Harvest Bible Fellowship News

Friday, April 27 2012 @ 12:00 AM

A packed house of 2000+ pastors and ministry leaders from Harvest Bible Chapels around the world and churches outside our fellowship worshiped together for Harvest University. We are honored to serve with these pastors and leaders for the sake of the Gospel.

Watch this video to see how the Lord Jesus is building His church in our day.

CHURCH PLANTING EVENT @ Harvest Naperville, IL

Wednesday, April 25 2012 @ 12:00 AM

CHURCH PLANTERS - CORE GROUPS - PASTORS - LEADERS

We are looking for a passion that is rare. We're after leaders with drive to share their commitment, their pursuit, their all-consuming love of Christ - to know, deep down, that what you have is both a gift and a responsibility.

Harvest is calling all Church Planters, Core Groups, Pastors and Leaders interested in taking the next step with Harvest Bible Fellowship to attend.

It will be an intensive 1.5 day event of explanation on how to lead a movement in your city to establish a life-giving church. Now. This is your time.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR:

JUNE 10-11, 2012 - HARVEST NAPERVILLE, ILLINOIS

Visit ENTERHARVEST.com for detailed information and registration.

See you there!

Help Get Harvest Nairobi Started

Tuesday, May 15 2012 @ 12:00 AM

In 2008, the Lord led Harvest to the continent of Africa. By God's grace, six Harvest churches have been planted in Liberia and one church is preparing to launch in Cameroon. East Africa is a new field for Harvest and we are excited how the Lord has clearly led us to consider Nairobi, Kenya.

Peter Ngugi of Nairobi was introduced to Harvest in 2011 then assessed and selected to join the Harvest Training Center for Church Planting. February 4, 2012 he arrived at Harvest Elgin, IL and successfully completed his residency March 22. Peter received high marks from every trainer and we are excited to move forward with him to plant a life-giving Harvest Bible Chapel in Nairobi, Kenya. Peter completed an internship at Harvest Columbus, OH and returned to Nairobi April 9. Together with the fellowship, Peter now begins the journey of building a core group & leadership team.

Objectives | April - June: (1) Register Harvest Nairobi; (2) Set-up Office (3) Network & cast vision; (4) Grow & develop a Core Group

Objectives | July - September: (1) Continue building Core Group; (2) Choose leader team; (3) Equip Launch Team; (4) Secure Worship facility; (5) Promote Launch; (6) & Launch Harvest Nairobi

As a Harvest Church Planter, Peter will be accountable to Harvest Bible Fellowship in all areas of life and ministry including spiritual health, relationships, finances, the transfer of DNA, health of Core Group, selection of Ministry Leaders, equipping of Launch Team and launch. Harvest Bible Fellowship will carry his monthly salary. This covers rent, food, utilities, phone/internet, transport, & medical coverage. As the Core Group in Nairobi grows in strength, we will unwind gradually as tithes & offering are collected during the pre-launch & launch stages. Planting a self-sustaining church is a priority to us!

Start-up costs are needed to establish Harvest Church Planter Peter Ngugi and Harvest Nairobi.

$10,870 is needed.

Registration: $1000; Office Rent: $850 monthly x3 mos.; Furniture: $2000; Computer: $700; Printer: $300; Projector: $1000; Phone: $200; Cellphone: $300; Airtime: $150; Internet: $70; Venue for Core Group: $800; & Promotion $1800.

The launch of the church will be contingent on the core group and launch team raising necessary funds to have their first public worship service. The estimated cost of launching the church is an additional $35,000. This includes renting a worship venue, equipment, seats, children’s ministry & curriculum, hiring a worship leader, and promotion & marketing. A financial campaign will be carried-out by the launch team in Nairobi leading up to the launch of the church to cover these expenses.

Would you consider making a financial contribution to Harvest Bible Fellowship for Harvest Nairobi? We need your help.

Click on "Support through a one-time online gift".
FUND: International Church Planting
MEMO: Nairobi, Kenya
Enter AMOUNT and click on "Make Donation" to complete your gift.

Give by Mail:
Checks payable to: Harvest Bible Fellowship
Attn: International Church Planting
1000 N. Randall Rd. Elgin, IL 60123
Memo line: “Nairobi, Kenya”

For more information about Harvest Bible Fellowship, what we believe & how we plant churches internationally, contact Kirk, Director of International Church Planting, krv@harvestbiblefellowship.org.

Harvest Bible Fellowship is a 501(c)(3) organization; planting churches where God is visibly at work. Your gift is tax deductible and you will receive a contribution statement for your investment in Nairobi. 100% of your contribution will be stewarded to see a life-giving work established in Nairobi, Kenya.

