Network Parish-in-Focus Series: St. Luke’s Church, Akron, Ohio
A Mid-western Anglican Church with a Big Heart for the World
One thousand sheets of drywall are loaded onto tractor trailers headed for Pearlington, Mississippi to rebuild churches and homes. Is this the loading dock of a FEMA warehouse?
One hundred and fifty donated bicycles are repaired and loaded onto a container bound for Liberia to provide transportation for pastors and workers. Is this a project of Schwinn International?
Hundreds of pounds of donated formula, medical supplies, clothing and food are collected for shipment to the Children’s Infectious Disease Hospital in Kharkov, Ukraine. Is this a Compassion International offering?
No, these are typical scenes you can see in the parking lot of St. Luke’s Church in Akron, Ohio, a Network parish with a missions ministry that reaches around the globe. St. Luke’s, a 40-year-old parish of 500 congregants, commits one-third of its annual budget to support missions in countries like Ukraine, Mexico, Brazil, Kenya, Liberia, Uganda, and Afghanistan as well as supporting ongoing local and domestic outreach.
Charismatic renewal and mission outreach have always defined St. Luke’s. The congregation supports an inner city church financially through the Rev. Scott Souders, who shares his time between the two congregations. However, ten years ago under the leadership of the Rev. Roger Ames, senior pastor for the past 20 years, St. Luke’s parish made its first connection with the Diocese of Recife, Brazil, and thus began a missions ministry that is now at the heart of St. Luke’s ministry to the world.
Through partnership, prayer, finances and supporting short-term mission teams and full-time missionaries, St. Luke’s parishioners:
* Sent out a couple to help run House of Hope, a daycare for 67 poor children in Recife, Brazil;
* Are building a church, dormitory and school in Matamoros, Mexico;
* Worked with an indigenous Mexican seminary to train missionaries for cross-cultural work;
* Created a non-profit ministry in Ukraine that coordinates adoptions, provides humanitarian aid to orphanages and a children’s hospital, and initiated a program to train disadvantaged youth in computer skills;
* Developed micro-enterprise programs in Ukraine that have distributed ½ million dollars in short-term loans,
* Helped establish 2 crisis pregnancy centers in Kharkov and Poltava, Ukraine, and;
* Made exploratory trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan to develop new ministry opportunities.
The St. Luke’s Missions Committee issued a challenge a few years ago that within five years 75% of the congregation would have experienced a short-term mission trip. With so many teams coming and going throughout the year, the congregation hears a missions testimony about every week. By challenging the congregation to give more, go more, care more and share more, St. Luke’s is close to reaching its goal.
Since November 2005, St. Luke’s has been under the pastoral care of the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons, Bishop of Bolivia, and is now part of the International Conference of the Anglican Communion Network. “This new relationship with Bishop Lyons fits well with our existing commitment to missions,” said Rev. Ames. “We are grateful to the Anglican Communion Network for working so hard to preserve our integrity in the worldwide Anglican Communion, which is so important to our witness to the world, both here and abroad.”
On Easter Sunday, churches in Pearlington, Mississippi that have been rebuilt with contributions from the Network and with the sweat equity of many St. Luke’s missions teams, will open their doors once again, singing “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.” Indeed, He is risen and works through ordinary parishioners who serve an extraordinary God.
Posted at 4:11 pm 4.15.2006 | Permalink