Sunday Highlight: February 7

Let’s pray today for one of our North American missionary couples that our church is happy to support through the Cooperative Program: They are Sean and Lydia Stevenson. Sean is from New Mexico, Lydia from Arkansas. They have years of church planting experience. They are planting a new church called Elmwood Park Community Church. It’s in Greater Chicago, though technically they are in the village of Oak Park, northwest of central Chicago.

They were able to launch their new work in the building of a church which had closed, as most other churches in Oak Park have sadly done. Sean and Lydia are especially qualified to serve here, since many of the local residents are of Polish or Central European background. Sean and Lydia served eight years in Poland as Southern Baptist missionaries, so they speak Polish. But about half their new members are Hispanic, so Sean is studying Spanish.

This mixture of people is typical in Chicago, the nation’s third largest city, with some 10 million residents. Evangelical Christians number less than a million, so new churches are badly needed. Let’s unite in prayer now for Sean and Lydia and that new church.