The British Isles South District recently welcomed leaders from unique ministries to its family holiday gathering.

“These are a group of people at the cutting edge of pioneering ministry in the United Kingdom,” said Carl McCann, superintendent of the British Isles South District.

The group gathered with other district pastors for training, conversation, team building, testimony, and prayer.

The represented ministries included a coffee house that is now planning membership classes for their first members and the beginnings of an addiction recovery group.

Each ministry is at a different point on the journey towards becoming a fully organized Church of the Nazarene.

One pastor in attendance had stepped out of healthy church ministry to simply start prayer walking around a housing estate to seek the will of God for the next step in ministry.

Another ministry is beginning in a closed church building that had been kept open as a community facility and managed by a Nazarene church member. Her sense of calling and vision has grown, and the beginnings of worship and discipleship are taking place weekly.

Several multicultural church plant leaders were in attendance, including leaders of a Korean church plant that meets in Nazarene Theological College–Manchester’s chapel. There are now over 100 people in regular attendance, and the church runs a compassionate ministry for asylum seekers in partnership with another already established Church of the Nazarene.

Leaders from two Portuguese-speaking church plants attended along with leaders from a Hungarian-Roma congregation and a Sudanese group.

“All these ministries face significant challenges, even obstacles,” McCann said. “There has been, and undoubtedly will continue to be, much heartache and persevering hard work. However, despite, and sometimes precisely because of this, inspirational seeds of hope have been planted and are bearing fruit.”

After sharing testimony and prayer requests, other participants in the family holiday came forward to lay hands on the leaders and pray for God’s blessing and anointing.
--Church of the Nazarene Eurasia