Category Archives: NET4Christ News

Ministries partner to offer life skills

Posted on by Lynda Stringer

March 24, 2016 | By LYNDA STRINGER

canstock8273718A series of Thursday night classes that begins tonight at Titus County Cares seeks to give people facing economic challenges a boost.

Life STEP, which stands for Skills Training Empowering People, includes personal money management, job skills training, meal planning on a budget and health and wellness tips.

The first week’s session is on financial management taught by Danny Muskrat. Week two’s session on March 31, led by Jeffrey Crab, will teach students how to properly fill out a job application and how to conduct themselves in a job interview. The third session on April 7 will be taught by Tennison Memorial United Methodist Church Pastor Mike Cline.

“That class will teach you how to grocery shop and prepare a meal using a lot of the items at the TCC food pantry,” said Caroline Blackard, a member of Center Church which is partnering with TCC to launch the new program.

The final week’s class on healthy lifestyles will be taught by Leah Crabb and Stephanie Guzman, Center Church members and registered nurses.

“They will be teaching healthy eating and basic medicines that you should have on hand to keep your family healthy,” Blackard said.While the classes are going on, there will be games and activities for the kids. That part will be organized by Center Church member Sarah Muskrat.

Crabb, who serves on the Titus County Cares board is also a member of Center Church, but he stresses that while his church is launching the program, they are reaching out to other churches and organizations in the community to get involved with the new ministry outreach.

“Right now it’s mostly Center Church people leading it, but it’s not a Center Church thing. We expect that if it does well and grows, we will need help from the community,” he said. Titus County Cares volunteers and National Honor Society students will be involved when the classes kick off. Crabb said this type of outreach has been something Titus County Cares has talked about for years.

“Our vision is so much more than just feeding people. Yes, we’re an emergency food pantry, but beyond that, we yearn to help these families in trying situations get out of those situations,” he said. “We talk about how we can better equip them to find a job, to manage their money. That’s been a conversation for a long time.”

The classes are open to anyone in the community not just TCC customers and having the classes at the community organization’s facility rather than at a church, regardless of denomination, is a more neutral location for many people who might not attend church.

“The facility fit the need of empowering people with knowledge in a place where they may feel more comfortable and a place that is centrally located,” Crabb said.

Center Church Pastor Jeremy Thomas said the program aligns with his congregation’s vision “to be a light in our city and make our city a better place.”

“We are looking for where God is working and joining him. He’s working at Titus County Cares, so it is a great partnership,” Thomas said.

The classes begin at 6 p.m. at the Titus County Cares building at 301 N. Edwards Ave. in Mount Pleasant.

After the 45-minutes classes, Crabb said there will be a time of fellowship and a cookout.

“We want to love on them. We’re here to love these people; we want to come together in that way, eat a meal and serve each other in that way,” he said.

For more information about the Life STEP classes, call Titus County Cares at 903-575-9157.

Lynda Stringer is a Mount Pleasant, TX-based freelance writer and owner of Stringer Media. Contact her at Lynda.Stringer@outlook.com.

MP Holy Yoga business in transition

Posted on by Lynda Stringer

 March 4, 2016 | By LYNDA STRINGER

Holy Yoga

Photo by LYNDA STRINGER

 

Rachel Barkley and her business are both undergoing a transitional period as the new fitness venture seeks a permanent home.

Barkley launched Fresh Yoga & Wellness in September 2015 and held classes at 3rd Street Nutrition until recently. She decided to seek out a location that could offer her students more flexible class schedules and until she finalizes those plans, she’s holding classes, at least through March, in the former Lawler Vision Center building on Van Buren Avenue.

“It’s a smaller setting over there, so we will have smaller classes for now, but I added a 9 a.m. class to see if I could hit some new people,” Barkley said.

The class schedule includes a Tuesday and Thursday 5 p.m. class, an early bird Wednesday class that meets at 5:15 a.m. and the 9 a.m. class, which meets on Tuesdays. She also holds classes in the park on occasional Saturdays. That class will meet today at 8:30 a.m. at Dellwood Park.

“I have a community of people who have been coming to these classes and Kellye Cooper, one of my students, actually provided the space for us for March,” Barkley said. “It’s temporary right now.

