Mission & Mercy Ministry Update - 2024, Issue 12
Table of Contents
Prayer Focus: Unsaved Family and Friends
Mission Highlight: A Year in Review
Mission Highlight: OCC Boxes on Their Way Around the World
Opportunity: Registration Now Open for 2025 Perspectives Class
Upcoming UBC Mission Trips: Planning for 2025
Prayer Focus
Unsaved Family and Friends
Typically, our prayer focus calls attention to unreached people groups or areas around
the world where our missionaries are serving. This month, we shift our attention closer to home. As we begin the month of December, we’ll use this Christmas season as an opportunity to pray for:
Our unsaved family and friends
The burden and boldness to share the good news with them and to be witnesses of what Jesus has done for us.
A 2021 Lifeway Research study found that 9 in 10 U.S. adults say they celebrate Christmas. This includes those of other religions (74%) and those with no religious affiliation (82%).
While it is unlikely the majority of these are celebrating the birth of our Savior, it seems there is no other time throughout the year when people are so exposed to gospel truths, whether it is through theologically rich Christmas carols and songs, or images of the Nativity on Christmas cards, decorations and displays. This season is the perfect time to pray that this gospel exposure will spark questions and conversations that lead to transformed lives.
Start by creating your own relationship map. Think of and write down the names of people in your life who are far from God such as family members, friends, coworkers, or neighbors. Next, commit to pray for them regularly - daily if possible. Then, ask God for opportunities to point them to their need for a Savior.
Let us intentionally pray for the time with unbelieving family and friends this month. Below are some suggested prayers.
Prayers
For unsaved family and friends:
Pray that God would replace a heart of stone that is cold and unyielding with a new heart - a heart of flesh - that is responsive to Him. (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26)
Pray that God would remove Satan’s blinding influence and give them spiritual sight to see their poverty before God, their need for a Savior, and “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)
Pray that God would free them from the slavery of sin. Unbelievers may believe they are free, but they are, in fact, enslaved. Pray that God would liberate them by his gospel. (Romans 6:17)
Pray that they would come to Christ fully believing His declaration in John 14:6.: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.
For you:
Pray for opportunities to love and serve them. (Matthew 5:16)
Pray for a burden to plead for their souls (Romans 10:1) and to be faithful and persistent in these prayers (Colossians 4:2).
Pray for boldness in generating and taking opportunities to speak the gospel. (Ephesians 6:19)
Pray for other believers to encounter them. (1 Corinthians 3:6)
Pray with confidence. (James 5:16)
Mission Highlight
A Year in Review
This year, has been an exciting year for UBC and our missional activities. We have seen many go and serve, and a few of our own financially-supported missionaries have stopped by UBC to visit. We have enjoyed hearing the stories of how God is moving in the hearts of brothers and sisters around the world, and how He is moving in our hearts here as well.
At least 95 UBC participants have gone on trips and been to 5 different continents this past year. We have had opportunities to be the hands and feet of Christ by laboring with Builders for Christ, through medical trips, running sports clinics, and sharing the gospel and training up believers in refugee camps.
Here are locations (participants) where we have served:
North America: Eau Claire (29), Salt Lake City (20 - including our STUMIN team), Heartsong tour (4), Denver (2), Alaska (2), Washington DC (1), Florida (1), and North Carolina (1)
Central and South America: Argentina (9), Colombia (5), Paraguay (4), and Mexico (1)
Europe: London (2), Spain (2), Portugal (1), and Eastern Europe (1)
Africa: Uganda (3) and Zimbabwe (2)
Asia: South Asia (5) and Southeast Asia (1)
We were also blessed to have some of our missionaries to stop and share. This year we were visited by Natasha Dobson (Dominican Republic), David and Joy Weaver (Philippines), Dale Puckett (Florida), Clint Mahan (Missouri), and ND Lama (Asia). We have also been blessed to have Brian and Nina back at UBC for an extended period of time.
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms…so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.” I Peter 4:10-11
To God be the glory for what He has done in and through us in 2024!
