Category Archives: New Churches

New Life Kwadwesi Building Update

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Our building is progressing nicely.  We are still hoping to have our first service on April 5th, Easter Sunday morning, but we’re cutting it very close.  The I-Beam we need for the main floor won’t be available until Wednesday, at the earliest.  Without the I-Beam we can’t finish the main floor.

This past we we did experience our first break-in.  Someone tried to break in through one of our new windows.  With no success, they bust in through the new door.  We paid one of the workers to spend the night there, but he decided to skip that night.  Unfortunately, all of our builders tools were stolen, and the window and door need to be replaced.

I’m glad to know the roof is almost finished and hopefully water and electricity will be connected this week.  Overall this has been a great building experience with very little interruption.

Thank you all for you prayers and support.

Building without Delay

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Over the past two weeks, $15, 600 came in to help with the building of New Life Baptist Church.  This has enabled us to continue building without any major delays.  We are grateful to those who gave, and want to thank the Lord for bringing the funds in so quickly.  We are hoping and feel pretty certain, with these funds, we will be able to complete the first phase of the building.  This first phase will give us space for our first auditorium, 4 Sunday school classes, two bathrooms, and also supply housing for my assistant.  I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed by the sacrificial giving of God’s people with this project.

Learning From Mistakes

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I am the last one to think that I have all the answers or that I have succeeded in ministry and that you should listen to what I have to say. Honestly, the best way I know to help you is to point out where I think I have needed help as a missionary and hopefully steer you in a better direction.

So in no particular oder here are some areas that I feel I have failed in, could improve in, or should have done differently.

Prepare – You need to study the Bible as much as possible. Get the best Bible training possible from people that LOVE the Bible in word and deed. Study, study, study to know the Scriptures. Most likely when you get to your field of service you will be the head pastor, President of the Bible Institute and the head of a fellowship of churches….you need to know your Bible! Read that last sentence again then get really serious about studying the Scriptures!

If you are going to be a church planting missionary then get training under church planting missionaries. If you wanted to be a doctor you would train under doctors. A mechanic would train under a mechanic. A future missionary needs traing under real church planting missionaries. Many of the things you face and see will be unique to where you serve. Many people, even leaders, will not relate to what you are facing. But if you can find good church planting missionaries to train under they will have experience working in foreign cultures and can help you learn how to handle “different” situations. You will most likely do one of following without the right training:

    You will quit.

You will get overwhelmed and not have answers or tools to handle what you will face.

    You will get distracted.

You will find something to do besides what you set out to do – which is plant churches.

Here is a great place to get that training: http://www.ogtc.info

Serve God – Sounds easy huh? This is just too obvious but in my own experience it has been HARD! Maybe I’m different but I feel pulled this way and that and end up with my eyes on everyone else but The Lord, and that is a shame on my part. I probably have done a lot of my ministry for the wrong person. Give, go, and church plant in Jesus name and for His glory alone!

I love Paul’s Words to the Colossian believers in chapter three where he says, “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” (Col 3:23,24). This is great advice for any employ but certainly for God’s full-time missionaries. A battle you may face if you are anything like me is having more than one God. You can easily be serving man even while giving an outward appearance that you are serving God. Serve God!

Work – Be ready to work. I went from building houses, working at my home church, and going to school full-time to being a missionary. The biggest difference was all my time was filled with obligations from morning to night and now I set my own schedule. If nothing gets done its on me. Most of the time people, even your superiors don’t know what you are up to but God does and He is the one that is going to give us our reward so come to the field with a work ethic. You don’t have to be the best, steadiness in the right work will do.

Here are some examples of good use of your time:
Being with, teaching and investing in young male leadership
This could mean:
Studying the Bible
Showing them how to do ministry
Praying together
Reading a good Christian book together
Answering their questions
Letting them see you be a Christian leader, father and husband – how you order your life.

Look at yourself as the coach and by the end of your term you need a team that will “play the game” while you go on furlough. You will ask yourself what am I doing that is helping build the team. A good passage to meditate on dealing with this is Ephesians 4:11,12.

Like I said above these are all struggles and areas that I am trying to get better in. I think if you’ll read and heed it could really help you get headed in the right direction from the start.

Rent or Buy & Soccer

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As of now, a place to rent hasn’t opened up for the new church plant.  It seems that rentable space is very limited.  We will continue to search, but it may come to the place where we need to buy property.  I’m really hoping we can keep the cost down the first year by just renting a space, but I’m not sure how much longer we can wait.  Many people have offered to sell their property, but no one is able to rent.

We are praying for clear direction from the Lord right now.   To rent a house with enough land to build a small auditorium would be around $50 to $75 a month.  To buy the same property would be between $5000 and $7000 I believe.

At Madiba Bay Baptist we are currently renovating the front parking lot of the church to build a soccer/fubito court.  The church plans to use Friday night and Saturday soccer leagues for outreach and evangelistic purposes.  With the lack of space in the community for these types of events, we believe it will be a great opportunity to be in contact with a lot more lost young people.  It will also be a great venue for the young preachers to gain more experience in preaching and presenting the Gospel.

