Global Partner Update - February 2023

The lives of International church planters and missionaries can seem so far off and set apart that we can forget these are normal families doing regular things to serve the Lord. I pray that, in this upcoming season, we will honor and support these church plants for the good and godly work they’re doing to advance the gospel. I pray we are also able to get a clearer picture of these church planters as people. Veritas currently supports three church-plants around the world. Please choose one of these church planting families and their congregation to pray for!

See below for some updates and prayer requests directly from these church planters!

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” - Matthew 28:16-20

Jon and Linnea Ranson, Pillar Okinawa - Okinawa, Japan

  • Our first church plant, Gospel Life Church, was launched on Christmas Day of 2022. Gospel Life is focused on reaching Okinawan people with the gospel of Jesus. Please pray with us!

  • Our church planting initiative, Gospel to Okinawa, will kick off its annual cohort in March. Please pray as we engage with Okinawan pastors and ministry leaders, working together to spark church planting movements in Okinawa.

  • The Ransom family will transition away from Pillar Church, and from Okinawa, in June. Please pray for Pillar Church and for the Ransom family in this season of transition.

Daniel and Kelsi Crane, Agape Baptist Church - George, South Africa

  • Things continue at Agape with the primary focus of appointing Elders in the church within the next 14 months. I also hope to be evaluated by Agape to see if they would call me to be one of their elders. Right now I am serving as a church planter, but the church has never formally appointed its own elders.

  • Please pray: for the Spirit's leading as 13 men have committed to an "elder cohort" over the coming year. I'm thankful for the evaluation process I experienced at Veritas ... and I hope to translate that experience into this context.

  • An interesting development in South Africa: the country is struggling to keep the power on. For years we have been experiencing "load-shedding" where the power is turned off to entire communities for 4-6 hours every day. Recently we were without power for 6-12 hours a day. We often do Bible-study by flashlight, and we’ve got a car battery powering the fridge. But for now, Kelsi has become very adept at making dinner without power, and I'm learning to prepare sermons without access to online resources. Just another one of life's curve-balls.

John and Caroline Norris, Redeemer Al Ain - Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

  • Pray for more unreached people to hear the gospel and to be saved here in Al Ain. It’s an amazing place with so many unreached, but God must call them; and He answers prayer.

  • Pray for our membership to grow in speaking the truth in love to one another, and in boldly and sacrificially caring for the lost.

  • Pray for Caroline as she starts a new year of homeschooling with our children. She’s made several adjustments to the curriculum that have required a lot of work and energy this summer. Pray for strength for her, and for our kids to grow in the true knowledge of God and His world.

  • Praise the Lord for allowing us to move back to the Al Ain Convention Centre on Saturday mornings. We have prayed for this for a long time, and so our measure of gratitude is high! Pray that moving back would be an encouragement to our members and a benefit to the lost in our part of the city.

Local Partner Update

Part of Veritas’s Vision is to be For the City, and the main way we carry that out is through our Local Partners. These are organizations throughout Fayetteville and surrounding areas that have shown to love and care for people in need, and often in crisis. They also do this work while unapologetically giving the credit and glory to Christ. I’ve been blessed to learn and work with these organizations throughout the years, and I’d love to share more some of the amazing things happening through them, as well as ways you can get involved!

For more information about any of these organizations, join these Local Partner groups!

Operation Inasmuch (OIAM)

What began in 1995 as bi-annual neighborhood revitalization days has transformed into a daily homeless ministry in the heart of downtown Fayetteville. Operation Inasmuch exists to be the hands and feet of Jesus among the broken, hurting, and homeless by offering relief, recovery, and restoration of hope.

Their relief ministries include breakfast, showers, medical care, haircuts, (and a lot more.) Breakfast, which is served Monday-Friday, is their cornerstone ministry, and Veritas serves the second Tuesday of every other month.

OIAM also offers transitional housing and a support program to men who have life barriers keeping them from stability and self-sufficiency. The Lodge, created in 2017, is in an exciting season of revising its criteria and programming to better serve men in need.

How you can help:

  • Come serve breakfast with us on Tuesday, February 14 (talk about an opportunity to spread love on Valentine’s Day!) RSVP HERE.

  • Support their Bread N Bowls 2023 Fundraiser. This fundraiser supports the bulk of their yearly operational costs; Buy a raffle ticket for the opportunity to win a new car! Get a bread bowl meal of chili or potato soup! You can also purchase a hand-painted bowl!

