Church Planting Amonst the Marginalized

Our heart beats for those that are underrepresented and forgotten, marginalized and abused. We also love the church and know that through the church people will come to know of the hope, love and transformative power of Jesus, will grow as disciples of Christ and leaders can be developed and deployed. That is why it is so exciting to be part of a ministry where we train, equip, empower and walk with so many leaders that share that same burden and calling to the dark corners of society.

Over the last two months we have had two Evangel School of Urban Church Planting events where we have been able to train and send out church planters and movement leaders all over the US and world. Here is an example of where new churches will be planted soon through these leaders: New York, Orlando, Oklahoma, Phoenix, Riverside (Calif.), San Bernardino (Calif.), San Diego, Houston, Seattle, Wichita, Mexico City, Guadalajara (Mexico), Cuba, Ghana, Kenya, India, Bangladesh and various in the Los Angeles metro area. Looking over the next 1-3 years these leaders are projecting around 205 new churches. Isn’t that exciting?! 

Chad (in middle of back row) with a group of commissioned church planters and their coaches from one of our most recent Evangel School of Urban Church Planting events.

Evangel isn’t just about a school or training, but about a relationship and partnership with these urban leaders.  We have the honor and privilege to walk with the leaders in a coaching relationship for at least a year holding each team accountable and encouraging them along the challenging process of starting new Gospel communities in the cities of the US and world.

So please keep these new churches, the leaders, their communities and our coaching relationship in your prayers this month. 

Strategic planning for another Evangel to train up more church planters in San Bernardino through Pastor Harold Hines church and network.

We would also appreciate your prayers for the Spanish Evangel October 11-12 & 18-19 (an opportunity to train and send out more church plant teams!) as well as our Women’s Retreat October 25-27.

Chad is pictured here with this team of Bengali pastors who have a vision to plant over 150 churches. (In the last year they have already planted 3 new churches.) 

Thank you so much for partnering with us to reach more people with the Good News here in the cities of the US and beyond!

 

Upcoming Ministry

We are just returning from a wonderful trip that took us to Oregon and Northern California. Thank you for your prayers. It was great seeing so many friends that we haven’t seen in a long time. It was sad to not be able to connect with everyone though. If you missed us, maybe it is time to come visit us in Los Angeles! We’d love that!

 

The months of August and September are packed full of ministry. Please join us in prayer for these events:

Evangel: School of Church Planting (English)

 

Evangel: School of Church Planting (Spanish)

 

Dean Training in Wichita

Chad will be teaching classes and coaching/mentoring teams at these 3-4 day intensive schools as pastor and leaders are trained and sent out to plant churches. The Dean Training is to get more training to be able to expand our reach and impact in multiplying the planting of more urban churches.

 

Recording of church planting videos (Spanish)

We hope these recording will give us a larger reach to train church plant teams throughout the US and the rest of the Spanish speaking world.

 

Onesimus Workshop (Long Beach, CA)

 

Onesimus Workshop (Moreno Valley, CA)

Working with the local church in these cities, Chad has organized all-day training workshops where we are training representatives from various local churches to welcome and incorporate former prisoners into the life and ministry of the church.

 

City Leaders Conference

 

Regional Men’s Retreat

Chad will be teaching workshops at these events and helping organize and run them. The Men’s Retreat was a powerful time for the men at our church (as well as many other churches) last year and we hope to bring even more men and see a greater impact this year.

Other family things you can keep in your prayers and celebrate with us:

·        Rebecca’s start to High School (Aug)

·        Beniah’s start to Kindergarten (Aug)

·        Chad & Fabiola’s 15^th Anniversary (Aug)

·        Chad’s Birthday (Sept)

We sincerely appreciate all your prayers and financial support.

May God continue to use us to transform communities together and empower urban leaders!

Walking with Pastors

We all go through tough times from time to time in our life. We are so thankful for you - friends and family who lift our hands up, pray for us and support us. Sadly, not everyone has such a rich support system. We work with people, many of them pastors and leaders, who have very few people to turn to for support.

One of the privileges of our job is to be able to take time to walk with people through their hard times – in life or ministry or whatever. These might be emerging leaders in the church we started out of our home years ago or the new network of pastors and church leaders we are pouring into now.