I’m getting the word out to gyms and churches and chiropractors and counselors.”

Barkley has also started booking private sessions for clients.

“These sessions, which are one on one or a small group setting, are structured to meet specific needs, whether it’s emotional or spiritual or different physical modifications they need and don’t feel comfortable in a group setting,” she said. “It is more personally targeted with journaling and meditation.”

Barkley is a registered Holy Yoga Instructor and in May will earn certifications in Christian Yoga Therapy and Trauma Sensitive Yoga. She has been a personal trailer since 2008.

She said meditation is a big part of Holy Yoga. The difference in this Christian-based form of the art is that the students meditate on scripture.

“It provides that shift in perspective that this life is a process and we can release striving for perfection and pick up walking with the Holy Spirit and seeking the Lord for guidance and walking step by step in what he wants to stir in us today,” she said.

The group classes incorporate meditation, but not as in-depth.

“There is more journaling and discussion in the private and small group sessions,” she said.

Barkley said yoga is becoming more popular as a referral from the medical community because of its stress-relieving focus and scientific studies that have revealed the impact that stress has on overall health.

“People realize they are stressed, but they don’t realize how much stress affects them,” she said. “I love the study of it and seeing the people that are coming to my class and experiencing that they are able to work themselves out of that with breathing exercises. They are able to let go of it spiritually and give it to God.”

She said the reaction from the community has been extremely good since she opened for business, although she admits it raised some eyebrows.

“Some people have said, ‘Hmm, yoga and Jesus? I didn’t know those two could go together,’” she said, laughing. “But, they have been really supportive.”

The difference in her class is inserting Biblical scripture and connecting yoga’s concepts to the Christian faith.

“Yoga isn’t a religion. It’s a physical practice. Yoga means to yoke and in Holy Yoga we yoke the breath, movement and meditation. The meditation side is where you would insert a religion or thought process. We meditate on the Bible, on truth,” Barkely said. “A lot of the verbiage that is used in a holy yoga class you would find in other yoga classes, surrendering a pose, being rooted or grounded or fixing your gaze. Our verbiage is tied to the Gospel.”

Rather than practicing self-actualization or transcending oneself, Holy Yoga recognizes that “there is no real self-realization with knowing who you are in Jesus Christ,” Barkley said. 

Barkley, who has two kids and a husband – Drew Barkley, a teacher and coach at Mount Pleasant High School who fully supports her, –is finding herself in a transitional period as well.

“For me personally, I am in a process of letting go of my expectations for what the business should like and I’m letting God mold and lead,” she said.

Surprisingly, she has found that part of the molding process has come from some of her students.

“Every person that has come to the classes has brought something to the table. They’ve brought encouragement and support and love when I’ve needed it or Kellye providing the location or another friend saying they would help get the word out. You can’t do it alone and I’ve been overwhelmed by the people that he has put in those classes. He has them there for a reason,” she said.

Lynda Stringer is a Mount Pleasant, TX-based freelance writer and owner of Stringer Media. Contact her at Lynda.Stringer@outlook.com.

Gospel, People, Movement

Posted on by Lynda Stringer

March 1, 2016 | By LYNDA STRINGER

 

Center-Service

Contributed photo/CENTER CHURCH

 

Center Church celebrated its 1st anniversary with balloons during the worship service Sunday night. 

Tuesday marks one year since Center Church held its first worship service.

Led by Pastor Jeremy Thomas, the unique congregation has grown steadily over the past year and is only looking for that growth to continue.

Unlike most churches, the nondenominational flock doesn’t meet on Sunday mornings. Instead, members and visitors gather on comfy chairs, couches, and white-painted pews in the space above Jo’s Coffee Shop at 5 p.m. on Sunday evenings to soak in the contemporary music and Thomas’ message.

Baptisms are held on the patio behind the building; new believers are submerged in water in a horse trough colorfully airbrushed with the words, “Made New.” The public professions of faith are followed by a church-wide celebration with a meal they call “Community Night.”

“When we launched that first Sunday night, it was packed. It was a fun time and throughout this past year, we’ve seen close to 30 people come to know Christ,” said Thomas, who was part of Trinity Baptist Church’s ministry team and involved in Ark Ministries before the new church was planted.