Mission Highlight
OCC Boxes On Their Way Around The World
Thank you for partnering with Samaritan’s Purse to send gift-filled Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes to children in need around the world together with the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Another Operation Christmas Child season has drawn to a close, with 661 shoeboxes collected at University Baptist Church. This is an increase of 149 over last year, and is significant as each shoebox represents an opportunity to share the Gospel! We are so grateful to everyone who participated!
If you plan to follow your box, you can enter your label code or email here. Continue to pray for the salvation of the children and families receiving the boxes and for the safety of those delivering the boxes and sharing the Gospel.
Opportunity
Registration Now Open for 2025 Perspectives Class
Perspectives is coming back in 2025! Sign up by December 1st for $25 off your registration.
What is Perspectives?
It’s a 15-week course, rooted in Scripture, that explores God’s glorious purpose and the unique role He has designed for each Christ-follower in making His Name known. Instructors with various missions and ministry backgrounds will share from their experiences and teach on the biblical, historical, cultural and strategic perspectives of God’s plan for the nations. The Perspectives experience is enhanced by in-class interaction and prayer, and by completing the assigned reading and questions individually.
Students can enroll at 3 levels: key reader, certificate and credit. The course will be held on Sundays from 6-9pm, from January 12 – April 27 at the Ledbetter Road Church of God in Xenia. The cost is $250 but you’ll receive $25 off if you register by December 1st. UBC will reimburse 50% to members and regular attenders who complete the course.
Listen to what a recent attendee had to say about the course.
“This course has been genuinely life changing in a world that continues to drag one down mentally, physically, and spiritually. Perspectives has been a key in unlocking many truths that I’ve held my whole life, but did not have the tools, or perspective to access. I cannot recommend this course enough for the Christian that desires to be used, desires for purpose, and desires to be a part, no matter how small, in Christ’s grand plan for us all.” –Caleb Fecher
Have questions? Stop by the Ministry Table or talk to a member of the Mission Core Team.
To register or for more info: https://perspectives.org/courses/xenia-oh-s25/
Monthly Mission Quote:
…It is the story of God’s kingdom being launched on earth as in heaven, generating a new state of affairs in which the power of evil has been decisively defeated, the new creation has been decisively launched, and Jesus’ followers have been commissioned and equipped to put that victory and that inaugurated new world into practice. Atonement, redemption, and salvation are what happen on the way because engaging in this work demands that people themselves be rescued from the powers that enslave the world in order that they can be rescuers in return. To put it another way, if you want to help inaugurate God’s kingdom, you must follow in the way of the cross, and if you want to benefit from Jesus’ saving death, you must become part of his kingdom purpose.
— N.T. Wright (Inaugurating the Kingdom)
Upcoming Mission Trips
"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news..." Romans 10:15
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How beautiful are your feet?
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"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news..." Romans 10:15 ~ How beautiful are your feet? ~
Planning for 2025
UBC is currently planning for mission trips for 2025! There will be local, national, and global trips offered.
If you are planning to participate on a mission trip with another organization (e.g., Cedarville’s GO trips), please contact us to let us know more!
If there is a nation or a people group that God has placed on your heart, share it with us. We would love the opportunity to hear and to help you find a trip in the coming year. Reach out to Jim Corbin (jim.corbin@ubcbeavercreek.com).
March 28 - April 7, 2025
Paraguay
Medical trip with ABWE, sharing God’s Love with the Gospel and medical care.
Contact: Jim CorbinMay 8-18, 2025
Bangladesh
Teach English, help with basic computer skills, or working with children in pre-schools.
Contact: Jim CorbinMay 24 - June 2, 2025
Namibia
Assist The Bahuns in their ministry and help with their local church Mission Conference.
Contact: Jim CorbinJune 5-20, 2025
Uganda
Come help serve South Sudanese refugees as we share the gospel and start discipleship groups.
Contact: Jim CorbinAugust 1-10, 2025
Argentina
Work with Pastor Fabian Santillan and his church as they share the gospel and plant another church.
Contact: Jim CorbinSummer 2025
Builders for Christ
Serve in the mission field of church construction and help a church build their building in Sterling, MA.
Contact: Dave Gneiser
Contact to learn more:
Jim Corbin
jim.corbin@ubcbeavercreek.com
To read past Mission Updates or to get more information about UBC on Mission, visit
https://www.ubcbeavercreek.com/mission-and-mercy-ministries.