Missions

Working with CRU, Matt and Rebecca with their family (Noah, Sophia and Luke) minister to students at several campuses in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts including UMass-Dartmouth and Brown. Matt is a team leader, and since 2012 he and Rebecca have been engaged in teaching and discipling students to impact their lives for Christ.

Jarrod and Susie Lynn (along with their kids) have been ministerering full-time on the college campus with CRU and Athletes in Action since the early 2000's (primarily at Brown University). Their work includes evangelism, teaching, and discipleship with students, professors, athletes and coaches.

God has a special heart for the poor. And at the center of God’s mission is the local church. Yet the church planting movement of the past 40 years has has failed to plant local churches among the inner city poor. Only 2% of new churches are planted in low-income urban communities. NEU Church Planting is addressing this problem in New England. NEU equips church planters to establish sustainable, diverse, gospel-centered churches among New England’s urban poor neighborhoods. These communities suffer from poverty, violence, abuse, injustice and neglect. We believe the greatest mercy for our ravaged inner cities is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Godspeed Church plays a unique role in partnering with NEU by providing a church planting residency program and a “church home” for many of the potential planters as they continue training.

Faith Community Church is a local evangelical church family in Providence, RI, that seeks to meet the spiritual and physical needs of those in and around the city. In addition to regular worship services on Sundays, their ministries include life groups, women’s ministry, local outreach, a mentoring/discipleship program for young men and activities directed toward youth.

Church planters Jonathan and Tere Lugo, natives of Puerto Rico, working with Elisabeth Berry and other NEU staff planted Iglesia Cristiana Centrados en el Evangelio (ICCE) in Central Falls, RI, a city with a large Puerto Rican and Latino community. Beginning as a Bible study in 2022, ICCE was officially planted in November 2023. This church exists in order to fulfill the great commission given by Jesus Christ to form disciples both in Central Falls and its surrounding areas committed to living their lives centered on the gospel and obedient to the word of God.

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The Parkers, as medical missionaries under World Gospel Mission, work at Tenwek Hospital at Bomet, Kenya. Tenwek is a 300-bed hospital and training center dedicated to meeting both physical and spiritual needs of their patients. The hospital has both intern and residency programs as well as the College of Health Sciences (nursing training), and a school of chaplaincy. Bob and Andrea not only provide surgical care to patients but also teach young African Christian doctors to become surgeons and leaders of their communities. Madison is currently studying at Indiana University.

Nick and Annie VanWingerden (with their children Crystelle, Micah, Chloe and Wesley) serve with Impact France. In 2008 they began directing FEU, a parachurch organization on the campus of the University of Grenoble. In 2018, they joined another couple in planting the Grenoble East Church. By being particularly attractive for young couples and families, the church seeks to develop training resources for both churched and unchurched couples and parents. Believing that the gospel transforms families, and that transformed families become the pillars of healthy churches and communities, these new believers will play an essential role in God’s saving purposes for France in the 21st century.

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Scotland has long since retreated from its rich gospel heritage, and nowhere is this more evident than in the “schemes,” or housing projects which are the country’s poorest neighborhoods. 20Schemes seeks to break this crippling spiritual poverty by planting healthy, gospel-centered churches in these poor areas. They evangelize, disciple and provide spiritual training programs in order to see the schemes transformed by the gospel. Since over half of the households are single-parent families (90% of these led by women), the women’s ministry offers advice and discipleship from mature, believing women. Because poverty and unemployment are five times worse than the rest of society, 20Schemes provides programs to prepare workers to find employment and learn the dignity of working to support their families.

Matt and Emily with their children (Samuel, Calvin, Owen, and Lucy) live in Bangkok Thailand where Matt serves as lead pastor of Bangkok City Baptist Church. The Tylers moved to Bangkok in 2021 to see a new Gospel preaching church planted in the city. By God’s grace in August of 2022 Bangkok City Baptist Church was covenanted. Although BCBC is a small church in a big city, their membership is diverse coming from seven different nations, and the Lord continues to add to their number those who have been saved. BCBC seeks to be a church that is committed to not only the health of their members but the health of churches across Thailand. To that end, in 2023 Saphan Siam was launched. Saphan means “bridge” in Thai. Saphan Siam seeks to be a bridge between the Thai church and Biblical, trusted and timely resources in the Thai language.