Center Church and Jo’s Coffee Shop are both under the nonprofit umbrella of Ark Ministries, which hosts concerts and other events in the area.

“We had been doing Ark Ministries for a couple of years at that point and we realized that we weren’t great at getting people from this initial experience of God to being engaged and going further into a relationship with Christ,” Thomas said.

The Ark Ministries team purchased the building where Jo’s Antiques had stood on the corner of North Jefferson and 1st Street after its owner, Jo Campbell, passed away in 2013. Used as a meeting venue for the community on a limited schedule, the ministry then launched the coffee shop with Heather Kimball at the helm in early 2015, and then Thomas, Jeffery and Leah Crabb, Sara and Danny Muskrat, Kyle and Cheryl Shovan and Jesus Garcia decided to follow a calling to found the church.

“It was on my heart for sure and on their hearts, too, that we saw a need for it and thought that this could be an incredible thing,” Thomas said.

The partnership between Jo’s and the church makes it even more unusual, with proceeds from the coffee shop benefiting the church.

“We see it as an incredible way to be available to the city in more ways than an hour on Sunday,” Thomas said. “We can provide a place that is safe and fun that teens and college students and adults, too, can come and hang out. We’ve seen God do a lot of cool things through those times and, sometimes, even cooler than what we’ve seen on a Sunday night.”

 

Center-Baptism

Contributed photo/CENTER CHURCH

 

Pastor Jeremy Thomas finds a horse trough works fine for baptisms at Center Church, which meets on Sunday evenings above Jo’s Coffee Shop.

The mantra of the church is #gospelpeoplemovement, a hashtag you’ll find frequently on its social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and a philosophy that encourages members to take the church into the community.

With about 100 active members and 40 kids filling the small space, Thomas said eventually they will have to consider a different location or add another service. But even with that decision, they are looking at it from a nontraditional perspective.

“One of our founding things is we don’t necessarily want to put up a building that sits empty 90 percent of the week. Whenever we do something, we want it to be like Jo’s Coffee Shop, an incredible community place where people can gather, have meetings, study or whatever that looks like. So that’s in our planning, but we are still seeking God’s will in that area.”

As the church leadership team looks ahead to its second year, avenues of ministry are ever widening. Thomas said the church will launch a partnership with Titus County Cares on April 1 for a ministry they will call Life STEP, which stands for Skills Training Empowering People.

“We’ll offer weekly classes in different topics such as personal financial management, cooking, health and wellness, job skills, resumes, applications, things like that,” he said.

In conjunction with those classes, they will offer activities for the children of the parents involved in the classes. That vision also includes afterschool programs offering sports, tutoring and mentoring for kids.

“Life STEP will be a step for us to see what’s out there and to really begin to invest in our city,” Thomas said.  “One of our big goals for this year is to make inroads into uniting multiple organizations throughout our city to accomplish some very big goals.”

Titus County Cares was a natural avenue for starters, but they want to reach out to the school districts, the police department, and other organizations in the city to form partnerships for social initiatives, he said.

Several community groups meet for Bible study and fellowship during the week and they have recently started a college ministry called CenterCrew for young adults 18 to 25 that will begin having events on Friday nights. Part of that ministry is reaching out to students at Northeast Texas Community College.

“We go out to the college every Sunday and provide lunch. We saw a need there because there are students who don’t have transportation and there was a lack of food services on the weekends, so it’s been a cool thing,” Thomas said.

The ministry team feeds about 30 to 40 students Sunday lunch and plans to add activities for them.

“We don’t want it to just be a meal and move on. We really want to build those relationships because our thing is we really feel like we can change the world. It’s crazy. There are kids at the college from Ireland and South Africa and all over the United States,” he said.

Members of the church are providing rides to the students to get to Center’s Sunday night services and several have started to attend.

“It’s fun to help them have a better college experience, make friends and find people they know they can count on when they’ve had a tough day,” he said.

Thomas, a self-avowed introvert, says he felt the call to ministry when he was a senior in high school. He had taught Bible studies for years, but stepped onto the stage in front of an enthusiastic crowd one year ago, a little uncertain about his public speaking abilities.

