ICF International Newsletter No. 9/2011

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HEARTBEAT OF LEO AND SUSANNA BIGGER

Dear friends
We as a family came back from our holiday happy, relaxed and refreshed. We were pleased to come back to a church which was so full of power and fit. The guest speakers at the summer celebrations in all locations really made sure there were plenty of variety and many highlights!
In the coming months we are going to make sure there is action for the ICF family. Autumn caps for various ages and locations, tours, preparations for the Christmas musical and – very soon – the last Celebrations here in this Celebrationhall! Yes, the new year will take us to new places!
In this sense it is simply wellness for the soul to know that our Good Shepherd already knows and is lovingly preparing the next place our church is going to. He is the Good Shepherd for us as a whole church. He knows you and each person all the way to the core and is there for us!
With this image from “Psalm 23” series we wish you a carefree, lush and sheltered month.

With a warm hug
Leo & Susanna Bigger

CURRENT SERIES

In Psalm 23, God compares himself with a shepherd – with a shepherd who knows his sheep through and through and loves them.
And this love is so big that there is nothing in this world he would not do for his sheep. No cost – no extra mile, no drop of sweat, no searching for new pastures – would be too much for him.
For eight weeks we will study this wonderful Psalm sentence by sentence and be inspired by God’s unlimited love for you and me.

25th September 2011: The parable of the lost sheep
   9:30 am: Unplugged Celebration
   11:00 am: Celebration with blessing of children *
   5:00 & 7:00 pm: Celebrations with baptisms **
2nd October 2011: Psalm 23: You lead me through darkest valleys…
9th October 2011: Psalm 23: You prepare a table before me...
16th October 2011: Psalm 23: Your goodness and love will follow me...

* Information & registration: www.icf.ch/community/family.html
** Information & registration: www.icf.ch/community/taufe.html

NUMBER OF THE MONTH

60/18

On the 4th of July 2011 the traditional summer blood donation campaign took place in ICF Zurich. With 60 blood donors, including 18 new donors, we reached the absolute record. In comparison, in the previous years there were about 50 donors in summer. The number of new donors was on average 5 people!
We want to thank all the donors very much!

Events

Ladies' Lounge 2011

The preparations for the Ladies’ Lounge 2011 are in full swing; the ideas are coming and the emotion barometer is rising every day!

This will be a party: the decoration expert Imke Johannson is going to present us many ideas, we will be inspired by the courageous steps various women dared to take in their lives and we will be spoilt with an amazing amount of wonderful things.

God wants to bless us women richly this year. “With God's power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20)

Has this made you curious? Have you already seen the new flyer? The Ladies’ Lounge team would be really happy to welcome you at the Ladies’ Lounge on the 4th/5th November 2011.

Information and registration under ladieslounge.icf.ch

Community

NEW: Small Group Video Program

New, fresh and ready for you every Sunday: the new Small Group Video Programme! From the beginning of the “Psalm 23” series we are offering you small group leaders this resource which can help you in your preparations and in leading your small group. This recourse will give you more precious time to invest in your relationships with your small group members.

The videos are made to deepen the preaching from Sunday with questions which should add some discussion and instructions for the prayer time.
Try out this new form of small group! Enjoy!

Go here to find all the small group videos and further small group news:

smallgroup.blog.icf.ch or smallgroup.icf.ch

COURSES

Jesus Inside

Would you like to have a living relationship with Got, find more benefit and enjoyment in reading the bible, find out more about Jesus and deepen your communication with God? If so, then this is the right course for you!
Autumn dates: Wednesday evenings, 26th October/ 2nd/ 9th/ 16th/ 23rd November 2011

The course starts at 7.30 in ICF Zurich
Cost: 25.- CHF (including course material)

Registration: www.icf.ch/kurse/inside-kurse.html

Leadership Inside

Leading is influencing – everybody influences others. You are called to lead and have a positive influence on your surroundings. In this course you get to know the foundations of leadership:

• leading by example
• developing personal character
• developing leadership potential.

Autumn dates: Wednesday evenings, 2nd / 9th / 16th / 23rd November 2011The course starts at 7.30 in ICF ZurichCost: 25.- CHF (including course material)

Registration: www.icf.ch/kurse/inside-kurse.html

Books

ICF books are now available as e-books!

“Being at the heartbeat of our time” is one of our values. For this reason it is important for us to find new ways of making our message assessable to the people. The books “Hallo Zukunft”, “Lieber Gott, warum?” and “Ehe hoch31” are now also available as e-books. These books are one of the first ones that the publishing company Brunnen in Basel has published as e-books!

