Welcoming the Lothamers

We’re excited to announce our newest Reign Ministries team members, Jeff and Christie Lothamer!  They have just made the decision to join the Reign Ministries team and are beginning the support raising process.  We hope to have them join us sometime in 2011.  Below is an excerpt from their blog about what they will be doing here in the UK.  If you would like to follow their journey, check out their blog at http://lothamers.blogspot.com.

“We will be joining Reign Ministries in the UK (http://www.reignministries.co.uk/). They desire to create a movement of young people reaching young people (with the Gospel of Jesus Christ). While the mission is reaching youth, there needs to be healthy churches for these students to participate in and to be discipled after they are reached. Currently, most of the church options available are traditional in nature in that their focus is a weekend event rather than creating disciples who live out their faith everyday. Therefore, a lack of healthy Biblical churches can be devastating to young believers as they join these churches and quickly fall into the weekly ritual of church attendance rather than a vibrant, daily relationship with Jesus and his body. The analogy that helped me understand the need is that through discipleship God gives birth to “new wine” or a new creation. This “new wine” is commonly placed in “old wineskins”. Instead of these new believers changing the cultures of these traditional churches or “old wineskins”, they are commonly “discipled backwards” and fall prey to the ritualism and tradition of religion. Our opportunity is to go and create “new wineskins” or new expressions of God’s church that will propel these young people forward in their discipleship and in their reaching of other young people. Our primary task then, with another couple Steve & Sarah Caton, is to develop a healthy church movement. We would be connected in fellowship with a church in Sheffield, UK call The Crowded House (www.thecrowdedhouse.org). The Crowded House is connected to the Acts 29 network of churches (www.acts29network.org) and the GCM Collective (www.gcmcollective.com).

We will also be using our gifts within the Reign ministry. I, Jeff, will be helping to administrate and run the operations of Reign Ministries in the UK. Christie will be counseling and possibly equipping others in Biblical counseling. We both will be teaching in ICY-UK (a small discipleship training/Bible College), discipling young people, and participating on the leadership team together.

We will be living in the town of Bicester, approximately 10 miles from Oxford and 1 hour northwest of London.”

Please join us in praying for the Lothamer’s as they begin their support raising journey!