mcc history

Although our work in Uganda began as a rural church-planting ministry, after three years on the field we began to see the need for a church in the town of Mbarara where we live. We had by that time made many good friends in this city, and several continued to ask why we didn’t have a town church – many of them were actually going with us to the village churches on Sundays!

By the year 2000, God began to put the calling for a town ministry specifically to the Gages. It was also around this time that the Lord began calling the Lindseys to come and begin a computer training / internet access facility as a development service in Mbarara. In His amazing and gracious way, the Lord had helped our team to see a ministry opportunity, and then He let us know just who he wanted to do it.

The Gages began a Bible study in their home that quickly outgrew their living room. So one study became two Bible studies, and within a few months the living room was filling up on both nights. Then, in September 2001 five young men who had been active in the study from the start were immersed into Christ. A month later, on October 14, 2001, Mbarara Church of Christ officially began with its first Sunday worship service. There were over 100 people in attendance that day!

For the first nine months of MCC’s life, we met in the conference room of a local hotel. All of the people from that first service did not come back the following weeks and months – on some Sundays we would have just twenty-five people in attendance, a few times it reached fifty. We also changed our Bible studies to meet in that same room on Saturday nights (it was big enough for several small groups to meet at the same time). It really was an exciting time for everyone involved, and a joy to be able to see the Lord’s hand on this new work He had started!

In May 2002 the high cost of renting the conference room for just two days a week caused us to start seeking a facility that we could rent for ourselves and use every day of the week for church purposes. By this time, too, the Source Resource Center had been set up by Brett Lindsey, and we all saw the wisdom in combining the church and the Source into one physical location, in order to make the Source a more visible outreach of the church’s ministry.

Again, the Lord really worked things out, because right away Shane was directed to another minister in town whose church was soon moving out of their current location, right on the main street of town. Within days Shane was able to meet with the landlady and a deal was reached that allowed MCC to move in to the building immediately after the other church moved out. This was very fortuitous because the market for rental property in Mbarara was very active at the time – in order to get a suitable place you HAD to have inside connections like that. Shane’s meeting with the other minister was just “coincidence”, before that we literally had none of the needed connections!

The Lord then helped us over another hurdle. As it turned out, the space we rented wasn’t able to effectively house the church and the Source – but there was another room adjacent to our place that was owned by the same people. It was being rented by another shop next door, but when we saw that it was hardly ever in use, our team began praying that the Lord would deliver that room to us, so that we could bring the Source over to the church’s location. On the very day that the team had set aside to pray about that room, Shane received a call to meet with the landlady and the other shop-owner. And we were allowed to take up the room!

Throughout the summer of 2002 the town church experienced some difficult growing pains. Shane had been meeting with a group of “servant leaders” for discipleship and training them as small group leaders. It was during this time that the Lord revealed the truth that some of these men were not honest men of integrity. Shane had trusted too many of them, too soon, and with too much responsibility. But again, the Lord helped us through these mistakes, and the church continued to grow – and we learned a lot along the way.

The year 2003 was a great year of growth and maturity for Mbarara Church of Christ. The Lord blessed us to discover, in many ways, just who we are and what ministries we need to pursue. Some of these ministries, like Fellowship Groups (an extension of our small group Bible studies), and a Welcome to the Family Class (an introduction to the church for newcomers), have really helped us to find our identity as a family in Christ. We have been blessed with an increase in baptisms and a growing number of members who are willing to become involved in church ministries.

The 2004-2005 years saw more of the same growth, both numerically and spiritually, though we lost some key church members due to some moving away and one dear leader who was killed in a tragic accident. Several new ministries were started or taken to new and exciting levels, especially women's, men's, children's and youth ministry. Also in 2005, the church began hosting a monthly "Fellowship Lunch" on the last Sunday of the month. This has increased a sense of togetherness among the members while at the same time proving to be a great tool for outreach. By the end of that same year, we began to look toward the long-range future of leadership at MCC, as we took steps toward recognizing and calling ministry leaders for the various ministries and activities of the church. It is our prayer that as new members become more committed, the Lord will raise up Ugandans to lead ministries without feeling the need for so much of the work and decision making to come from the foreign missionaries at MCC.

The Spirit is moving people to change their lives and surrender their hearts to the Lord. We pray for constant revival and renewal from the Lord… and we depend on Him to grow this church and mature us as the Body of Christ!