Ron & Carla Brand (Camille & Caleb)

  

 Gary & Martha Ellsworth

"We would like to welcome you to the Community Outreach Website!  Thanks for stopping by today to browse around and if there is anyway that we can be of help to you, please contact one of us.   We serve in the Church Development & Revitalization Ministry of U.S. Missions  The ministry of COMMUNITY OUTREACH (C.O), is to equip every pastor and local congregation of every revitalization work or New church plant to look for where God is working, through a refocus in PRAYER, PENTECOSTAL RENEWAL, EVANGELISM (by teaching spirit-filled Christians how to ask a series of questions in witnessing), CARE VISITATION MINISTRIES, AND DISCIPLESHIP."  Ron Brand

Carla and Ron have been serving the Assemblies of God movement and the Southern Missouri District as nationally appointed home missions workers since 1994, and as the coordinator of the Community Outreach Project in the Southern Missouri District beginning in 1994.  They were awarded a Home Missionaries of the Year workers award in 2002 at the Assemblies of God Home Missions conference in Springfield.  Their ministry is well known in Missouri and across the Midwest among many churches and pastors. (see more on BIO page for your local promotion)

Gary & Martha Ellsworth have been serving the Assemblies of God movement also for more than 40 years as Church Planter, Pastor, and Evangelist.  The passion of the Ellsworth's ministry is to see a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our churches.  As a Nationally Appointed U.S. Missionary their focus is on Rural America as well as the plateaued or declining churches.      (see more on BIO page for your local promotion)

 MORE DESCRIPTION OF FIVE TARGET AREAS WE HELP A CHURCH FOCUS ON

 

Encourage, equip, energize and enable the local church to reach its full potential in reaching and maintaining their harvest.  The first area we target with a church is PRAYER.  We feel this is paramount to doing anything with the church; in fact, we will not move forward with any plans until we have spent what we feel is an adequate amount of time in prayer, fasting, and challenging the people to seek God and listen for His voice.  

Provide assistance to any church desiring to be more effective in touching their community with a renewed emphasis on the lost art of CARE, VISITATION and DISCIPLESHIP training, and how to share our faith, verbally, outwardly, with a touch, learning to listen.  The discipleship training is now gently stressed to the point that NO SCHEDULED OUTREACH will be conducted until a discipleship plan is adopted, taught, and put into practice.  Many people come to faith in Christ during an outreach; the lack of believers being baptized in the Holy Spirit, and of an immediate proper discipleship plan, we feel ARE the broken links in so many of our churches that are facing stunted growth.  We will stay with, guide, and work with the church until this is fixed. 

Help believers discover the empowerment of the Holy Spirit PENTECOSTAL RENEWAL in special called services with ample time given for prayer and people to seek God, and to equip believers with tools to share their faith. 

Give opportunity for compassion-type CARE ministries (addressing the physical and material needs of others) upcoming ministry in the local community.  This is something we have steadily emphasized now for 15 years.  Our Christian movement seems to be blessed at this point with several very forward moving ministries that have a deep passion to meet this need; we currently guide our pastors toward those ministries and give a hand or try to incorporate these ministries into our C.O. projects if they are operating in a geographical area where they may be able to assist, rather than try to duplicate what they are excelling at. 

Continue to Build a network of EVANGELISM outreach teams who will share in our various ministries.  This we have done, and we continue to build it. 

Help the church establish consistent outreach goals.  We begin the process months ahead during the planning process, and through Question and Answer sessions, finding the heart and vision of the pastor and church.  We also make periodic follow-up visits to see how the church is doing with C.O. Aftercare.

 

In the words of just one pastor recently:   “Gary Ellsworth and Ron Brand with C.O. ministry are exactly what a pastor and church need to reach the next step of growth and maturity. For the small church, they are incredible! Both of these dear brothers are insightful, discerning, spiritual, and have hearts of love. Ron and Gary know how to tailor an evangelism plan for a church, and they come with resources. Their ministry truly brought excitement for outreach to our church and I cannot say thanks enough.” Pastor George Geesey Bethel Assembly of God, Garden City, MO

Several Community Outreaches are conducted each year where they lead volunteers to distribute thousands of Light For the Lost (LFTL) bibles and packets of church information to thousands of homes, praying with people about their needs during each outreach.  Resources are provided for each local congregation to find fulfillment in obeying the Great Commission.  Such outreaches have been conducted in various places across the state:  June 2009 in Jamestown/Prairie Home MO, January 2006 in Pleasant Hill MO, and July 1998 in Noel MO, and the churches are still reaping growth as a result.  

Recognizing the need to enlarge COMMUNITY OUTREACH (C.O.) to better minister on time to churches that call, the services of C.O. were expanded in 2003 to include the fulltime mission of Pentecostal Renewal Ministries (with U.S. Missionaries Gary & Martha Ellsworth).   In certain situations where the churches that call are also in need of some of the specialized ministries that are available with our other missionaries we serve with, we attempt to utilize and network with every missions worker possible.  For instance, we are also in partnership with Rural Compassion (www.ruralcompassion.org) with U.S. Missionaries Steve & Rebecca Donaldson as part of assisting the local church to fulfill it's mission of sharing the good news, many times directly relating to the poverty issues of an area and/or disaster relief.  We have and will continue to direct many pastors to use this incredible ministry.  Then in the area of discipleship we have the benefit of having U.S. Missionaries Jim and Betty Hall, based in Springfield to partner with, directors of New Christian Life Ministries (www.newchristian.com) and the authors of The Harvesters Handbook .  We encourage you to view both of their websites as well, and lend support to them (prayer and financial) in anyway you can.


 

AG.org News & Information

  • Minister, missions visionary Dan Sheaffer dies

    Dr. Dan Sheaffer, the former pastor of Crossroads Cathedral (AG) in Oklahoma City, known for effectively raising millions for AG missions and AG higher education, passed away Thursday.

  • Fisherman back on feet, thanks to Convoy, MAPS

    Jimmy Morgan, an oyster fisherman from Louisiana, had his house and boat destroyed by Katrina in 2005. Hundreds of church groups, MAPS teams, Convoy of Hope teams and volunteers headed to the region to help families like the Morgans get back on their feet.

  • India -- becoming the church's greatest opportunity

    Experts are predicting that India will become the most populous country in the world as soon as 2020 — the India Assemblies of God plans to have 25,000 new churches planted by the same date.

  • Dick Gruber honored for work by "Children's Ministry Magazine"

    Dick Gruber, Valley Forge professor and former Children's Ministries consultant for the Assemblies of God, was recognized as one of the top 20 influencers in children's ministry in the September/October issue of Children's Ministry Magazine.

  • Three-time AG college president passes

    Klaude Kendrick, who served as president of three different Assemblies of God institutions of higher education, passed away Saturday. He was 93.