Hello Everyone! Summer is officially almost to an end here in the Twin Ports! Well, not entirely over, we’ve still got a bit of sunshine left on the docket, and we’ve definitely been making the most of the beautiful weather and heat while it lasts!

Speaking of heat, one nice cool update we’ve added to combat the blistering temperatures is an AC unit in the balcony of our Sanctuary. If you haven’t checked out the construction upgrades that have been made, I highly recommend it viewing the handiwork! Some of the other fun things and updates happening in Duluth are as follows:

Bike Trip And Fun Times

Once a year (sometimes more) when the weather complies, we like to break out our bicycles and hit the streets. This year we biked over 30 miles from Duluth all the way to Carlton and back where we stopped for food and fellowship. We even got to help a gentleman out with a flat tire on the trail. It was cool to have the tools, equipment, and know-how to bless a community member in need. The trek back to Duluth went much quicker than the ride down, and it culminated in getting ice cream together. Halfway through the bike ride, we stopped at a waterfall and did a bit of hiking together. Unfortunately, we only saw one penny-farth on the trail.

In addition to our bike trip, since the nice weather is so fleeting, this past month we also made a trip out to Gordy’s in Cloquet. Another great time of fellowship, food, and good conversation with family and friends from the community. This is another Duluth favorite, we like to at least make it out here for great food once a year (sometimes more).

The rainy 4th of July didn’t stop us from playing with fireworks and eating chicken. Our coffee house was opened up and we spent the drizzly day playing board games in fellowship and eating some very delectable entrees.

Church

We’re continuing our study through Matthew on Sundays, recently going through Matthew 6 and looking at the issue of our motives. Our Wednesdays have been consistent with rewinds which have been great! Small group discussions revolving around the previous Sunday’s message have helped to keep what we’ve been learning on Sunday in our minds, as well as getting the chance to learn new insights and perspectives from others all while connecting deeper and being vulnerable with each other. On non-rewind Wednesdays, we’ve continued through our Men’s and Women’s book studies (Disciplines of a Godly Man / Godly Woman) along with finishing up the Book of Jeremiah on the more traditional Wednesday services.

Looking Ahead

Please keep missions in prayer both local and foreign as we have members of the family here going on mission soon! A team is set to travel to New Orleans very soon, please keep them in prayer to stay flexible and remember that God is in control. We’ve also got people planning to head out to the Philippines and India in the near future so please pray for their safety, protection, and nearness to God as they prep for the good works ahead of them.

Please also keep Street Level and our Campus Church in prayer as we continue planning and seeing how this Fall shakes out. We’ve got a lot of exciting changes on the horizon and we’re looking forward to seeing what God has in store for this community.

That’s all for now folks, God has continued to bless us and we are grateful to be a part of his kingdom. Thanks for praying for us and we’ll see you in the next update!

-Seth

Our little fellowship has officially made it to June. You know what that means: no snow for at least three months (probably)! This is a big deal for us up here in the North. So, we’ve packed up our parkas, pulled out our Chacos and set our sights on getting out in the community. 

Here’s what we’ve been up to.   

One heck of a rummage sale

Almost every year, we look at each other and say: I don’t know if we have enough stuff for another rummage sale. Then we all go home, rifle through our closets, purge our basements and, sure enough, we were wrong. We have enough! After a few donations from friends outside the church, our pews were packed with many well-loved items just waiting for a new home and we were able to have our annual spring rummage sale. 

It was a rainy day, and we were concerned that the weather would keep people from coming. But it actually had the opposite effect. We were steady all day and able to meet folks from all over the city. In the end, God let us raise a bunch of money for missions, and we even made it on the evening news (no joke). As always, it was a really great opportunity to spend time together, make memories and work hard to further the Kingdom in a way that’s pretty unique. 

Matthew on Sundays, mixing it up on Wednesdays 

On Sundays, we’re continuing to move through Matthew. We’ve covered Jesus being tempted, choosing His disciples and now we’re moving into His sermon on the mount. It’s been both challenging and encouraging to focus on the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as we look for ways to apply what we’re learning about Him to our daily lives. 