 

After a very hard day, we walked through an area riddled with drug dealers, prostitutes and people without homes. We were walking to invite people to a job fair for the formerly incarcerated. But the time walking together was more than just ministry to those on the street – we were able to minister to one another. Soon after leaving the church property, we ran into a colorful group of individuals in front of a local drug home. They were initially intimidated by us, but once they heard we were from a local church they dropped their guard and shared their stories with us.  As we continued on our walk, we shared our stories – leader to leader, pastor to pastor, person to person. We walked through a city full of hurt and pain and yet we were able to share our own burdens and encourage one another in this tough journey of serving the least of these. On a day when you may feel like you just can’t go on any longer, having somebody walk with you and speak life can make all of the difference. We want to see every leader flourish and accomplish the mission God has given them.  

 

The very next day the setting changed completely, the smells and sights improved. I got to meet with another leader, not on the streets this time, but in a nice café in a different part of the city. There sipping our drinks we were able to talk about the ups and downs of life and ministry. We strategized and put some resources together for future church planting efforts that will reach more people than either of us could ever do on our own. We then lifted one another up in prayer leaving each other encouraged and ready for the next challenge to come our way.

 

A couple mornings later, as we sat around the makeshift table eating a Salvadorian breakfast, we introduced ourselves and began to share about our ministries. In no time we discovered our similar passion to reach the lost in our city and empower the people in our communities. This mission coupled with an understanding for the need for encouragement, relationship, accountability and resourcing is really at the core of our Urban Church Associations. While we are involved in many aspects of ministry here at World Impact pouring into future and current leaders and helping them be more healthy and fruitful is a big and important part.

 

Please keep us and these other leaders in your prayers…we all go through tough times from time to time.

Please be in prayer for the following:

• Our family as we drive up to Oregon/Northern California for a few weeks to connect with friends and supporting churches and continue to raise funds for our mission work.
• Our Men’s & Women’s Retreats (in September and October).

We are so grateful to have you in our life and excited to share what God is doing now!  Ten years ago, we left our home and job to come live in the inner city of South Central Los Angeles as missionaries with World Impact. This happened because of partners like you and we are so grateful for all the prayers, financial support, encouragement, and great friendships that have been a part of our journey!

When we started, we had two small children not even in preschool yet and now Rebecca is in going to High School, Justice is entering 7^th grade and our youngest is entering Kindergarten. We came to Los Angeles as missionaries to plant churches, to evangelize the lost and train up leaders… and that is what we have done by God's grace. We've started a church from simply engaging with our community and sharing the beautiful story of Jesus with people - letting them know there is hope from their pain and despair. Our ministry has been changing over the last few years as World Impact focuses more on empowering urban leaders – so while we continue to be on the ground, pastoring and involved in the community we are doing a lot more training, equipping and empowering of other church leaders helping them be successful in ministry and life.

As we look forward to what God will do in the coming years, we’re excited that we are able to take a trip to Oregon and the Bay Area to strengthen our support team, reconnect with many of our faithful partners, form new friendships as well get some rest. 

This will be our first time back ‘home’ in four years (and only 2^nd trip in 10 years!) We are excited to spend some time visiting with as many friends and catch up and share about what God is doing in Los Angeles. If you will be in Oregon between June 21-July11 or in the Bay Area from July 12-July 15 and would like to connect please let us know!

Our goal for this trip is to raise $1,200/month in new or increased support. This would allow us to be fully funded and be able to focus 100% of our energies on the mission!

We’ll then return home ready to minister again in all that God has called us to do with World Impact in Los Angeles, which we believe is plant more churches, invite many more people to know Jesus and continually train and mentor more leaders. In fact, upon our return we will run 2 church planting schools, 2 workshops helping churches receive ex-prisoners, officiate 2 Quinceañeras, travel to Wichita for a church planter catalyst training and record a church planting workshop video in Spanish that will be used all over the US and world to train new church planters (along with all the other 'normal' stuff)…all before starting our kids back into school.

To make this trip possible to raise support to get fully funded we need to raise special gifts to cover the cost of the trip. We're projecting the cost to be about $1/mile (for gas, food and other expenses for our 4-week trip). We’ll be logging nearly 5,000 miles for our trip this summer… Would you consider “BUYING-SOME-MILES" to help fund a portion of this trip? We're hoping to get all the funds in before we leave in the middle of June, so if you can respond by then that would be great...

            A gift of $50 would cover 50 miles, $100 would cover 100 miles, etc.

            A gift of any amount will be appreciated and help keep us moving forward in ministry… J

There are two ways to donate if you'd like to send a gift:

1.     Online:  tinyurl.com/wolyns 

2.     Check:  Write a check to World Impact and send it to the following address:  2001 S Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90007.  Memo Line:  “Wolyn Support Trip”

Thanks for your partnership with us in ministry!  We are looking forward to this next season of ministry, and this trip will help launch us forward into God's plans for us. Please be praying for our safety and that our time away from the city would be fruitful and provide a little rest and renewed vision as well.