But he forged ahead, faithful to God’s leading. And today, looking back, he says he is amazed at how God has used him to change people’s lives.

“It’s pretty much 100 percent consistent that on days I think I haven’t performed or didn’t have my stuff together, things came out wrong or didn’t come out at all, that I see God working most,” he said. “So for me, it’s this humbling, beautiful thing to know that God is in such control that he’s moving things forward with or without me and changing people lives.”

Still, he hopes he can help them change lives. “I want them to see where God is working and join him to bring justice to social and economic needs while bringing the light of Jesus into some dark parts of our city,” Thomas says.

He wants the next generation not to say they “went to church,” but instead to say, “we are the church.”

Lynda Stringer is a Mount Pleasant, TX-based freelance writer and owner of Stringer Media. Contact her at Lynda.Stringer@outlook.com.

Troops to receive Valentines, prayers

Posted on by Lynda Stringer

February 11, 2016 | By LYNDA STRINGER

MOM Valentines

Photo by LYNDA STRINGER

Troops deployed overseas and military members of local families are getting some sweet treats for Valentine’s Day.

 

Ministering Our Military sent 25 care packages filled with Valentine candy and cards as part of a new aspect of its Holidays for Heroes campaign.

The group’s largest care package effort is for Christmas. This past December, they mailed more than 400 packages filled with snacks, necessities and Christmas cards.

“We decided last year that we were going to try to observe every holiday and we’re starting this year with Valentine’s Day,” said Kellye Cooper, M.O.M. co-founder. “Then, we plan to do Easter and the Fourth of July.”

The group also sends birthday care packages to each military member on its list.

“For those stationed stateside, our local MMs, we sent Valentine M&Ms candies and a Valentine’s Day card,” Cooper said. “For those deployed, we sent Little Debbie heart-shaped cakes, packages of Valentine’s candy and boxes of Sweethearts, the little candies with Valentine messages on them.”

Cooper said she hopes this lets troops know they aren’t forgotten throughout the year.

“A lot of people do stuff at Christmas, but obviously, they are there throughout the year, so we just want them to realize that we are always thinking about them, not just at Christmas and on their birthdays,” Cooper said.

Another addition to the group’s efforts is keeping in contact with Gold Star families – those whose military member lost their life. 

“Any time we send out packages for our military, we will send a card to our Gold Star families to let them know that we are thinking about them,” said KC Fortenberry, the group’s secretary. 

M.O.M. members signed Valentine’s Day cards for them at the group’s February meeting and they were mailed last Tuesday.

“This is just another way we can let them know that we care about them and pray for them daily. Their child’s sacrifice will not be forgotten,” Fortenberry said.

Cooper said the group has about 10 Gold Star families in the area that they are ministering to.

The next step for the group is to have a card campaign.

“We would like for groups of children or adults to make handmade cards for us,” Cooper said. “People can drop off signed cards or handmade cards and we can have them in stock for whenever we do a mail out. That way, people can be involved at other times, not just at Christmas.”

Lynda Stringer is a Mount Pleasant, TX-based freelance writer and owner of Stringer Media. Contact her at Lynda.Stringer@outlook.com.

Facebook connects MP missionary with African family

Posted on by Lynda Stringer

January 29, 2016 | By LYNDA STRINGER

Paul Coffman

Contributed photo/PAUL COFFMAN

Paul Coffman is heeding scripture in the Bible to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel.”

 

A Titus County business owner and pastor of Southside Church of Christ in Linden, he has a heart to help orphans and villagers in Uganda. But, the mission work he has been doing in the Kasese District of Uganda reached a young woman in Ghana on the other side of the African continent through Facebook.

Precious Yah is just 24 years old and is caring for six children; only one of them is her own child. She is a Liberian refugee who came to Ghana with her sister and family during the Liberian War when she was a young girl.

“Her parents were killed in that war and she was brought over by her aunt and uncle,” Coffman said. “But, in Ghana, a Liberian is a second-rate citizen. They have no legal right to work.”

