End of Summer 09 Update

The last few months have been exciting for us at Hold Fast. So many good things have happened to us since the beginning of summer and now fall is approaching fast. Our 1 year anniversary of our church is approaching on September 8th!!! So let’s take a look at what has been going on.

Last summer after 3 years of struggling to get a ministry started here in Harrisburg, God opened a door. I was standing outside a tent a Cornerstone Festival during the band Sleeping Giant when I felt my prayers were answered in a clear way. “Go start a church” was the message I had seemed to be getting. I spoke with other pastors at the fest who agreed that that is what they saw for me as well. I then ventured home excited and determined. Within two months we had a place to hold services and a staff of three. On September 8th 2008 we had our first service that was attended by no one. Then we had two people. By week 4 we were up to about six! Then in October of 2008 we invited my dear friend and colleague Jay Bakker down to speak which brought out about 40 people to our little church in the basement of Paxton Street Ministries in Harrisburg. When Jay left we retained about 20 of the people who came to see him speak which was very exciting. Soon we saw a wide variety of folks attending weekly, sometimes a big crowd sometimes a small one but we had a church! We also added an intern named J.D. from Messiah College who has proven to be a huge blessing in both ministry and friendship.

Then in January we took a step in faith and moved our weekly gathering to McGraths Pub in the heart of downtown Harrisburg. It is a popular hangout just off 2nd St and is home to a wide mix of people. Our first bar meeting was on January 12th 2009 and we saw a great turn out. Since that day we have seen our little bible study grow and lives are being affected. It is a huge encouragement to know that the majority of our group is made up of regulars from McGraths. It is also amazing that the bar has never charged us a dime for our use of the back room and the staff has been so supportive of our efforts.

In May we held a Memorial Day picnic and had our good friend Joshua Stump come up and visit from Anchor Fellowship in Nashville. Almost everyone from Hold Fast was able to attend and it was a huge success. Joshua was able to give us some encouragement as well as offer us a possible partnership with his church family in Nashville. We are still praying and waiting to see if and what God has in store for us in regards to that situation. It was a blessing to have Joshua here and also to have so many come out and support our picnic. I felt like we truly have a family here. It also impressed our guest that we have a strong core group to start this church off with.

Finally this summer on July 19th in addition to our bar meeting we started a Sunday worship service at The Champion Ship, which is a local punk rock venue in Lemoyne PA. Since we began Sunday services we have seen attendance jump to 30 the first week and level out around 10 -15 regularly. We have had some awesome help from my father-in-law Ken Kipp and good friend Joe Fang, who have led worship each week, Both myself and Chris Tomlinson, associate pastor, have preached and it seems to be working just fine. Hannah, my wife and associate pastor, has taken over the McGraths meeting along with the help of Chris and JD. As of last Sunday the good people at the Champ have offered to record our sermons so they will be made available online soon.

So things at Hold Fast are going well but we still have a long way to go. This next year should be a fun one and we look forward to what God has in store for us! Check out our site at www.holdfastministries.com for updates and if you feel led to donate we have a paypal set up at holdfastpa@gmail.com You can also follow us on twitter @holdfatpa!

God Bless
Jeremy
Pastor of Hold Fast Ministries

Church Hold Fast Style

Sunday August 9th – Chris Tomlinson is Preaching

Come out and catch a sermon by Hold Fast’s own Chris Tomlinson. 2pm on Sunday!