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Justice and Beniah

Personal contact info:                                                                                                                                                                    mail: Chad & Fabiola Wolyn / 2001 S. Vermont Ave. / Los Angeles, CA 90007 / email: heart4thecity@gmail.com / ph:  503 475-5548 (C) /  web: heart4thecity.blogspot.com

Please send regular financial support to:

World Impact / 2001 S. Vermont Ave. / Los Angeles, CA 90007 

(Please make check payable to “World Impact” and designate “WOLYN” on the memo) 

OR  

You may also GIVE ONLINE HERE. 

UPDATE (Review)

We are celebrating 10 years as missionaries to the hardened streets of South Central Los Angeles.

While we have been in Los Angeles we have:

Planted and continue to pastor a church amongst the poor, specifically Spanish-speaking immigrants (the church’s name is “Fuente”).

We have baptized over 50 people.

 We have put on over 50 camps or retreats involving 1000s of individuals.

Missions and Church planting is a priority. We empower and train leaders so that together we can reach more people for Jesus transforming communities, people groups and nations. Since we started the church, we have faithfully given 20% of our budget to missions and church planting, regardless of our own need. 

Run programs such as a job training & leadership development internships - of which we have trained 18 interns in ministry or job-related skills.

Organized and taught at 4 church planting schools. Which had teams from numerous countries, states and cities represented.

Coached 9 other pastors and leaders (and their teams) in helping them establish a new church or ministry.

Help lead/run 2 Urban Church Association’s (monthly meetings and regular connection for fellowship, resourcing and training for pastors).

Taught at Los Angeles Christian School, a mission-focused school giving a Christian education to children K-8 in the community.

The Onesimus Workshop

We are passionate about intentionally empowering and releasing leaders. We have recently begun working with other pastors and leaders to help churches welcome former prisoners into the life of their church for the building up of the body of Christ. Chad helped lead The Onesimus Workshop which equips these churches with the beginning steps towards effectively incorporating former prisoners into the church community.

We had 40 pastors, leaders, and students from our TUMI (The Urban Ministry Institute) that were former prisoners who participated in this workshop. TUMI students start their ministry study in prison through our partnership with Prison Fellowship and can either graduate there or can continue their study when they are released at one of our satellite locations. Our workshop was a powerful time bringing people together with the desire to make a larger impact in one of the more underrepresented populations in churches. 

 

Since the initial workshop we are working with churches in the Los Angeles area and at least 4 other counties that are preparing to launch this workshop to either start or support a ministry to returning citizens (formerly incarcerated) in their church/ministry context. Please join us in prayer for these ministry leaders.

 

At the church we planted, Fuente para las Naciones, one requirement of our leadership intern program is to lead a ministry project. Hugo was really impacted when we have gone out and fed and prayed with the homeless near our church. So, he organized a group from our church to do something similar. When we had just about run out of food, drinks and hygiene packs one of the ladies in our group recognized one of the homeless as the daughter of her friend and asked permission to ‘knock’ on one of the tent structures. A couple of us walked over there and what ensued was a lot of crying and deep ministry through hugs, prayer and words of affirmation. We just never know who will be affected by homelessness, addiction, incarceration, loneliness, depression, or poverty. Sometimes we just need a hug and to know that somebody loves us. God does that for us; we want to do that for others.

 

Thank you for loving us well, so that we can continue day in and day out hitting the streets to minister to the least of these all the while encouraging and empowering other leaders in the city to do the same.

 

Please be in prayer for the following:

Our 2 church planting schools coming up (in English and Spanish)

Our Easter outreaches

Protection, provision, wisdom and grace for our family as we minister in the city

FALL 2018

We hope you had a great Thanksgiving! We certainly are thankful for you and your prayers and support for this ministry.

Updates

We had a great Thanksgiving week – with four different events. Our newest event was caravanning 8 cars through South Los Angeles delivering 120 plates of food to the homeless living in the tent encampments. Many of the youth in our church have done this type of ministry before, but for many of the adults and children it was their first experience. Many commented on how their heart was broken and eyes were opened to the humanity of each person we briefly got to know. 

 Feeding the homeless.

Fabiola giving the welcome to one of our Thanksgiving dinner outreaches at the church. 

