After more than four years of praying and looking for a new building, the Covenant congregation, which had grown from 35 to 1,000 people in attendance over the past 15 years, agreed to purchase the property belonging to El Redil Church, says Gary Sander, missionary with the Evangelical Covenant Church Department of World Mission. The original agreement gave El Redil a year to find a new location.
“Three weeks ago the pastor of the El Redil Church told pastor Andres Bunch of the Covenant Christian Church that he was going to take a sabbatical and not continue pastoring the congregation of El Redil,” says Sander. The pastor requested that the Covenant congregation receive and assimilate El Redil members who wanted to join them.
Covenant Christian Church began when the Covenant Foundation started its drug and alcohol rehabilitation program for men. The foundation had a vision to begin a church. In 1992 they began weekly meetings with the families of some of the men in the program because they realized that these families needed a church, Sander says. Those families became the core group of the new congregation.
The church has continued ministries of compassion, mercy and justice, Sander says. The congregation now runs a Christian school, a women’s rehabilitation program, a television program that raises awareness of the Colombian society’s need for change and the church’s role in the transformation, a prison ministry, and various “love brigades,” which reach into the most destitute areas of the city. A video of the congregation’s brigades was shown during the 2007 Annual Meeting and is available for download as a QuickTime video. The church also has planted seven other congregations.
“Whatever God has placed in their path, they have taken in faith and followed God’s leading in how to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people,” says Sander. “So, now, God has placed another opportunity in their path.”
Sander notes that moving into a new building already is a major undertaking. “Add to that the challenge of incorporating people from another congregation, people with church roles and church ministries in place, and people who are accustomed to another form of church government and structure. You can imagine the challenge in front of the Covenant Christian Church family and the pastoral staff.”
Sander asks that Covenanters “pray for divine guidance and direction, for an overflowing of God’s love for one another, for strength and wisdom in the midst of a great time of transition, and that God’s name be glorified in every step of the process.”