Part of a Fellowship

Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 12:00 AM

It's truly amazing to see what God has done in our church in the last 18 months. I have had the privilege of seeing more things happen in the past 18 months as the pastor of this church then the previous nine years. Which honestly, I sometimes am embarrassed to admit, but it simply shows that there is an anointing on Harvest that is real and evident. It's like what Henry Blackaby says, "Don't always ask God to bless what you are doing, find out what God is blessing and go there."

That's what we did and we have seen God move. Before we launched if we averaged 85-90 in attendance and if we broke 105 we were really excited. Now if we see 135-140 each week, with peaks of 160. We ventured out and had our Easter service in the local High School and saw 215 people attend. That's the first time ever in the history of our church we ever broke 200.

We have people coming from 15 different towns and some people driving 35-40 minutes away to attend.

We have baptized 37 people with 10 of those being impromptus. We see people growing, serving and connecting with hearts that are simply sold out for Christ.

We hired our first time ever full time worship/youth pastor. He has taken our worship to a level that it's never been before. He has grown and developed the worship team and Sunday morning worship is truly amazing. He has been able to add more talent to the team to the degree that we now have two worship teams.

I tell you for so many years we were just like a boat on the ocean all by ourselves trying to do ministry. Today we truly feel we are part of a Naval Battle Group, part of a fellowship, that has one purpose, and that is to make disciples and bring glory to Jesus in His church. And right now that is what we are experiencing.

We are so blessed to be Harvest Bible Chapel Woodhull and to be part of the fellowship of so many amazing people.

Serving Together,
Jim Shannon
Senior Pastor
161 N. Division St., Woodhull, IL 61490

God at Work in North Indianapolis

Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 12:00 AM

After sensing the Lord’s call to a full-time preaching ministry in 2006, Brian White contacted Harvest Bible Fellowship after learning of its church-planting mission at a conference in his hometown of Indianapolis. “We saw Harvest’s bold, verse-by-verse preaching married with a heartfelt passion and contemporary expression of worship,” says Brian, “It was a first for us, and we really wanted to be a part of it.” So in 2006, Brian and his wife, Laura, and their two children moved up to Chicago to join the inaugural class of the Fellowship’s Training Center for nine months. In the midst of being inundated with information and training, Brian and Laura still did not give up traveling back to Indianapolis on the weekends to shepherd their growing core group. After completing the Training Center, they went back to this core group and launched Harvest North Indy in September 2007.

Since it’s launch almost five years ago, Brian has grown in his people a heart for missions and partnering with other Harvest churches. After meeting Senior Pastor Moses Wheigar from Harvest Paynesville, Liberia at Harvest University a few years ago, Brian had a specific vision for helping the Liberian churches. He says, “I told Kirk (Van Maanen, HBF’s Director of International Church Planting and Communication) I would lead a partnership of Harvest churches to help get a project in Liberia going.” So far, Harvest churches in Granger, IN, West Olive, MI, DeKalb, IL, and Brampton, ON, have joined with North Indy to begin serving and partnering with the Harvest in Paynesville, Liberia. “Our church got a vision for a Training Center in Liberia,” says Brian, “And I literally just picked up the phone and asked other Harvest pastors if they would want to be a part of it, and they came on board.”

Together these churches along with a few private donors have raised over $100,000 to build a Training Center in Liberia to be complete this fall. It will be used immediately for Harvest Christian Academy Paynesville and hopefully begin training future church-planting pastors sometime in early 2013.

“I’ve really learned over time,” says Brian, “that you have to be intentional in what you are trying to do. Seek the Lord’s face. Think about it. Plan it. Sometimes you feel like you’re walking down a dark hallway with sunglasses on banging into furniture, and you just bounce off and keep on going. But when we bounce off, we need to stop and be intentional. For example, while our church is excited about what we are helping to do in Liberia, we are also really passionate about adoption and orphan care. We took the time to stop and process adoption and orphan care theologically and preach about it, before we set up a ministry so people could understand what the Bible says about it. That was huge. So now we have a ministry about adoption and orphan care. We help fund adoptions and see kids come in from the Congo or China or locally. These are rejoicing points within our church, but only because we worked at being intentional.”

Brian and Laura have been touched personally by adoption as well when they adopted their second child, Jocelyn, now 6, at birth. She joined Karis, now 9, and later Brian and Laura added twin boys, Nathan and Samuel, 5, who were born while Brian was completing the Training Center in Illinois. They also now have Molly who is almost two. “The greatest picture of the Gospel we can give today is to adopt a child,” says Brian. “All of us, when we get saved, are adopted as God’s children. Adopting a child is a direct picture of what God has done for us.” He continues, “We feel like everything comes back to glorifying God by making disciples of all nations. Adoption flows out of that. Our ministry in Liberia flows out of that. Our local ministry flows out of that…everything does. Let’s be disciples that make disciples.”

