{"id":10529,"date":"2007-11-23T11:45:47","date_gmt":"2007-11-23T16:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=10529"},"modified":"2011-08-09T11:47:21","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T16:47:21","slug":"5963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2007\/11\/23\/5963\/","title":{"rendered":"Congregation Celebrates New Building \u2013 and 500 Visitors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BOGOTA, COLOMBIA (November 23, 2007) \u2013 Members of Covenant Christian  Church were in for a surprise when they gathered November 11 to  celebrate their 15th anniversary by inaugurating their new building \u2013  more than 500 new attendees showed up to join the congregation.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-10530\" title=\"Bogota-Exterior\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/08\/Bogota-Exterior.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"303\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/08\/Bogota-Exterior.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/08\/Bogota-Exterior-297x300.jpg 297w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\u201cThree  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,\u201d says Sander.  The pastor requested that the Covenant congregation receive and  assimilate El Redil members who wanted to join them.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The church has continued  ministries of compassion, mercy and justice, Sander says. The  congregation now runs a Christian school, a women&#8217;s rehabilitation  program, a television program that raises awareness of the Colombian  society&#8217;s need for change and the church&#8217;s role in the transformation, a  prison ministry, and various \u201clove brigades,\u201d which reach into the most  destitute areas of the city. A video of the congregation\u2019s brigades was  shown during the 2007 Annual Meeting and is available for download as a  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/am\/broadcasts\/video-archive\" target=\"_blank\">QuickTime video<\/a>. The church also has planted seven other congregations.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10531\" title=\"Bogota-crowd\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/08\/Bogota-crowd.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/08\/Bogota-crowd.jpg 400w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/74\/2011\/08\/Bogota-crowd-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/>\u201cWhatever  God has placed in their path, they have taken in faith and followed  God&#8217;s leading in how to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the  people,\u201d says Sander. \u201cSo, now, God has placed another opportunity in  their path.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sander notes that moving into a new building already  is a major undertaking. \u201cAdd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sander  asks that Covenanters \u201cpray for divine guidance and direction, for an  overflowing of God&#8217;s love for one another, for strength and wisdom in  the midst of a great time of transition, and that God&#8217;s name be  glorified in every step of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire?moderation_action=report_form&#038;object_type=post&#038;object_id=10529&#038;width=250&#038;height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BOGOTA, COLOMBIA (November 23, 2007) \u2013 Members of Covenant Christian Church were in for a surprise when they gathered November 11 to celebrate their 15th anniversary by inaugurating their new building \u2013 more than 500 new attendees showed up to join the congregation. Report This Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Congregation Celebrates New Building \u2013 and 500 Visitors - Covenant Newswire Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2007\/11\/23\/5963\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Congregation Celebrates New Building \u2013 and 500 Visitors - Covenant Newswire Archives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BOGOTA, COLOMBIA (November 23, 2007) \u2013 Members of Covenant Christian Church were in for a surprise when they gathered November 11 to celebrate their 15th anniversary by inaugurating their new building \u2013 more than 500 new attendees showed up to join the congregation. 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