He said Yah’s sister, her aunt and uncle and a friend from the refugee camp have all died, so she now takes care of their children as well as her 4-year-old son from a man who assaulted her and would not claim the child. 

In desperation, she contacted Coffman on Facebook after seeing posts about his mission trips to three Ugandan orphanages.

“This is a mission effort that spread from my trips there. When she saw me working with kids in Uganda, she hoped there would be a chance for me to help them as well,” Coffman said.

He said there are a lot of scams, so he asked a pastor friend to visit the refugee camp and verify her story.

“He messaged me and said she was living in Sodom and Gommorah, in a situation where there was open prostitution and the men were drunkards,” Coffman said. 

They had come to Ghana seeking safety, but they were living in dire poverty and fear, he said.

“At that point, I found a house that we rented outside of the refugee camp for $50 a month and we got a 6-month lease. It has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. She stated that this was the first time the kids had ever slept on beds,” Coffman said.

In the camp, they put towels on the floor to sleep in a room the family of seven shared with six other strangers, he said.

Coffman’s efforts are not his own. Several Church 

of Christ congregations and individuals in East Texas are generously giving funds to help the young woman raise the children who range in age from 4 to 10, five boys and one girl.

“New Boston Church of Christ bought the beds and my wife and I and Highway 8 Church of Christ in Linden are helping pay the rent,” he said.

Once the family was out of the danger of the camp, he said they faced another problem: they lost their access to food and they hadn’t been to school in three years.

“The group needs to go to school and we found one they can attend for $595 for the seven of them for three months. Blodgett Church of Christ (in Titus County) is picking up the first three months. That pays for their uniforms, the teachers and books,” he said.

But, there is another need as well. He said the oldest of the children will soon be going into classes that require computers. Coffman, who owns Coffman Computers, can’t ship them himself because the outlets are different in Africa, so they need funding to purchase them there.

Clothes are also an issue.

“We can’t ship clothes at an economical rate. It costs $165 to ship 20 pounds of clothes. It’s not guaranteed that they will get there and they have to pay to get them out of the post office,” he said.

Bethel Church of Christ north of Mount Pleasant has collected funds to buy clothes and uniforms, he said.

Coffman plans to visit Yah and her children in Ghana when he goes on his next mission trip to Uganda in October.

“I plan to stop in there and check on their needs,” he said.

Coffman has been a missionary in Uganda since October of 2014, helping three orphanages and a group of widows living in the mountains. Donations from Church of Christ congregations and individual members have also helped build the Rwenzori School of Preaching in Kasese, Uganda. On Jan. 11, 13 students began the two-year program of Bible studies.

“When I went to visit the widows on the mountain, they said I was the first missionary to have come to help them in the eight years they had been there. They gave me the name Mazerack, which means third son of my father,” Coffman said. “So, I am Ugandan now. When they give you a Ugandan name, you know you are accepted into their population.”

Coffman said the hundreds of children in the villages follow him wherever he goes. On his last visit, a little girl named Win, who held his fingers on the first day of church services, came back every day with more children.

“By Sunday, she had brought 78 kids with her,” he said. “The kids call me ‘The Candy Man who Speaks of Jesus’ and I’m willing to take that title,” he said.

Coffman was also accepted in two Muslim villages after meeting a Muslim man who had a stomach disorder and needed milk.

“I bought him a goat and he told me ‘I hope you are not upset that I am giving the leftover milk to the Muslim children.’ The Muslims invited me in and wanted to know about this Christian who is being nice to Muslims when the Muslims have not been so nice to Christians,” he said. 

The man he gave the goat to, named Hangson, converted to Christianity, Coffman said.

Coffman is passionate about his mission work, pouring over photos in his home computer repair shop, pointing out the sights, the people, the poverty and the love they have for God and for the Christians who come to help them.

“I am so humbled by the way they welcome me with open arms,” he said. “I love the fact that they are so desirous to hear about God and to read the Bible.”

Donations toward Coffman’s mission work in Uganda and Ghana can be mailed to Southside Church of Christ at P.O. Box 1112, Linden, Texas 75563.

Lynda Stringer is a Mount Pleasant, TX-based freelance writer and owner of Stringer Media. Contact her at Lynda.Stringer@outlook.com.