2012 #HarvestU Recap

Friday, May 04 2012 @ 12:00 AM

The stories of praise keep pouring in...and by all accounts, this year's Harvest U was an unprecedented, two-and-a-half days of spiritual dynamite!

The theme of the conference, Building Strong Leaders Requires Enduring Commitments, was evident as 2000+ pastors, leaders and ministry servants from 78 Harvest Bible Chapels and 48 additional churches gathered, April 22-25. It was an awesome display of God's grace and favor upon this movement; and a visible sign of His promise to build His Church.

Worship times led by world-class local and international Harvest worship leaders and a live recording of "We're United" were anointed, drawing diverse tribes and nations and tongues into the presence and glory of God, with a deep sense of awe and corporate oneness words cannot aptly describe.

Teaching and direction delivered by James MacDonald, Todd Dugard, Kent Shaw, and a host of Harvest leaders underscored powerfully the intent of 2 Timothy 2:2, "and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also."

The bottom line? Attendees from 14 different nations and all facets of ministry were ignited and equipped with renewed passion, purpose, and plans for effectively ministering the gospel of Jesus Christ. Words like "life-changing", "ministry-renewing", "paradigm-shifting" and "God-glorifying" echoed in the halls, filled evaluation forms, continue to hit our in-boxes, and are reverberating in the hearts and lives of all who took part.

With testimonies and high-water marks too numerous to list, we can only give adoration, praise, and glory to our great God and Savior, who did and is working far more abundantly beyond all we'd asked or imagined.

Indeed, We're United.

FOR A FURTHER LOOK at what we are rejoicing over, view the kick-off video, ONE MISSION, & for all the God @ Work videos previewed at 2012HU, click here.

If you missed 2012 Harvest University or want to see it again; DVD & CD sets are now available here.

CHC: Haiti & Japan Update

Wednesday, May 02 2012 @ 12:00 AM

Thank you for your prayers and support for Churches Helping Churches (CHC)! With your help we are making a difference in the lives and ministries of pastors in Haiti and Japan.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." -Galatians 6:10

Together, Harvest Bible Chapels have raised nearly 20% of the total funds dedicated to help the churches in these countries. Praise God for the faithful obedience of His people!

As we continue to complete our programs in both Haiti and Japan, please pray with us for:

Continued grace in the logistics and completion of the remaining Haitian building projects.
Vision and leadership for the chaplaincy movement to reach isolated ministries in Japan.
Ongoing spiritual restoration and growth for the local churches in both Haiti and Japan.

In the following months you will hear more exciting news about the future of CHC and we look forward to continuing to see where God leads. Thank you again for partnering with us.

click on this link to download the video

Critical Success Factor #3

Friday, April 27 2012 @ 12:00 AM

The Right Training-

Harvest Bible Fellowship is equally committed to planting churches and training church planters. Over the past 11 years we have learned much about planting churches and what is needed to best equip and train church planters. Our training is focused in four important areas.

Our first priority and area of focus is thoroughly immersing our planters in the Harvest culture, distinctives and DNA. The end goal begin a comprehensive understanding of what it mean to be a Vertical Church, the 4 pillars of Harvest and our ministry model (the "funnel"); which is how we make disciples. Our most effective Senior Pastors are unabashed carriers of Harvest DNA.

The next key are of training is sharpening the preaching skills of our planters. Harvest Bible Chapel's founding and Senior Pastor James MacDonald has been invaluable in this vital area. We provide a great deal of instruction and several practicums to enable our men to work hard at preaching and teaching.

The third training focus is strengthening the leadership skills of the planter. As we have learned over time, God calls men, planters in the church, not only to preach but to lead His people. We desire to pass on biblical leadership principles to faithful men so they will in-turn build strong leaders.

The fourth priority is thorough training in the fundamentals of church planting. Many mistakes have been made, many lessons learned and we want our planters to gain from our experience.

This past week, we had the privilege to commission 17 church planters; now out in the field, developing core groups to launch Harvest churches. Help support a qualified and trained Harvest church planter. Click here.

God at Work in Glasgow

Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 12:00 AM

Having grown up in the countryside of Scotland, Scott Hamilton went to school in the small town of Dundee where he met his wife, Alison. After marriage, Scott began pastoring a very small Baptist church in the city of Glasgow. “Coming from a liberal school, I was very hungry for solid teaching,” recalls Scott, “A friend of mine gave me a few CDs of Pastor James MacDonald’s sermons, and not knowing anything about Harvest, Pastor James became a regular part of my spiritual diet.”