Please be in prayer for both the new church plant and the soccer leagues.

The New Church Plant Update

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We are still in search for a place to start the church.  There is a meeting this Saturday with a family who may be willing to rent us their house.  Please be in prayer that we will walk through the doors the Lord opens.

The two areas we are wanting to start churches in are fairly young communities. There aren’t many buildings outside of houses, and the houses are over crowded and don’t become available often.  We believe these areas would be ideal places to start churches, and we’ll keep you up to date on the progress.

In the meantime, please to continue to pray for our language learning.

 

 

Possible building…..not so much

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Yesterday, I was able to contact the owner of a building we were interested in renting for the new church plant.  It was a run down looking building that didn’t look like it was being used at all.  We went by earlier in the week, and the young son said his dad was interested in renting out the building.  What we found out yesterday was that he was only interested in renting out a small room in the front part of the building.  He was still using most of the building for a tavern and pool hall.

So, I guess that’t not going to work.  The look continues.

Coffey Family September 2014 Prayer Letter

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Delay…. Probably.  Please continue to pray.  The location we planned to use for the new church plant fell through this past week.  One of the owners was worried the community would be upset with a church being started in the neighborhood, and wouldn’t give us the go ahead.  We’re not sure if this is a closed door, but we are praying the Lord would change hearts if that’s the place for us.   We are continuing to look for a new location and hope to do outreach soon with an address in mind.  We were planning to start today on September 14th, but that’s wasn’t possible.  I’m hoping we can start sometime in September, but it’s dependent on a building. 

We’re not discouraged.  We know the Lord is in control and we’ll just see what happens.  Our main priority is still improving on our language abiblity so there is plenty to do.  We are continue to do minsitry in the other churches until others doors open up.  We thoroughly enjoy helping the other pastors and their churches, especially with the young people who have a heart for ministry. 

Prayer Request

  • Our first church plant.  We are still hoping to start in September.
  • The place for the new church plant fell through.  Pray we can find a different location soon.
  • Souls saved & faithful men
  • Our language learning.  This is of course is a repeated prayer request because it’s still a big priority.

More Highlights

  • Madiba Bay Baptist just celebrated their 7 year anniversary.  This is the main church we have been attending while in language school. Pictured to the right is Pastor Lubabalo during the anniversary service. He’s been a great help to us in learning the language. 
  • 4 Baptised after the anniversary service.
  • Needs met for Wells Estates Baptist Property and the Gospel Tracts 

Needs 

  • Pulpit, Sign, Overhead Projector (Old-School Projector), song books, and a small trailer for the new church plant.
  • Approx. $7000 needed to build the first building for New Life Baptist Church.  $3300 has come in so far.

The Lord has blessed this past month by meeting two of the needs we have been mentioning.  Wells Estates Baptist has a piece of property they should be able to move to in December.  The money that has already been raised for this church is plenty for the property and a decent building unless things change.

Three churches gave toward the tracts and invitations needed.  This should be enough to last us for a few months, and for new tracts to be printed for the new church plant.   We are always grateful and humbled by the giving of goods people.  Thank you for loving missions and thank you for caring for souls around the world. 

Coffey Family August 2014 Prayer Letter

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Prayer Request

  • Our first church plant the 1st of Sept.
  • Right location for the new church
  • Souls saved & faithful men
  • Our language learning.  We still have a long way to go.  Starting the new church will definitely push us more in the right direction.

More Highlights

  • Amy and I sang our first Xhosa special together.  It’s actually the first of any song we have every sang as a duo together:)  To see the video you can go to Facebook.
  • Intern Bethany Staley, has decided to stay for six months instead of just two.
  • My son Chase preached his 1st message

Needs  

  • $600 for Gospel Tracts and Invitation cards
  • Pulpit, Sign, Overhead Projector, and a small trailer for the new church plant.
  • Approx. $7000 needed to build the first building for New Life Baptist Church.  $3300 has come in so far.
  • Still looking for land for Wells Estates Baptist.  We have $5500 for this need but will probably need $6000 more.

The time has come for Amy and I to step out and start our own church.  Over the past year, we have been privileged to assist in the three churches that Missionary Kevin Hall and his team have started, while attending language school.  We will definitely continue to have a part in these churches as well, but in September, Amy and I are diving in to start our own church.  Although we have a long way to go in the language, we believe this new church plant will help up grow by leaps and bounds.  

This past week, we made the first purchase for the church.  We were able to get 40 black chairs for under $5 a piece.  I would like to purchase more of these chairs if anyone is interested in helping.  This is the best price we’ve ever seen on chairs and the sale ends Sept. 30th.  

There are three areas we are praying about starting the church in right now: Walmer, Greenbushes, and Seaview.  Seaview is a smaller area and would probably be ideal to start a Bible study or 2nd church plant at the same time we are working in one of the other areas.  

Please be in prayer.  We only have a few weeks to nail down the area and find a place to start holding church services if we want to start in September.  We are hoping to find a small store front or school to rent.  The areas we are considering are on the opposite side of the city from where the other churches are located, and have had very little outreach from a Bible preaching ministry.