Elgin Vineyard returns to Colombia for mission trip
Vineyard Church of Elgin will send a mission team of 10 adults to Medellin, Colombia, this month to minister to people ranging from the homeless community to Bible students. This will be the second time the church has sent a team to Medellin; the first group made the trip in 2016.
Team leader Eric Hahn said Colombia was chosen partly due to some ties that the church has with a missionary family, Jerry and Barb Manderfield, who founded Christ for the Nations Institute (CFNI) in Medellin. But more than that, Hahn said, the team is going to Colombia to help invest in the next generation there.
"At Christ for the Nations, these are young college students who have taken time to go to a Bible college before going on to university, which many of them will do," Hahn said. "They're trying to get a biblical worldview. For us it's a great opportunity and blessing to invest in hungry young people who want to know God's plan for their lives."
With Hahn and Michelle Pollard doing the teaching, the team will present a two-day conference at CFNI called "The Father Heart of God."
"In Christianity, he is called a father," Hahn said. "We all struggle sometimes with feeling like an unworthy son or daughter to this heavenly father, because we've maybe had some negative experiences with our own earthly father or maybe because of things we've done. There are such hungry hearts to learn that our heavenly father loves us no matter what, and his love can't be taken away."
The same conference will be presented later in the week at a new Vineyard church in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Medellin. In between, the team will be out on the streets, passing out meals and praying with people they meet.
Back home, Pastor Tom Severson continues his new sermon series this week on the Book of Galatians. In his sermon titled "The Gospel and Identity," he examines how the gospel affects our lives and what it looks like over the long term to be developed by God.
Services begin at 9 and 11 a.m., with coffee at 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. The church is located at 220 Division St.
For more information, please call the church office at (847) 697-8001 or visit www.elginvineyard.com. Details also are available on the church Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ElginVineyard.