“I had gone to my small Baptist church as an expository Bible teacher with a strong emphasis on missions and evangelism with the hope of changing the community there,” says Scott. But after three years of pastoring, the leadership of the church began to move in a different direction—away from in-depth, expository preaching. Scott wasn’t willing to compromise his standards of godly teaching, nor saw it as beneficial to compromise relationships, so he and Alison began to wonder what it would look like to plant a church.

“We wanted a church with vibrant, contemporary worship as well as expository Bible preaching and an emphasis on small groups,” says Scott. They spent a year working with the leadership at their small church to see if something could work out, but within that time Scott began researching church-planting. Harvest had just redone their website, and Scott found the link to church-planting. “I assumed it was just North American church-planting,” he says, “But then I spotted churches in Liberia and Romania, so I emailed Harvest about possibly planting a church in Glasgow, thinking I would never hear back from them.” But within a week, in October 2008, HBF Executive Director Kent Shaw contacted Scott, and a relationship with the Fellowship began. Discouraged with their own church, Scott put in his resignation in November not knowing what was ahead for him and his family. “The very next day Kirk VanMaanen, Director of International Church Planting, from the Fellowship called and asked when we’d be available to come to Chicago to train to be a church-plant!” says Scott. “We craved relationship and accountability and longed to be a part of something bigger,” says Scott, “So in January, we came to Chicago and started training with the Fellowship.”

Scott and his family returned to Glasgow and started building their core group. On August 16, 2009 they launched their first service with 150 people. “We wanted to begin the wonderful Harvest combination of personal, dynamic, applicational truth with vibrant, powerful worship—a combination we had yet to find in Glasgow,” Scott says. “We now regularly have 70-80 people on a given weekend, which is like revival for us! Scotland is a very secular culture. Some Christians are not even allowed to wear a cross to work or pray with a co-worker without risking losing their job.”

As far as growing their church is concerned Scott says, “We work very hard on growing leadership, I’m the oldest guy in our church, literally, so I’m looking at it as a massive opportunity to grow a whole generation of leaders of young men and women who will give a lifetime to the Gospel.” Scott and Alison and their growing family, now with four kids, spend a lot of time establishing small groups as well. “These groups have become massively significant as we pursue one another in relationship, supporting each other in life and family development,” says Scott. And growing his own church is not Scott’s only plan. “Our goal has always been to be a church-planting church one day. We’d love to have six churches in six cities in Scotland to transform one nation in one generation! But God is the architect, and I’m looking to Him for the plans.”

God at Work in Decatur, IL

Friday, April 13 2012 @ 12:00 AM

In 2007, after finishing his master’s degree at Moody Bible Institute, Tony Caffey and his wife, Sanja, were eager for their next stage of life. As brand new parents and excited about Tony’s job offer as an associate pastor, Sanja stopped working full time, and Tony quit his job ready to move into this new ministry position. Tony also, at the behest of the church, put his Ph.D. program on hold to be able to dedicate himself fully to his new position. “We arranged our whole life for this job,” Tony recalls, “But the Friday before I was to start, the senior pastor called and reneged on their offer. We were really at a loss. I was angry and confused, not sure what the Lord was doing or why all this had taken place.”

During this time of indecision and confusion, Tony and Sanja attended a service at Harvest Bible Chapel Rolling Meadows. It was their first time to visit a Harvest after living in the Chicago area for seven years. Fittingly, Pastor James MacDonald was preaching on forgiveness. “I was really broken by the message and my own bitterness towards my former church,” says Tony. “The Holy Spirit was really working in that service to move me to forgiveness and break the path of bitterness that had started.”

That day Tony recommitted himself to pursing other ministry options, knowing God would open doors elsewhere. A week later a very small church in the town of Arthur, Illinois emailed Tony saying they were looking for a pastor. Sensing God opening a door, Tony, Sanja, and their son, Alastair, left their life in metropolitan Chicago to pastor this church in rural Arthur, a town of 2500 people. But Tony had already caught Harvest’s vision for church planting and shortly got in touch with Harvest Bible Fellowship’s Executive Director Kent Shaw about transitioning into a Harvest. And in the fall of 2008, Harvest Bible Chapel Arthur was launched.