For Wednesday nights, we’ve been talking about the previous Sunday’s message. This is a great way to continue thinking through what we learned. For the summer, we’re going to change things up a bit, which is always fun. We’ll rotate between a traditional church service, small group discussions and men’s/women’s groups. 

Prepping for Park Point

Setting our sights towards the near future, we’ve been getting ready to serve coffee and other treats at the Park Point Rummage Sale. This is a huge event for Duluth, and we’re pretty excited to get to participate another year. Basically, it’s a 4-mile long rummage sale starting from the Lift Bridge going all the way down Park Point. We’re looking forward to the chance to meet more people, spend time together and see what God will do!

If you’ve been praying for us, thanks very much. If you haven’t, you’re always welcome to start. Here are some things we’d love prayer for: 

• A heart for the people of the Twin Ports
• Ideas for and opportunities to meet people 
• Continued fellowship and unity in our group
• Wisdom for our leaders 
• Staying close to Jesus individually 

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading our update. God’s been really good to us and I’m already looking forward to all the things we’ll have to tell you about next month.

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Up here in the northland, it’s that time of year again—a change in season. The hustle and bustle of the church have shifted gears as students have wrapped up their studies, and we begin to head into summer. 
So what have we been up to? Here are some of the highlights. 

COLLEGE MINISTRIES   

Campus Church at UMD finished up for the semester with a couple more information tables and the continuation through Exodus. Street Level spent the last few studies in Elizabeth Elliot’s book “Discipline” and then wrapped up the semester with a hangout night at the garage. We played the game fishbowl, had pizza, and concluded the night by moving some stuff for the upcoming church garage sale into storage. 

OUTREACH 

Street Level Radio did a few live broadcasts at UWS before the semester concluded. Amongst those were the jazz lunches (UWS’ very own jazz bands playing music in the main hall, where students get food during lunchtime). 
The community group went to the Zoo! Complete with the coffee trailer and bunny ears, we engaged with the community at the local Zoo’s Easter event. We also got the opportunity to set up an information table for the church at a Mercyme concert held at the DECC. 

CHURCH

On Sundays, we continue to go through Matthew and have small group discussions of those sermons on Wednesdays. It’s been helpful to go deeper in those studies together on a personal level. Also, as a church, we took some time to have Easter dinner together. Complete with an Easter egg hunt. What was the prize for the most eggs? You didn’t have to do the Macarena. Yes, you read that right. 

Now, it’s a neat thing to step back and see how our building has changed as we grow. Recently our balcony got some new renovations. It has a brand new window out looking into the sanctuary. In addition, it has a whole new multi-purpose layout that can serve as a workspace and host families during the church service. 

LOOKING FORWARD

As we move into summer, we look forward to Street Level joining the community group for some of their various activities. This includes a book discussion on “Evangelism as Exiles” by Elliot Clark and some of the other events (i.e., church rummage sale, park-point rummage sale, and Coffee-on-the-curb). 

One of the first things I notice about our church is an enthusiastic spunk for Jesus. We greatly want to be used by God. Please pray for us as we head into new adventures together this summer. Pray that we don’t lose our spunk and that we would be a compassionate people to those around us, passionately seeking to be where God would have us be. 

Greetings to all from Duluth, this last month has been full of opportunities and things happening in and through our church. It seems common in our area that people stay “in” and wait for the weather to get nicer before getting out and doing things so this could end up being a boring time of year. We are thankful that Gods mission and His church don’t wait around for better weather to get out and do stuff. Here’s what we have been up to,

Street Level

Street Level has been continuing to meet for Bible study on Monday nights and have been enjoying plenty of time to hang out together including some Friday night movie nights at the Street Level House. For spring break this year a group of Street Levelers from Duluth joined up with Street Levelers from Menomonie to go on a mission’s trip to Waverly Tennessee, a small town about an hour from Nashville that was devastated with a flood last fall. They teamed up with a disaster relief organization there to help homeowners in need of many home repairs including flooring, painting, sheetrocking, and hanging doors. They were also able to meet some of the homeowners, talk with them, and listen to some of their stories about what had happened in their small town. It sounds like the people there have really had to rally together to support each other through this difficult time.

