Reaping the Christmas Harvest Training and Consultation Christmas is a special time for many cultures. Holiday lights twinkle at every corner and weeks are devoted to preparing for this end-ofthe-year celebration. For some churches that we give consultations to, Christmas was a time of breakthrough. We spoke with Pastor Wojciech Włoch, Senior Pastor of Kociół Jezusa Chrystusa w Krakowie (KJCH) and Dr Lalith Mendis, Senior Pastor of Brookside Community Church on how the TCC Cell Church Model has equipped their churches for Christmas.
KJCH is a Polish-speaking church in Krakow, Poland. Since 2014, KJCH has experienced constant growth in attendance and leaders. 2015 was no exception and the church is finding it increasingly difficult to contain the number of members in their current building. Moreover, to meet the needs of the Russian-speaking community – many migrating to Poland for economic or political reasons – we started our first Russian service in July. In November, during a time of prophetic prayer, God challenged us to be intentional about reaching out to our oikos during Christmas, to invite at least 10 people and bring at least one for our annual
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Christmas event. We saw how God was preparing us for this challenge as we had already rented a separate, larger venue to host the event. With the help of Pastors Margaret Tay and Alana Mah, who came to our church in November, the leaders prepared five weeks of Gear Up and Go. For six weeks, about 60 members also prepared for the event in various capacities. The children rehearsed a drama and a group of singers practiced Polish and Ukrainian Christmas carols. In Poland, Christmas is a holiday that is very family-oriented. Therefore, members focused their invitations on family members and