In 2001, Jimi and Carla Staton started New Life Fellowship Church with two other couples in Huntington, Indiana.  This young church had to move locations five times in the first ten years.  During their fifth year as a congregation, they opened a soup kitchen in the church basement. Now in 2023, the church has experienced growth, they have served hundreds through their soup kitchen, and they have also launched two women’s transitional houses, as well as a men’s transitional house (a transitional house provides people with accommodations to bridge the gap from homelessness to permanent housing).

Every January the members of New Life Fellowship pray and fast together. In 2021, they asked the Lord to give them 25 baptisms of new believers in the next two years. On January 8, 2023, the church baptized their twenty-fifth new believer—exactly two years after they prayed for the Lord to bless them this way!

Prayer has always played an important role in the life of this congregation.  In 2018, the members prayed and fasted asking the Lord to do a work in them first, and not to give them a visitor for the next six months; then exactly six months later God answered that prayer by sending the first visitor! In 2022, they prayed and fasted asking the Lord to increase their attendance, and He raised it from an average of 68 to 85! In 2023, they are praying and fasting, asking the Lord to help them reach 170 people, which is one percent of their city’s population.  They’re not set on that happening in the next twelve months, but they’re believing God will do it in His timing, and that He has already begun to answer their prayers this year.

Continuing to pray in faith, New Life Church is expanding the ministry of their soup kitchen, including a lunch meal in addition to their daily evening meals.  They are also opening a new ministry entitled, Children’s Life House, which will provide foster care for their community.  Will you join them in praying for these ministries which can meet physical needs so they can continue to reach people with the Gospel?

For more information about these ministries or to request a copy of their prayer newsletter, contact Pastor Jimi Staton at jimistaton66@gmail.com.