Church Highlight
By: Pastor Joe Giunta
In 2014, we answered the call to be North American Missionaries to the inner-city of Detroit, Michigan. God called us to plant churches in the heart of Detroit. We love God and we love our city.
Over the past seven years we have lived in Detroit, we have faced many obstacles and have seen many great victories. God has helped us every step of the way.
We began by holding services inside a homeless shelter and by preaching on street corners. We started Bible study groups in the homes of the people we were reaching.
When we were ready to take the next step, we hosted a block party where over 1,500 people from the community attended. That day we saw over 150 souls filled with the baptism of the Holy Ghost and over 70 were baptized in Jesus’ name. What happened that day opened a door for us to begin holding our pre-launch services in a classroom and gymnasium of the Detroit Delta Prep School. After a short while, investors started to buy properties in Detroit, and our school was bought for an investment. This forced us to move from the school and meet in home groups.
Neighboring UPCI pastors opened up their buildings to us throughout the week so we could host Bible Studies and use their baptismal. In 2019, we started renting from a church of another denomination. This was great because it allowed us to minister truth to them and win people to the Lord.
In January of 2020, we felt impressed by the Lord to forego our lease renewal and start meeting back in our home. Little did we know that the Covid-19 pandemic was right around the corner. All throughout Covid-19 and since, we have been having church in our living room in order to save our finances for our own building. We have been able to save what we would've paid in rent for our building fund. Finally, in 2020, we were able to give a record offering to missions and Christmas for Christ. We also were able to see substantial growth in our building fund from the giving within our church. This was a great sign of growth for us.
Through each one of these stages, we have grown together as a church, learned valuable lessons from the Lord, and witnessed His power moving among us. As we continued to hold services in our home, we tried many different avenues in looking for a building of our own, again, to no avail. It seemed as if everything we tried was not the right fit. We began to pray and seek God on what He would have us to do.
Recently, we received a word from the prophet in our lives that it was now time! The very next day a close friend called to inform us about a church he had seen for sale. We went to check it out and were amazed. It was exactly what we had been looking for. We believed this was “the one” and we were ready to take the next steps.
We approached this with two things in mind; what we can do, and what God can do. We have always believed that if we do what we can do, God will do what He can do.
Two ways for us to own our new building...
1. What we can do - we apply for the loan we need to purchase our new building. We keep our finances in order, and we GIVE, GIVE, GIVE!
2. What God can do - we believe God for the finances to be completely debt free (which is His ultimate will for us), through everyone's generous giving, and our own financial stewardship.
Being a small church plant without having much financial history, we reached out to the UPCI Loan Fund. They guided us throughout the whole process. It was so refreshing talking to people about physical natural things like money and loans, but feeling their burden and desire to help us reach our city and fulfill our purpose. They were very helpful in knowing exactly what we needed. They knew we were a church and helped us meet our specific individual needs.
With the help of the UPCI Loan Fund*, we have our new home! We have a place to facilitate revival and growth. We have a house that we can worship God in, and we have a building that will allow us to fulfill our call to be Missionaries to Detroit.
