The 2019 Ukpagada lectureship ended yesterday with a sermon charging the congregation to invest in the vineyard of the Lord.
The activities for the 7th annual lectureship kicked off on Thursday 21st November with a powerful evangelism (door to door) by the Ogoja WBS evangelism team in a village known as Ukpe. It was this same type of evangelism outreach that led to the establishment of the church at Ukpe with 7 baptisms. The church there has grown to 23 within one year. So we decided to hit further on the Ukpe community and to the glory of God, we had a restoration. A woman who neglected the church some 20 years ago decided to return to fellowship now that the church has been planted at Ukpe near her house. We hope to record some conversions soon lord willing.
On the 22nd November, we gathered to commission a borehole project built by 6 brethren for the church and Ukpagada community where I preach. The community only source of water before 22nd November was the river that is constantly polluted. To fill that gap, friends of the church Bassey Esang, Ebenezer Udofia of Healing Hands International based in Kenya, Omota Smart, Ini Ememobong, Friday Obong and my family raised $2000 to sink a generator powered borehole to the excitement of the church.
The church also was on the occasion blessed with a state of the art Public address system to aid in our Outdoor evangelism, sponsored largely by the church meeting at Okoh street in Warri where Osita Onuora serves as the minister. We spent the evening singing praises to God for blessing us with water and providing a means to make the gospel go further through the public address system.
The lectureship on the theme Measuring Church Growth kicked off with three keynote presentations by Okponung Ntekim – Measuring Congregational Growth, Osita Onuora – Measuring Personal Growth and Victor Robert – Setting up a growth plan. 529 persons from 8 states of Nigeria attended the lectureship and it was indeed refreshing and expository as speakers opened our eyes to the need to grow and bear fruit in the vineyard of the lord.
The Okos street congregation in Warri Delta state sponsored a medical team to evaluate and handle some major health challenges of some of the participants who utilized the health window which the lectureship provided. The lectureship had split classes where participants brainstormed on the keynotes. Two kids who recited the beatitudes and the genealogy of Jesus got scholarship from some participants.
The lectureship came to an end with food fellowship. On Sunday, during worship, we started to see the gains of the lectureship as we recorded two restorations and two fresh visitors. We are hoping to see conversions very soon lord willing.
This report is from Mike Udam, who is doing great work in eastern Nigeria along the border with Cameroon. If you’d like to help him in his work, you can do so here: https://accc.kindful.com/?campaign=339550