Thriving church reaches out to city
by Lavinia Ngatoko in Challenge Weekly, New Zealand
July 6, 2007
GISBORNE NZ (ANS) -- A church established in Gisborne, New Zealand, more than 10 years ago with just over 60 people is thriving and is expanding to other parts of New Zealand and overseas.House of Breakthrough has about 600 members, some 80 per cent of whom were non-Christians before they joined the church.
Senior Pastor Norm Mcleod, who moved from Oamaru to Gisborne in 1991 to plant the church under the Elim banner, said he was given a vision from God to set up the church.
"The ministries of the church would extend into the city, nation and in time to come to other nations." Mr Mcleod, an ordained pastor since 1986 with the Elim movement, and his wife did not know anyone in the city and started the church with 36 people at a morning service, and 31 in the evening.
In November last year the church was released from the Elim churches and now its own churches in the notorious gangland suburb of Highbury in Palmerston North as well as in India. An Auckland church will be established at the end of this month.
Mr McLeod says the key to the church's growth was simply sharing the love of Christ in practical ways to the community.
The many ministries run by the church include family, children's (called Bay Warriors and Revolution Earth) and a youth group.
"The revolution is against the things that rob them of the best, such as drugs and alcohol," he said. "We're helping them to do well in school, to get qualified, credentialed and get good jobs."
Although the Christian school in the city is not run by the church, most of the students come from House of Breakthrough families and the church helps to support it. The school only goes up to form 2, but Mr Mcleod says they want to take it up to high school.
An after school care programme for 40 children is also run by the church, which provides a bus for transport if necessary.
"We want to grow that number. The kids love it, so many parents bring them from the other side of town."
The church has a strong focus on prison ministry and has a team that has been going into the Mangaroa Prison every six weeks for the past seven years.
"We're developing a rehabilitation programme for prisoners, which is unique and has never been introduced before to the Ministry of Justice and we're running it through the ministry," said Mr Mcleod.
The programme involves ministering to the wife and children, as well as the prisoner.
The church has a 20 year-vision, which includes the development of a variety of outreach ministries in areas such as housing, employment, education, justice and health aimed at bringing spiritual social and economic reformation to the East Coast.
"Some are embryo ideas and some are operating, such as our health centre. We have our own baby and child healthcare, not two years old and we have a health professional running it. That is the first step, and we want eventually to have our own GP, nutritionist and child psychologist.
"There are a lot of social issues in Gisborne and we want to be the fence at the top. We're sick of being the ambulance at the bottom. These ministries, if they develop over the next 10 years, we hope will exercise a lot of preventive measures and will stop families, marriages and children going over the edge.
"But, of course, we're always going to be to a degree the ambulance at the bottom - it is just society." Mr Mcleod will be accompanying a team of health professionals and builders from Breakthrough to its church in Andhra Pradesh, South India, in October.
Although there are a number of pastors wanting to become part of the New Zealand church, Mr Mcleod wants to first establish the existing one as the headquarters.
The plan is to buy a plot of land where a church auditorium, an orphanage, school and health centre can be built.
At the end of this month a church which has been experiencing dwindling numbers in the Auckland suburb of Pakuranga will officially be opened as a House of Breakthrough Church.
"My role is to help them to reach their full potential in God ... not just to have church on Sunday, but to extend its reach seven days a week in practical ways to the community," said Mr Mcleod.
The church is run by Pastor Luke Iwunze.
Meanwhile, House of Breakthrough will hold its third annual Breakthrough from the East conference from November 23 to 26.
The guest speaker will be Pastor Sunday Adulajah, who pioneered the Embassy of God church in Kiev in the Ukraine 13 years ago.
The church has since grown into what is said to be the largest congregation in European history with 50,000 members.
There are only limited seats for the conference, which can cater for 800 and once they are booked registrations will close. The event is free.
© 2007 ASSIST News Service, used with permission.
