Connections and AskAPop
The Connections ministry was created after the AskAPop ministry had started up and God opened our eyes to a new need for His people, but, I guess we’d better start at the beginning, as you’re probably wondering what the AskAPop ministry is! Originally started as a breakfast ministry in Charleston, West Virginia in the 70’s by Cecil’s “Pappeye,” John Akers, where he would hand out “Round Tuit’s” with their family motto on the back … “It’s not what we gain but what we give that measures the worth of the life we live” … He would invite folks to come to breakfast once a month (he told Cecil that a lot of folks would come for the food and get a little bit of ministry even though they were too scared to go into the sanctuary.) Usually the folks would eventually make their way to that (or another) sanctuary once they realized that Christians weren’t all that scary or pushy and the fellowship breakfast was a great way to bridge the gap …
Fast Forward a few decades and Cecil has spent half of his life in Christian education but the Round Tuit ministry had died out with his beloved Pappeye … Cecil was very ill in the hospital and decided that when he got out he’d figure out a way to start making Tuit’s and start up the ministry … and did so … but God had bigger plans and that’s where Connections was born …
Cecil hadn’t handed out more than a dozen of the newly minted Round Tuit’s before he’d ran across someone that informed him that they were upset with church … Cecil leaned on the Holy Spirit and years of training to reach out to the young person and build a connection and help them to see that there were more options out there and more places that they could go, and Jesus would be there for them and eventually turned their view around to where they’d try another place of worship but that lit a fire in Cecil and he contacted his teaching partner at WBTS along with the CE director and Connections was born !!!
Connections leverages web, youtube, tiktok, and facebook to reach out to folks that are unable or unwilling to come into church … when starting it up we focused on our graduating youth that would scatter to different schools, jobs, or the military as well as to the young families that have to work on the weekends or young parents that may not have the ability to make it to church on a particular (or any) Sunday … we want to make sure that they have a place that they can come and see a familiar face and feel as though they’re a part of the community as well … We also want to make sure that folks that had bad experiences or have never had an experience at a church before feel just as welcome are able to stop in and stay for a visit or become a regular visitor …
The mini-lessons are based on a few simple principles:
- Reformed Theology
- Should Be Able to Be Read in 3-6 Minutes MAX
- 1 – 2 Bible Readings … No More than 5-15 Mins of Reading
- Our two “living mottos” …..
- It’s not what we gain but what we give that measures the worth of the life we live.
- Seeing isn’t believing, Believing is seeing.
Connecting with Connections 😊 ….
The Connections Team:
Website: www.askapop.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC74kMjQpB0NdqTbp-thxOxw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1182214396808632
Cecil Rice – cecil@askapop.com
Chip Kent – chip@askapop.com
EntireTeam – connections@askapop.com