UMD Campus Church

UMD Campus Church has been continuing to meet together on Wednesdays to go through the book of Exodus. The people involved in this have been diligently trying to meet students and spread the word about the Wednesday service. They took a break from the normal schedule to welcome Annemieke Roering from the Cleft Ministry in Amsterdam to speak. She spoke about her almost 2 decades of ministry to the women in the red-light district. It was very powerful and inspiring, she seemed to be clearly answering her call from God to minister to and help these women. A number of people from the public and campus were able to join us to hear her speak.

Church

At Church this past month Pastor Justin finished up our trek through the book of Romans and Paul’s wonderful description of the gospel. We have moved on to the Gospel of Matthew on Sunday’s and started out with the genealogy of Christ which helped us look at our own past and what Christ has done and is doing in our lives. On Wednesday’s we have been continuing to do small group recaps of Sundays sermon which has been very helpful to dig in a little more to what we are hearing on Sundays with the hope that God would be speaking to us through it and that we would be responding. We did take a 2 week break from this on Wednesdays to watch a video on the American Gospel which explained what many churches throughout America are teaching. It was very eye opening to be aware of what people are believing out there.

Community Group

Community Group is gearing up for a busy spring/summer season starting with an outreach at the Zoo on Easter weekend and planning to set up at a number of local events to get out in the community and meet people. We have been continuing to go into an assisted living home every other week to study through the gospel of John with all who can attend.

We are very grateful for all of Gods work in our church and are excited to continue to see new visitors at church on Sundays somewhat regularly. Please pray for us to have love for these visitors and each other along with the wisdom to be able to minister. You can also pray for the upcoming months as we have many things planned for the spring/summer and that we would be having the right heart behind all that we are doing.

Adam

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Brethren, I’m happy to report that this past month has been an encouraging effort when it comes to the mission of God. We’re pushing the offense, gaining momentum, and making ourselves a prime target for spiritual attack. It’s quite exciting.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

First, we finished our second round of membership class (a year in the making) and welcomed a handful of candidates to the official roster. Since that class is complete, we can offer another round of Believers Class later this Spring. In Discipleship Class, we’ve been discussing what it means to disciple others and be disciples ourselves beyond a mere intellectual approach. A real disciple sleeps with one eye open, so to speak, and does the hard work of prayer and preparation so that when God’s call comes there is little to no hesitation.

NEW MINISTRY

Also, we started Believers Campus Church at UMD on Wednesday nights! Despite the numerous other Christian organizations, the campus is so large we believe there is still room for us to minister. We paired the Wednesday services with tabling to spread the word. Some students just wanted coffee, but some genuinely showed interest in our format and our topic. In the weeks we have left of the Spring semester, we are going through the book of Exodus start to finish.

God has certainly blessed us with student interest at UMD and renewed energy for campus ministry. Though we are at UMD, we are not letting go of Street Level at UW-Superior. Monday night studies are still happening, and the crew is trying new things like English language help for international students. Please keep both campuses in prayer as we seek God’s direction for the fall.

NEW ADVENTURES

Furthermore, there’s nothing that induces warfare more than missions. We are sending out a large crew for the Street Level trip all the while applications are getting turned in for more domestic trips. Locally, we are planning where we can utilize the coffee trailer in the months to come to raise money for well-drilling. Prayer would be appreciated for the hearts and minds of everyone involved—that we remain laser-focused on Jesus and pleasing Him through it all.

