Carmel’s 25th, GROW, and Baptisms

Carmel Iglesia Amistad Christiana (Christian Fellowship Church) celebrated 25 years of ministry yesterday in a special service led by Rev. Lily Kurker and her team. The music was inspiring, the memories shared were encouraging, and the fellowship meal that followed was nourishing. I was honored to represent our Crossroads District team at this happy occasion.

Rev. Mark and Anna James were leading the ministry of Indianapolis Trinity Wesleyan Church back in 2000 when the vision of a new Hispanic ministry was launched. Founding pastors Rev. Tomasa Granados and her husband moved from California to plant this new congregation.

In addition to becoming a healthy church, this congregation has raised up laborers for the Harvest and helped to plant other churches. Today, the church averages 80 in worship and ministers to Spanish-speaking congregants from many nations.

The service at Amistad began at 11, so I had time to drop in on Pastor Scott Rhyno and the team at Waterline Church for the 9 a.m. worship service in Pendleton. God has been blessing the ministry of Waterline with 40 professions of faith and 18 baptisms in the past conference year. Worship attendance for the past 12 weeks is up over 40% from the same 12 weeks last year.
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Sherry and I had a great time away for three weeks of vacation. Thank you to Michael Wood and Dr. Chris Williams for carrying extra responsibility in my absence. It was good to get back in time to be part of the 40 leaders from Crossroads District who participated in this year’s GROW Conference at Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama. The conference began on Tuesday evening and concluded at noon on Thursday. The speakers were anointed and the worship times were refreshing. The conference was great, but another highlight were the conversations on the way home with Michael Wood, Rob Tippey, and Andy Riemersma!
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We are always excited to share the stories of life change that come in from baptism services at our Crossroads District churches. If you’ve not yet scheduled a fall baptism service, pray about it, put it on your calendar, and publicly challenge people to take this next step of discipleship.

Pastor Steve DeNeff and the team at College Wesleyan Church passed along a report celebrating 3 baptisms last week. Praise the Lord!
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Pastor Terry Vaughn and the team at The Bridge in Mishawaka celebrated two more believers being baptized on Sunday. Continue to pray for Pastor Terry and Lennaire as they build their launch team for the new church in downtown Indianapolis.
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Pastor Matthew Trexler and the team at The River Church celebrated 20 baptisms yesterday. Combined attendance between the Marion campus and the Chesterton campus topped 2000. Pray for them as they prepare to launch their new Thursday evening venue for worship.
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Mark your calendars and bring your teams! September 27 will be the next ReEquip Experience for pastors and lay leaders. We’ll be gathering in Marion for this fast-paced morning (9 until noon) of learning. Want to know more about best practices for church finances, or how to effectively and ethically use AI, or how your team can better serve teenagers and children? All this and more! Watch for the registration form coming next week.
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We’re also pleased to announce that IWU is hosting the Wesleyan Holiness Connection for a Pastors & Church Leaders Day on Tuesday, September 23. Click here for more information and registration.

The Wesleyan Church is hosting regional youth events this fall with the closest one coming to Grand Rapids on Friday and Saturday, October 24-25. Our own Andy Riemersma is one of the featured artists. For more information, here’s the link:
​https://wesleyan.org/empoweredtour2025

Thank you for all you do to advance God’s Kingdom!

Your servant in Christ,

​Mark Gorveatte