At the same time, just 25 miles down the road, Harvest Bible Chapel Decatur was also launched. But after a year, Decatur’s senior pastor needed to return to Canada, and HBF called Tony to see what he would think of merging the two churches. The elders at both churches prayed and fasted to seek the Lord’s heart on the matter. After going before the Lord, a new merged Harvest Bible Chapel Decatur began in February 2010. The transition has given a wider perspective to the church and expanded their ministry possibilities. “Our vision for the area has broadened past Decatur,” says Tony. “We draw from many rural areas and our desire is to see the central Illinois area grow and mature and make disciples. There is lethargy in our communities that we really want to move beyond. We don’t want to be associated with Christ only in name, but by growing and maturing in Him. We’ve seen a lot of fruit in that regard, a lot of passionate people worshiping, walking, and working for Christ.”

And as they build mature believers, Tony knows the significance of healthy leadership. “Influencing people through leadership requires a healthy balance of grace and truth. I really appreciate Pastor James’ emphasis on that,” Tony says. “Truth without grace will crush your people, but grace without truth will enable people to stay in patterns of lethargy and even sin.” Tony continues, “A big part of leadership is also helping people to prioritize the Kingdom of God above everything else. We live in a world that is full of constant distractions away from God. Christians can compartmentalize their life into doing their Christian thing on Sunday and then believing, ‘the rest of the time is mine.’ We work on shifting that focus into knowing that everything we do is for the glory of God. Getting people to that place is one of the biggest parts of my ministry.”

And Tony knows this well in his own life. As the Lord has brought him and his family on a road of unexpected twists and turns, they are glorifying Him where He has chosen to plant them.

Critical Success Factor #2

Thursday, April 12 2012 @ 12:00 AM

The second Critical Success Factor in planting healthy, vibrant, growing Harvest Bible Chapels is a medium to strong Walk In The Word market at the plant location.

Walk in the Word, the teaching ministry of Pastor James MacDonald, emphasizes the precise exposition of God's Word and compels listeners to life application. Every 30-minute program heard on over 1,100 stations across North America is designed to ignite passion in the people of God through the proclamation of truth.

We have discovered over the years that the Lord has gone before us and prepared the hearts and minds of many people prior to us arriving in a city. We see the Lord Jesus building His church by unleashing His powerful, living, Word through Pastor James’ unapologetic preaching of God’s Word. We have observed first hand that God’s Word does not come back empty, but transforms lives and creates a hunger for true passionate worship of the Lord Jesus. His Word stirs up in the hearts of His people a growing appetite to be fed the meat of the Word.

We praise God for this divine partnership and encourage your financial support of Walk In The Word. Your support helps bring the Word and plant churches. Are you hearing the Word come in power in your city?

As only the Spirit of God can do, He intersects hungry, passionate disciples with a launching Harvest Bible Chapel committed to unapologetic preaching and unashamed adoration of His Son.

We hear story after story of hearts tilled, seed sown, lives transformed and a growing desire to join with Harvest to plant life-giving churches in cities across North America. We encourage you to pray and build a core group of 4-6 families with a similar passion & calling. When a group reaches this number, we begin a journey together to place a Harvest Senior Pastor among you to develop the core and plant a healthy, vibrant, growing Harvest Bible Chapel.

If you are interested in becoming a Harvest Core Group > take the next step. Tell us who you are.

Core Groups Develop to Launch Harvest churches

Tuesday, April 10 2012 @ 12:00 AM

After successfully completing their residency at the Training Center for Church Planting, Harvest Church Planters settle into their cities to attract, grow and develop core groups. The goal is to launch the church with a cohesive, mature group of 50-100 adult believers fully aligned with the vision, mission and distinctive of Harvest Bible Chapel.

The first objective is to grow and develop the core group. This is the very heart of launching a Harvest Bible Chapel. It begins with holding vision meetings. These are gatherings, large or small; formal or informal, where the Church Planter and key leaders of the future church plant cast a clear, compelling and challenging vision to individuals. Once a group of committed individuals begin to form, the team meets weekly as a core group.

INSPIRE: The primary focus of the core group season is to continually reinforce the vision of the church and what God has called us to. It is reminding us afresh who God is and being renewed again by His greatness, His transcendence, His awesome attributes and His purpose for the church. Worship, teaching prayer and sharing the vision of the church are the primary ways inspire is accomplished.

INSTILL: The second and nearly equal objective of the core group meetings is to thoroughly transfer the DNA and ministry model of Harvest. We believe there is great power in alignment. When men and women catch the vision of what Harvest looks like and deeply resonates with our distinctives, great energy, joy and momentum is produced.

Let's look at a timeline of how the core group develops until launch.

Harvest Church Planters are growing core groups in cities around the world, trusting Christ to build His church.

Help Launch a Harvest Church Plant. Click here.

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