Some of the graduates from our Evangel: School of Church Planting that Chad taught at in October. In our two Evangel Schools this year we had people from Canada, Hong Kong, Michigan, Skid Row (Los Angeles), Fresno, Ontario (California), Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, Huntington Park (California), Norwalk (California), Miami (Florida), San Jacinta (California) and many from Los Angeles. Chad is now coaching several of these pastors as they prepare to launch their new churches and ministries. 

 Men’s Retreat / September 2018

 

 Women’s Retreat / October 2018

 Fuente KIDS (our children’s ministry) volunteers

 Youth sharing testimonies after returning from their youth camp. Some of our students help lead worship and were part of the drama team.

 Round Table Discussion: A special time of sharing stories about race, privilege and immigration to bring greater understanding and humanity to different people’s perspectives. 

 Our “Media Ministry” has been growing as we train up more people to work with digital media, sound and running the slides for our services.

 One of our community groups studying the Bible together.

 Gospel Concert in the Park! We joined up with another church in the community. We were responsible for giving the message in Spanish. Unified we will be able to reach and impact more people and see greater change in the community!

Christmas Toys Needed

Are you able to help us with our Toy Store? This annual event gives families from our church and community the opportunity to come buy a gift or two at deeply discounted prices (up to 75% off). This makes getting a special gift for their children more attainable, but still allows for them to feel the ownership and dignity of choosing and buying the gift themselves. There is a real special feel as our church really makes the space festive and hospitable and a group from our church does all the follow-up afterwards to help make a deeper connection for these families.

We need 100+ toys and gifts for boys and girls from 2 years – 18 years old. You can send or drop off gifts, order them online and have them delivered directly to us or send money and we’ll do the shopping. Please have money or gifts to us by December 14^th at the very latest.

If you are able to give towards this need please send your gift to either to us personally or through our church (note this is different than our normal support giving sent to World Impact):

Chad and Fabiola Wolyn

2001 S. Vermont Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90007

or

Fuente para las Naciones

2001 S. Vermont Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90007

 “Elves” busily wrapping gifts and parent’s shopping for toys and gifts at last years Toy Store (most of the toys and “shopping” is out of this picture’s frame).

Upcoming Events to keep in prayer:

December 15      Christmas Banquet

December 17      Fuente Toy Store

December 22      Youth Hike and Prayer for the City

January 9-15      Dominican Republic Mission Trip (see below for more info)

January 19          Academy of Music and Worship starts

Other Prayer Requests

1.      New church planters

Please pray for the following pastors/leaders we are coaching:

•      Bayas and Melody
•      Geovany and Jessica
•      Alex
•      Manuel
•      Mario

2.      Rebecca @ High School

Our teenager, Rebecca, enters High School next year. Please pray she would be accepted into the best school. We have public, charter and private schools on our short list. Rebecca’s first choice is a private Christian college-prep school…please pray that we could get scholarships and be able to raise the extra funds for this to become a reality.

3.      Dominican Republic Trip

Please pray for our trip to the Dominican Republic to support a missionary friend there. We have wanted to lead a youth group to the DR for a mission’s trip and this opportunity has opened up for us to go and “scout out the land” while helping minister in churches and community centers and translate for a group from a partner church. The majority of this trip is paid for, but we do need to raise $1,400 for our travel expenses. If you are able to give towards this need please send your gift to either to us personally or through our church (note this is different than our normal support giving sent to World Impact):

                  Chad and Fabiola Wolyn

2001 S. Vermont Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90007

or

Fuente para las Naciones

2001 S. Vermont Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90007

Fuente KIDS (Children’s Ministry): Where children learn the powerful truth of God. 

Thank you so much for praying, giving and loving!

It’s amazing what we can do together when we follow Jesus’ example.

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Justice and Beniah

If you want to send us a Christmas card / Personal contact info: 

mail: Chad and Fabiola Wolyn / 2001 S. Vermont Ave. / Los Angeles, CA 90007 / email: heart4thecity@gmail.com / 

ph:  503 475-5548 (C) /  web: heart4thecity.blogspot.com

Please send regular financial support to: World Impact / 2001 S. Vermont Ave. / Los Angeles, CA 90007  (Please make check payable to “World Impact” and designate “WOLYN” on the memo)  OR   You may also GIVE ONLINE HERE. [giving address: https://my.worldimpact.org/default.aspx?page=3826&funds=6605]

We are in an exciting time in the ministry...we have been on the front lines for the last 9 years and have seen God do amazing thing - the most exciting is the many lives and families transformed by Jesus. 

