Chicopee Celebrates 35 Years of Faithfulness

This year it’s been a blessing to watch God move here in Chicopee. We were honored to celebrate our 35th anniversary and be able to launch a brand new work into Manchester, Connecticut.

Pastor Campo and the Cape Cod congregation partnered with us along with Lowell, Mass. and the Troy, New York churches. This knitting of hearts has stirred our congregation and been a catalyst for co-laboring throughout the northeast.

The Manchester church has begun to see fruit, and was blessed with a great building where they saw 64 visitors at one of their first events.

After releasing this key couple, disciples began to step up and fill the void - running outreaches, follow up ministry, and starting new ministries. Several of our older saints were stirred to make impact at a local Youth Facility. These incarcerated young men have been responsive and we’re believing for many more to come to salvation.

One exciting thing that happened in the past few months was the start of IGNITE. Immediately after the July Prescott Conference, a young couple returned inspired with a vision to impact the youth in our community. They decided to organize a weekly youth-geared music scene with the added draw of interactive games for a six week run. And with that, our IGNITE ministry began.

For the start up, God gave us favor with the city, along with support of local law enforcement and the city’s social media accounts, which helped us publicize IGNITE events. Our strategy was to hit parks with outreaches and “rap attacks” immediately before the event.

Every week, we were joined by a rotating list of local pastors and their youth helping us outreach and perform. We had live music, testimonies, and a game night with ping-pong tables and foosball that consistently drew a young and increasingly desperate generation.

From this we saw over 100 visitors during those six weeks, with 21 precious souls responding during the altar calls. Many of those who came stayed for more than an hour after the end of each night playing games - which gave us a chance to speak with them and for them to get to know us.

One young man, who got saved after our first event and is now baptized and filled with the Holy Ghost, was able to be a part of a special IGNITE for Halloween. This event again drew more youths. The live drama with a Twilight Zone twist about a young woman who loses her friend to drugs captured their hearts and minds. We had 27 young visitors and saw 11 respond for salvation.

We’re grateful for all that God has been doing and the strong support from surrounding churches here in the Northeast (and the prayers from all across the Fellowship). A big thanks to everyone!