Announcing the resumption of the Lord’s table in Mississauga, ON (Canada)
To the Churches in the Lord’s Recovery:
We are full of thankfulness to the Lord and His Body in announcing to you that after much prayer and fellowship with the co-workers and the nearby churches, Mississauga will resume the Lord’s Table on the Lord’s day of March 5, 2017 as a genuine local church in the Lord’s recovery.
As many of the saints may aware, there was a turmoil among the churches in the Great Lakes area during the last decade that caused much confusion and division. Numerous attempts were made by the co-workers to fellowship with those responsible for the rebellion. Sadly, because of their unwillingness to heed the fellowship of the Body, a decision was made in 2006, to quarantine those rebellious ones. Subsequent to the ITERO fellowship at Whistler BC in 2006, a quarantine letter was sent out to all the churches.
When the letter was received by the churches, Mississauga as a local church at that time did not heed the fellowship but rather continued to invite these rebellious ones. This brought in much confusion among the saints. Some of the saints felt that they could no longer meet in this divisive situation and because of conscience sake had to leave.
In the past 10 years, various groups of the clear and seeking saints who left, continued to pray and meet locally in homes and in nearby local churches such as: Brampton, Richmond Hill, Markham, and Toronto. Since that time, there has always been a longing in the saints that a proper testimony could again be raised up in Mississauga.
Despite attempts from various co-workers and saints in the recovery to contact the distracted leading brothers in Mississauga, there has not been the willingness to fellowship, repent, and return to the proper fellowship in the Body of Christ. Instead, they continue to receive the quarantined divisive workers and thus have voluntarily cut themselves off from the fellowship with other genuine local churches in the Lord’s recovery. Therefore, these ones by their divisive stand and cutting themselves from the fellowship of the Body can no longer be considered a genuine local church but a local sect.
Due to the number of saints present in Mississauga desiring the proper church life, the brothers in Toronto responded by establishing the Wednesday night prayer meeting in Mississauga in the month of December 2014 and the churches in Canada echoed to have our first GTCA (Gospelize, Truthize, Churchize America) in Mississauga. The local saints enjoyed the blending with the FTTA trainees in the homes, at Bible distributions in UTM (University of Toronto in Mississauga), and gospel preaching in the neighborhoods. Due to this blending, many of the local saints were revived.
After GTCA 2015, the weekly prayer meeting continued and saints rented a facility for weekly gatherings to shepherd the contacts from UTM and the neighborhoods. There were often 30-40 saints participating in this gathering for outreach and shepherding. Eventually there was a realization that this meeting needed to be smaller and also brought into the homes of the saints. The FTTA trainees upon returning to Anaheim, continued to have a weekly time of prayer for Mississauga and the full time college serving ones and saints from Toronto continued to visit the campus and homes on a weekly basis.
Mississauga had its second GTCA in 2016. By this time more families had moved to Mississauga from other localities. The local saints again enjoyed the time of blending with the FTTA trainees, especially in the homes. In addition to the university, two Flea market venues were open for Bible distributions. This was a wonderful time of blending between the local saints, FTTA trainees, and numerous saints from the seven churches in southern Ontario participating in this event.
Since GTCA 2016, more saints, continued to move to Mississauga. We all felt that this was the sovereign arrangement of the Head in His care for the testimony in Mississauga. Mississauga presently has weekly prayer, college, Korean speaking, Chinese speaking and English speaking home gatherings. Under the fellowship of the core brothers in Canada, the saints from Mississauga began to meet in the Toronto meeting hall as a district from April to Sep. of 2016. In September 2016, in the fellowship, the saints began to meet as a district of Toronto in Mississauga for the Lord’s Table meeting in the homes of the saints. This meeting has continued until now.. We also have a regular weekly brothers meeting. There were 9 brothers who attended the first year “Training on Eldership” and 10 brothers have joined for this second year.
Currently there are 10 families who meet regularly on the Lord’s day with an average of 35 saints attending the Lord’s table meeting. In addition to these core group, there are additional saints being shepherded in the weekly home gatherings. The weekly meeting schedule goes out to approximately 80 saints.
After further fellowship with the co-workers and nearby churches in southern Ontario, and subsequent fellowship with all the churches in Canada during the all-Canada brothers’ conference in Richmond, BC last year and additional fellowship with more coworkers during the winter training, we have selected the date of March 4-5 to have our first official Lord’s table in Mississauga. We warmly welcome your presence for this joyous declaration.
On Saturday evening, we plan to have a love feast. We are therefore requesting from each family in the nearby churches to provide a meal and dessert. Thank you saints in advance for your service. This is truly a Body matter.
The scheduled times and places of this mini-conference weekend are as follows:
March 4, 2017 (Saturday): 6:00 PM Love feast, 7:00-9:30 PM Meeting Address: the Church in Toronto Meeting Hall, 108 Carnforth Rd, North York, ON M4A 2K7
March 5, 2017 (Lord’s Day): 9:30 AM Lord’s Table 10:30 AM Meeting & Fellowship followed by a simple lunch, Address: Grand Victorian Convention Centre, 175 Derry Road East, Mississauga ON, L5T 2Z7.
For the testimony of Jesus in Mississauga,
Your brothers
Source: https://www.facebook.com/churchnews/posts/1366529253368985:0