As our sphere of influence continues to expand beyond the streets in our community to other areas of Los Angeles, other surrounding cities and beyond we are growing in our ability to hand-off and empower others to “go” and take on greater ownership and responsibility of their ministry and church.

What God is doing…

•         New small groups are popping up
•         We are seeing an increase in first time guests in our church
•         There is a greater interest in evangelism and church planting
•         Vision and faith for a greater impact beyond our community is growing
•         New ministries are being formed
•         The church is working as a team
•         The youth are getting more involved in the day to day activities and ministry of the church

UPDATES

There is so much to tell, but we’ll just share a bit of what happened this last week where we celebrated mother’s and the youth led the Sunday service.

Pampering Mom’s – Annual Mother’s Day Celebration

Over 30 women came out to be pampered with great food, special gifts, a photo booth, manicures and makeovers. Their children were cared for – making special Mother’s Day crafts, playing and having lunch on their own. Fabiola gave a moving message on motherhood bring both laughter and tears.

More than half of the women were invited guests. Many either came back for the Sunday service or have jumped into a small group meeting at the houses of one of the ladies who invited them.

Youth-Led Sunday Service

Amazing! Literally everything from creating the bulletin and being greeters to ushering and leading worship – even the cleaning of the building afterwards was led by the youth. We were all moved and encouraged by the powerful words given by the students. Instead of 1 message – we had 4 short messages, each on a different woman of the Bible. The service was really honoring to all the mother’s, but really powerful to see the youth using their gifts to bless the whole church. The time preparing for this service was invaluable because it gave us and the youth leaders innumerable opportunities to come alongside and really guide and work with each student in the area they were serving. We now have several new children’s ministry volunteers and 3 new people to help run the media.

Rebecca (standing in front right) and some of her friends at winter camp.

Our oldest child, Rebecca is finishing up her 7^th grade year and has some great news and an opportunity to share with you:

Hello, my name is Rebecca Wolyn and I am part of a leadership development program at my school and we are working on developing different areas of our leadership abilities. A couple of the things I am working on is growing in confidence and in speaking in front of others. Only 6 students from my school were selected to participate in this program. A really cool part of this program is that this summer I will be attending a trip to Washington DC. We will be flying to Washington DC and also visiting New York City and Philadelphia. While on this trip I will continue to be given tasks from planning to leading different parts of the trip to help develop me more as a leader. My hope is that I will then be able to help and lead others better. Me being a pastor’s daughter, I’ve always wanted to have an opportunity like this to be able to bring up my leadership skills and to become a leader at my church and school.

One thing you could do for me is to pray for me so that I can learn a lot of things in this program. You could also pray that I would be safe on my trip and that I’d be able to excel in what I do and become a better leader. I leave on Wednesday, June 20^th and return on Thursday, June 28^th.

My goal for this trip is to raise $525 and it would be more than amazing if you could help me reach my goal. I would truly love it if you could give anything. Can you help me out by supporting me with a gift that will help support me as I take this next step towards my goal of becoming a stronger leader?

Thank you! God bless.

If you would like to give to help Rebecca with this amazing opportunity, please send you checks through our normal missionary support:

Please make check payable to “World Impact” and

designate “Rebecca Wolyn, DC Leadership” on the memo

Send to:

World Impact

2001 S. Vermont Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90007

OR

You may also GIVE ONLINE HERE.

[giving address: https://my.worldimpact.org/default.aspx?page=3826&funds=6605]

Also, if you are planning on praying for her I’m sure it would bless her to get a little note or know who is lifting her up through the end of her school year and into this trip. You can mail her directly at:

Rebecca Wolyn

2001 S. Vermont Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90007

or I can print out any emails you want to send to her at heart4thecity@gmail.com

Thanks!

Upcoming Events please be in prayer…

·        Evangel Church Planting School (May 31-June 2) – We are hoping for over 20 new church plant teams to come through our school…several of which we will be personally coaching throughout the planting process over the course of the year.

·        Men’s outreach and family picnic (Father’s Day celebration) (June 16)

·        Rebecca’s Leadership Trip to East Coast  (June 20-28)  see above letter from Rebecca

·        Youth Camping Trip (June 22-23)

·        Summer Camps for grades 1-3, 4-6, 7-12 (July 1-6, July 17-20, July 29-Aug 3)

·        LA Mission Trip (July 12-18)

Thank you for lifting us up in prayer. We need it! It is always a blessing to hear from you – we do pray for you as well. As you move into summer may God continue to be your light, your refreshment and your joy.

Blessings!

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Justice and Beniah