Getting out in the community and beyond would be a weak effort if it wasn’t for what we’re learning. We finished the book of Romans on Sundays and are taking some time to dissect the Gospel. This is paired with watching the film American Gospel on Wednesdays. We’ve been challenged to consider if we really know and really believe the Gospel for ourselves. Unfortunately, we are more susceptible to the prosperity gospel, the American dream, and plain ‘ol morality than we realize.  In a few Sundays we’ll be back in the New Testament and will start the book of Matthew.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Finally, we like hanging out with each other so we gathered for a Super Bowl party one Sunday, and on another occasion we all went ice skating at Bayfront Park.  It’s these small, but consistent, opportunities that do much to reinforce our unity.  

Keep fighting, keep striving, and we’ll do the same.

-Kelsey

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Winter is wonderful as evidenced by the many delightful opportunities God has brought our way over the past handful of weeks.

Fellowship

There have been impromptu gatherings of assorted folks from our fellowship where we got to enjoy the things our Creator and the local and neighboring communities teamed up to offer. Earlier last month, a small group went ice skating at the Bayfront ice rink and ended up playing a rousing game of hockey.  The following Sunday after church a few went together for a free self-guided tour of Glensheen.  Some members were at a missions meeting and came over to catch the tail end, then we all went to VIP pizza for dinner to finish the day.  OneLife recently invited the Duluth couples to join them and the homeschool group to go snow tubing in Wheeler, which was a blast – what a beautiful place to enjoy the outdoors with great friends!

Street Level

Street Level Superior recently had the opportunity to travel to Menomonie and join the other campuses for a missions presentation and Broomball on a warm(ish) January weekend.  A YWAM missionary shared her experiences of work in various Asian nations and the path God took her on to get there.  The next day, only minor injuries were sustained as everyone came together for a mighty clash on the ice with an activity best reserved for the young – broomball.  I’m pretty sure they had a good time based on the stories told the next day. Street Level also partnered with a local Christian high school to fold and staple the next issue of Word on the Street right on the UWS campus.

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Outreaches

Who knew the Zoo could be such a valuable place for outreach?  The Community Group got the opportunity once again to set up a booth at Duluth Zoo during their Winter Wonderland event.  It was a bit quiet as the temperatures were scarce, but this provided a great opportunity to meet local families and even get to know the always-helpful Zoo staff!  We also had a nice time chumming with each other and the neighboring monkeys.

Despite generally high covid cases in the area, God paved the way for us to visit a local nursing home and teach Bible studies on a few Sunday afternoons.  The Community group is on rotation for this every other week with different volunteers leading and assisting.  It’s a privilege to see people we would otherwise possibly never meet, to share God’s word with them, encourage them in their faith, and help them get to know Jesus better.

Teaching, Videos & Discussion

In light of the current overall push to “distance” and “isolate,” a string of Monday night classes was particularly helpful.  The first three Mondays in January, we went through a book called “Evangelism as Exiles” by Elliot Clark. This dovetailed with our recent trek through 1 Peter well, as the book draws heavily from this text.  The author challenges us to consider carefully our motivation and approach to sharing Christ with those around us and increase our awareness of what really holds us back.  It might be the opposite of what we tend to think.  This is an excellent read, and we only covered the first three chapters.  Pray that God would use it to shape the way we think and how we act around our fellow humans.

On Sundays, we’re continuing through the last chapters of Romans and considering how our strength and freedoms in Christ intersect with our fellow believer’s sensitive consciences and weakness.  On various Wednesdays we’ve been gathering in small (or micro) groups to review and discuss the sermon from Sunday.  This is immensely helpful in re-orienting our brains toward what the Holy Spirit has to say to us and see clearly how these truths impact our lives.

We hadn’t been in it for a while as we took a break to go through 1st and 2nd Peter, but on a recent Wednesday, we took a refreshing dip back into the book of Jeremiah.  This was looking at the sad state and fate of faithless Zedekiah (and the people of Judah as a whole) who refused to listen to God through Jeremiah, and the silver lining of redemption for one sinner who would repent.  

Please pray for upcoming events – There is a big push to minister to the UMD student body starting mid-February, and a Street Level missions trip departing in March.  A potentially busy summer is on the horizon, so pray for God to help us all keep our heads in the game, moving forward, following His will, and for boldness to take advantage of the opportunities He provides.

-Karla