News > North America

Prepared by Andy Stumpf

I.          2015 Annual Review

At the end of 2014 we renewed our decision that I would serve as lead pastor for Waterloo UBF, and we established a new core leadership team, consisting of six people (five in addition to me): Jennifer, Josh, Katie, Scott and Hannah. It was not always easy, and sometimes our expectations clashed, but God helped us to grow as friends and partners in the gospel and to serve and pray for God’s church together. God blessed our community in spite of our weaknesses and inactivity, as we all struggled to balance serving in this role with other responsibilities. One of the main accomplishments of our team this year was to establish membership in our church, around March. Our members are a truly wonderful bunch of Christians with a heart to follow Jesus and love and serve one another. Many of them lead or serve on one or another of the ministry teams in our church (worship, tech/media, children, service, offering), and/or on our student club, Seeds of Waterloo. Our members body meets once a month to discuss what is going on in the church and to pray and make decisions together. ThJoshua and Hannah Yoon and Steve and Susie Kang have continued to support

our community with prayer, counsel, mentorship (and amazing food!) and by keeping relationally connected with us, even while pursuing the new things the Lord has been leading them into. They joined us for prayer and worship as they were able, and it was always good to have them with us. We continue to pray for God’s leading in partnering together to advance the kingdom of Christ in our time.

We began the year with a special series on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (EHS). Our main prayer was that God would enable us to be more real with Him, with ourselves, and with each other. There were many important things to be learned about making discipleship more practical, and bringing every aspect of our lives, including our emotions and our past under

Christ’s leadership. At some point we felt the need to return, on Sundays at least, to the study of a book of the Bible rather than various passages linked to EHS. We felt led to study Daniel, and to try to sort out some of what the Bible teaches about the end times (especially through chapters 7­12 of Daniel, which we had avoided last time we studied this book). Together with a bi­weekly Bible study on the passages being covered, God spoke to many people and provided inspiration, encouragement and understanding. We began our Daniel study on May 10th and ended just a few weeks before Christmas.

Seeds of Waterloo was led by Joseph in the Winter and in the Fall, and through it a number of students were able to hear the word of God and have fellowship and pray on the UW campus. In the Spring we took a term off to pray and seek God’s leading and equipping. A large number of people graduated and moved away from Waterloo for marriage or to find work or further studies, and we were sad about this, but happy for them as they continued to follow God’s leading. It was especially hard to see Sarah go, as she had been with us for over a decade. But we are very happy for her marriage and new life in L.A. It was also particularly hard to have Leonard leave, as he had been our worship leader and a pillar of our church for a number of years. But he helped to prepare others to take his place, and God continued to bless our worship team under the leadership of Jae and Jeremiah. At the same time, a good number of people continued to participate in our church after graduating, seeking work in Waterloo. This was encouraging to us and, I believe, a sign that our church is maturing into its identity as a  local church, even though we are a church that has a major focus on discipleship for young adults. A few people in our church either got engaged this year, or are in a serious relationship. I believe we have been on a good track to support and bless people who are ready for marriage to pursue relationships in a healthy and God­honouring way. But we are still asking God to help us to support young couples, young married families and also those with growing children.

We had been doing EHS related studies and workshops on Friday evenings, but we felt led by God to make Fridays more focused on worship and prayer. God has blessed these times together and other prayer meetings under the leadership of Emily and others. We also tried, with varying degrees of success, to provide a forum for community and deeper exploration of subjects covered in church through small groups, led by two members from the Core team each. Those of us who were able to attend the Canadian Summer Conference, the Labour Day Leaders Meeting, and the Well were strengthened and encouraged by this fellowship and connection with our brothers and sisters in the UBF community. Many of the people in our church have not had much exposure to UBF outside our own local church, and we began to pray that God would help us to find our place and be a blessing within the UBF community. God also led us to make a connection with another local church called Central Church, and Jennifer and I were encouraged by a growing friendship with Mike and Emma who are pastoring that church together. We ran a Coffee House together in Waterloo Park. It was very encouraging for us to get together and be a blessing to our community in this way, and many people walking through the park stopped by and enjoyed time and food together with us. We continue to pray to be better integrated with the body of Christ both in UBF and with other churches and ministries around us. We also held a Christmas dinner and invited friends and acquaintances who might not otherwise come out to a church event. The Lord encouraged everyone and made this a very joyful event.

Toward the end of the year, we began to concentrate on figuring out how leadership would work in the new year. We had set a term of one year for the current core leaders’ team, with the intention of developing a more transparent and thoughtful process for the selection of leaders. We realized the importance of moving toward a body of elders for the governance of the church, and are praying that the Lord will guide the process and put solid elders in place in our church in His time. Many times I wondered whether our church would really continue to exist or not, or whether I might show up one Sunday and find everyone gone. In my fairly extreme busyness, I often felt disconnected from people, and in my insecurities and anxiety I worried that people

were not being helped and taken care of, and that all sorts of problems would overcome us. But God was very faithful to speak to and guide and help each person to find their way through the various challenges of life and in their own diverse situations.

II.         2016 Vision and Strategy

Our key verse for 2016 is Col 3:16, “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” This verse highlights a few areas that seem key to me for our growing community:

(1) The word or message of Christ. To know God is eternal life, and it is the source of every right idea and action. We know God through His self­revelation in Jesus Christ His Son, and we know Christ as the Holy Spirit opens us up to Him and Him to us through Scripture. We are praying to renew our focus on Scripture in our small groups. We willbe studying John’s gospel, probably for most of the year. And we pray for each of our members to learn to feed on the Word of God as our spiritual bread (Prov 2:1­6).

(2) Genuine community and relationships. With God’s wisdom we should be able to speak to one another openly and honestly, and to build each other up as we grow as disciples of Christ. For this to work, we have to know one another and be with one another intentionally, but we also have to be deep in God’s word and prayer individually and corporately. We want to be faithful to the forms of ministry God has entrusted to each of us, even if they are small (Mt 25:21), including both inward, member­oriented and evangelism and outreach.

(3) Worship. We pray to grow as extravagant worshipers of God, to the point that nothing will take the place of God as our object of worship. Through worship, the darkness that binds us can be released, and God can shift the atmosphere in our church and the communities (Uptown Waterloo and the UW campus) in which we are rooted.

(4) Thankfulness. This is the heart attitude God wants us to have. Thankfulness displaces grumbling, anxiety, fear, judging, etc. Thankfulness places us squarely in the reality of God’s grace, which is the place we need to be.

We are planning to hold a Spring Retreat from March 11­13, with the title “We the Church,” and the theme of genuine Christian community. We also hope to have opportunities to build relationships with other Canadian and American chapters as God leads. Some relationships we would like to strengthen in particular are with Montreal UBF and with Hyde Park in Chicago. We also hope to continue to network with other Christian churches and ministries in Waterloo, and to help our members to take opportunities for personal growth, healing and ministry equipping, whether through resources provided in the UBF community or through other churches.

Prayer topics

1)  That God would make powerful revelation of Himself through John’s gospel on Sundays and in small groups and bi­weekly Bible study.

2)  That God would establish leaders according to His will in our church, especially a body of ready and willing elders and deacons.

3)  That God would take us much deeper in worship and prayer, through Friday night Ruach meetings and various prayer meetings.

4)  That God would bring about a solid relationship between the Waterloo UBF church and the Seeds of Waterloo student club, to the benefit of both.

5)  That God would continue to lead us into healthy and edifying relationships with our brothers and sisters in the broader UBF community and in the church at large.