Fayetteville Area Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity is dedicated to eliminating substandard housing locally and worldwide through constructing, rehabilitating and preserving homes; by advocating for fair and just housing policies; and by providing training and access to resources to help families improve their shelter conditions.

Veritas partners with Habitat by participating in construction and up-keep events for their various neighborhoods throughout Fayetteville. Last year, Oak Ridge Estates, 47 affordable, permanent homes at Bunce Rd. and Old Bunce Rd. They’ll be building 55 more homes across from Oakridge Estates, as well as on Maloney St.

How you can help:

Hand of Hope

Hand of Hope Pregnancy Center exists to give the preborn a chance to live, offer women life-affirming choices for their babies, and offer post-abortive women and men a chance for healing and restoration. Hand of Hope respects the dignity of all women, and works to build trust through caring for people and not shaming or condemning them for their life circumstances and choices. Hand of Hope offers free ultrasounds, baby supplies (like clothing, formula, car seats, etc.), as well as life-coaching and case management services. Along with Fayetteville, Hand of Hope has centers in Raleigh and Fuquay-Varina.

How you can help:

Best and blessings,

Emily Ruth Perry
Director of Community Life | Veritas Church
emilyruth@veritasfayetteville.com

The Weary World Rejoices - Daily Devotional for Advent

Before Advent began, I stumbled upon an Advent Devotional from The Gospel Coalition - The Weary World Rejoices - Daily Devotions for Advent edited by Melissa Kruger. I floated the idea past some other ladies at Veritas, and now we have a Signal chat in which we can share our daily thoughts and reflections. The Devotional is structured around the concept of an Advent Wreath; Advent wreaths traditionally have 4 or 5 candles that are lit on the Sundays of Advent, and each of the candles represent Christian concepts like Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, and Faith.

This week we are looking at Peace, and today’s devotional was “Peace in the Loneliness”. By God’s grace, this Christmas season, I’m experiencing real joy and connectivity with family and friends, but the entry brought to memory Christmas 2020.

Christmas 2020 hit me very hard; besides the global pandemic we were all going through, I was still in shell shock from the massive church conflict that happened within Veritas in 2019. November 2020 was also the 10 year anniversary of my mother’s passing. My husband and his family have always invested a lot into celebrating Christmas (and most years I really love and appreciate this), but that year, all of the cheer and festivities made me feel all the more alone in my pain and grief.  

“Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distress. Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me! Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.” (Ps. 25:16-20)

Today’s devotional, based around this scripture, did a beautiful job of reminding me that loneliness is a form of suffering and not inherently sinful - at times we can be filled with anxiety that the distance we feel from God and others must be because we have put some sinful barrier between ourselves and God. This psalm reminds us that for David, the circumstances of living in a broken sinful world were responsible for his suffering and loneliness, and that God is our deliverer from that. It’s worth noting that when in loneliness, our pain can cause us to lash out or escape with sinful distractions, so confession and repentance can have its place in the process of healing.

In this season in which we remember the birth of our savior and deliverer, Jesus, we consider all of the ways ‘His coming meant the securing of eternal peace between you and God, and you and others - the death of loneliness.’ (Aragon, 39)

When our Lord took on our sins and went to the cross, he was primarily paying our debts and reconciling us with God. One of the other generosities of Christ on the cross was he now too can empathize with the loneliness of feeling separated from God and others. Having someone else truly understand our suffering and loneliness is a balm that begins to bring us back to our God-designed relational unity. My prayer is that if you are in a season of suffering and loneliness that this may remind you that Jesus brings us peace in the loneliness, and that may gently fan a flame that warms and comforts your heart.  

Best and blessings,
Emily Ruth Perry | Director of Community Life
EmilyRuth@veritasfayetteville.com

Clarifying Our Complementarity

Let's address the elephant in the room early - much of church history has not been kind to women. The role of women within the context of the evangelical church and marriage has been a hot topic of debate. Some questions that students of the Bible have attempted to answer are: “What does the Bible say the roles of women should be within the church? What about within marriage? Or singleness? Or in the workplace?” I believe that many students rightly land on the complementarian end of the spectrum after study on the topic. However, the answers that these students come up with for those previously listed questions fall short of God’s design for women because they fail to interpret difficult passages within their greater context. In fact, I would argue that the better question to ask would be, “What is the church missing when we prevent women from living out God’s design?” I think you will find that misunderstanding God’s call for women has dangerous consequences for both women and men. 

