving as a short-term Bible worker to help get this new congregation up and running. Pray for Alex and Seth as they gather a team and launch this new congregation.</p><p>The Most Effective Evangelistic Method in the World The most effective way to reach new people for Christ’s kingdom is to plant new churches. Younger congregations grow more rapidly than mature congregations. Recent studies of Seventh-day Adventist congregations in North America indicate that the older the congregation, the more likely it is to be in decline. The younger the congregation, the more likely it is to be growing. Ellen White was very clear about the urgent need for us to launch new churches. In 1902 she wrote, “Place after place is to be visited; church after church is to be raised up” (Testimonies for the Church, volume 7, page 20).</p><p>So Many Churches to Plant; So Little Time There are literally hundreds of communities in our conference in which we need to start new Seventh-day Adventist Churches. Ellen White said, “I saw jets of light shining from cities and villages... God’s word was obeyed, and as a result there were memorials for Him in every city and village.” (9T 28) As God pours out His Spirit in latter rain power, we must aggressively launch new churches in the cities, towns and villages of our conference. Communities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan by Population (According to 2011 Census Data)</p><p>Population of Community Number of communities in MB Number of communities in SK</p><p>Over 500,000 1 (Winnipeg) 0</p><p>100,000 – 500,000 0 2 (Saskatoon & Regina)</p><p>50,000 – 100,000 1 (Brandon) 0</p><p>25,000 – 50,000 0 2 (Moose Jaw & Prince Albert)</p><p>10,000 – 25,000 5 (Steinbach, Portage, Thompson, 5 (Estevan, N. Battleford, Swift Winkler, Selkirk) Current, Weyburn, Yorkton)</p><p>5,000 – 10,000 4 (Dauphin, Morden, The Pas, Flin 7 (Melville, Melfort, Meadow Lake, Flon) Martensville, Lloydminster, Humboldt, Warman) </p><p>2,000 – 5,000 20 (Norway House, Stonewall, 15 (Assiniboia, Battleford, Biggar, Altona, Swan River, Neepawa, Canora, Esterhazy, Fort Qu’Appelle, Niverville, Beausejour, Virden, Kindersley, La Ronge, Maple Creek, Carman, Oak Bank, St. Theresa Moosomin, Nipawin, Outlook, Point, Garden Hill, Peguis, Rosetown, Tisdale, Unity) Minnedosa, Sandy Bay, Nelson House, Lorette, OCN, Killarney, Split Lake, Fort Alexander)</p><p>1,000 – 2,000 44 38</p><p>Under 1,000 hundreds more than 250</p><p>“Oh That You Would Bless Me and Expand My Territory!” (The Prayer of Jabez, 1 Chronicles 4:10) From a church planting perspective, there are many communities in our territory which urgently need an Adventist Church. In our large, metropolitan cities, we should have a Seventh-day Adventist Church for every 25,000 people. That would mean 28 churches in Winnipeg, 9 churches in Saskatoon, and 8 in Regina. We have four cities with a population of over 10,000 in which we currently do not have an Adventist Church-- Steinbach, Winkler, Selkirk, and Estevan. (Winkler is close to Morden where have a small company established. So perhaps we don’t need to urgently target Winkler.) In Thompson, a city of 13,000, we have recently established a small house church. In addition to strengthening this church plant in Thompson, we need to launch new churches in Steinbach, Selkirk and Estevan. There are five small cities (5,000 to 10,000) in which we need to plant churches: Flin Flon, Melville, Melfort, Meadow Lake, and Humboldt. We currently have lay people living in Meadow Lake and Humboldt who are already in the early stages of church planting. There are 28 communities in Nunavut. We have congregations now meeting in 2 of those centres—Iqauit and Igloolik. By the grace of God we will launch Seventh-day Adventist congregations in every village in Nunavut. There are literally hundreds of towns and villages in our conference in which we have no Adventist presence. We could never afford to pay church planters to launch new congregations in all of these small communities. However, dedicated lay people can launch house churches in these towns and villages. We need to keep casting this vision. We need to pray earnestly for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.</p><p>Send Stories & Pictures God is on the move. There are exciting things happing in the Man-Sask Conference. Tell me what is happening in your church plant. Send me pictures. I’ll include them next month when I mail out the May 2013 edition of Man-Sask Church Planting News.</p><p>Church planting is all about preparing more people for the return of Jesus. It is the most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven.</p><p>Courage to you!</p><p>Jeff Potts Church Planting Coordinator Manitoba-Saskatchewan Conference Seventh-day Adventist Church (W) 306.244.9700 ext. 212 (M) 306.241.5138</p>