The two major views on the biblical roles of men and women are: complementarian (men and women are equal in value but differentiated in responsibility) and egalitarian (men and women are equal in value and hold no distinction in responsibility). I choose to use the word 'responsibility' rather than 'role' in my definitions of complementarianism and egalitarianism intentionally. I have a reason for this word choice - a responsibility is something that requires effort to succeed at. It requires effort and intentionality to lead well, to disciple well, to support well, to encourage well. A ‘role’ is comparable to an actor’s part in a play - a temporary job that an audience expects them to perform rather than an on-going responsibility that defines the inner workings of a relationship.

As someone who seeks to align my thinking with the truth revealed to all us in Scripture, I find it undeniable that God made both men and women equal in worth and value as His image bearers, and he has also ordained distinctions in responsibility between men and women. Allow me to dig in to the creation story as an illustration. God created all of the world's 'stuff' before creating his image bearers to inhabit the world. "Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Gen 1:26-27)

Interestingly, God gives men and women the same mission: "And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so." (Gen 1:28-30)

To paraphrase, "Make more image-bearers, and rule together over creation."

As the narrative of the bible continues, we see greater explanation. Chapter 2 shows us some of God's interactions with Adam before Eve came around. We see God give Adam the responsibility of tending to the garden and abstaining from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. After giving Adam these responsibilities, God says, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." It reads as if God knows that these responsibilities are soul-crushing when one person is carrying the weight of them alone. So God creates a 'helper'.

If you are like me, then the word, 'helper' makes your stomach turn a little bit. Let's look at that responsibility a little deeper.

A quick search using the app called "Blue letter bible" shows me other places this word has been used. In the Psalms, we see the word "helper" over and over again in reference to God himself. "Do not hide your face from me; do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my helper; do not leave me or abandon me, God of my salvation" (Psalm 10:14) "LORD, listen and be gracious to me; LORD, be my helper." (Psalm 30:10) "God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble." (Psalm 46:1) "God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my life." (Psalm 54:4) "If the LORD had not been my helper, I would soon rest in the silence of death." (Psalm 94:17) We also see this word used in Exodus and Hebrews. The concept of a life-saving, irreplaceable 'helper' is well established throughout the bible.

Faithful biblical theology (or the practice of tracing the development of a theme, in this case the theme is the role of 'helper', as it unfolds throughout the biblical narrative) shows us the real nature of the responsibility of a 'helper'. Without this 'helping' work, mankind is left in a dire, deathly situation. 

However, somehow, the gravity of this helping responsibility has been understated throughout church history. The church has treated the role of women as supplemental and optional. Somehow the message shifted from "Men, you will be crushed if you attempt to accomplish God's call on your life alone," to, "Men, you've got this. But if you want a better quality of life, go find yourself a woman." What's worse is that the message shifted from, "Women, in order for you and the people around you to live according to God's purpose, it is vital and necessary that you partner with other believers on mission in any way that is helpful," to, "Women, your role is to provide a better life for men."

Here is what I want to ask of you: please read all other passages addressing the role of women with the context of her mission in mind. If you come across 1 Tim 2, Titus 1, 1 Corinthians 11 in your reading, I want you to remind yourself to interpret these passages within the larger context of what God has to say about his mission for women. I plan to tackle each of these passages in later blog posts in an effort to bring clarity and faithfulness to the conversation. I have so much more I want to say on this topic. 

But this is what I want to leave you with:

If your belief concerning the role of women diminishes the life-giving, health-producing, vital responsibility that women are entrusted with, then your belief falls short of the commands of God. If you believe that marriage and child-rearing is the only biblically appropriate option for women, then you are ignoring your responsibility to practice faithful biblical theology. If you think that women exist for the purpose of making a better life for men, then you are conveniently forgetting God's command given to the first woman to, "fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen 1:29)

Church, let's partner together on mission - men and women - as God designed.

October 23, 2022 Baptism Photos

We are so thankful for the opportunity to celebrate baptisms with you, Veritas Church! God continues to graciously call people to himself, and we are encouraged to witness the public proclamation of new faith in Jesus!

If you want to be baptized, we have another baptism Sunday coming up on October 30th during the 10a gathering. Click here to RSVP!

Photos provided by the talented Kori Frazier.