You can buy the books following this link: www.beam-ebooks.de

INTERNATIONAL

Living “international”!

The world around us is getting more and more multi-cultural and international. In the following facts from the Big15 you can see how we are doing justice to this trend and to our name ICF - International Christian Fellowship: the sessions were translated in Russian, Czech, Spanish, French, Farsi, Tigrinia, Italian and Mongolian. For the first time, the Chinderexpress children’s programme was also translated into French, Italian and Dutch.
Weekly, we are making our celebration understood in 8 languages (see www.international.icf.ch/celebrations/translation.html) in order to give as many nations as possible a home in our church. For you this means that you can invite your friends to a celebration and they can hear the service in their own language.
We are working on expanding the number of languages, as well as providing podcasts in most of the languages we currently translate. Another priority is supporting the movement by translating the existing German written materials (books, courses, and instruction manuals). You can imagine that all this work requires a large team and we are in need of additional people for written translation, oral translation, as well as programming and documentation management for all languages, but especially German to English.

ACTS

Change of leadership in ACTS

End of August we bid Andreas Gassmann farewell with heavy hearts. Aga is the founder of ACTS and over the past years he and his team expanded this important area of service in ICF into a foundation. Aga is now going to use his gift of developing and his passion for social work in a dynamic company.

Dear Aga, we thank you very much for your valuable work, your warm heart, your love and mercy which you have shared with your workers and the whole church in the past years. We will miss you. We are very happy that we will continue meeting you as you volunteer in various areas!

As of 1st September 2011 Thomas Zindel took over the management of ACTS. He is employed at 50%. Thomas has been part of the management for ACTS for a few years now and is very familiar with the procedures. As the interim manager he will support the development of ACTS in consultation with the ICF leadership time until next summer. It is an exciting and challenging task – we wish you a lot of joy and strength, dear Thomas. Welcome!

Experienced with JOB SEARCH

“When I became unemployed at the end of 2010 I told myself that I needed to get going as I didn’t want to stay unemployed for long. My wife and I have two children and I am the one who brings home the bread. No sooner said than done: I decided to daily invest half a day searching for a job.
In January I decided to do some training at the Job Search in ICF Zurich. During a whole afternoon my coach revised my CV and application letter with me. Before I left he told me: “So, from now on you will be invited to an interview for every application you send.” Hey, I liked this statement! I thought a lot about this sentence. And lo and behold: it was a “thumbs-up”! I previously had had one interview for each five or six applications, and now it had become between three or five. This led to the fact that when I went on holiday for one week I had to reschedule 3 interviews. In April I told my coach: ‘Soon I will not be able to pay the petrol I need to get to the interviews.’ In May the time came: I found a job.”
Rolf

MOVEMENT

ICF Stuttgart

Just about four months have passed since the Big Bang in ICF Stuttgart. In the meantime about 130-150 people come to the two celebrations. Every Sunday people come who usually don’t go to church anymore or who are looking for something new. As of September English translation will be offered.
First events are being planned for 2012 in Ulm, Heilbronn and Schorndorf to prepare the ground for multi-sites.
What started of small is growing really quickly. The right people continually come at the right time. They are excited about being a part of this and look forward to seeing what God is going to do. In the evenings more and more young people are coming, in the mornings more families.
ICF Stuttgart is excited about what God is doing in and around Stuttgart.

ICF WINTERTHUR

We are family!

In ICF Winterthur we are growing more and more into a family. People come way before the celebrations to spend time together and many only leave when David Hofer wants to lock the door! 1st of August showed clearly, how simple but at the same time powerful it is to share our lives together: over 30 people took part in a BBQ in Thurgau and prayed for our country.
When a hero in faith and a bush pilot like Ernst Tanner honour us with his presence in church then you better come to the morning and evening celebration, sit up straight and listen well. This man sure preaches with power! It was a great blessing having Ernst and his wife Hedi with us on the 7th of August 2011!
Dominik and Gloria Laim

ICF RAPPERSWIL

Celebrating on year of the evening celebrations!

This month our evening celebration in Rapperswil turned one year old. Reason enough to see where we stand: our church has grown with many young people and over the past year a core of people has formed which has positively and passionately changed what happens around the celebrations.
It is our goal to invest in these young people, to make place for them and lead them into total freedom. Of course we rely on our small groups and integration in the various ministries to be able to meet each person individually.
Our vision and motivation is Isaiah 60:1 “Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.”
Going out and taking steps, daring to do now things in faith! It is not we who wait for God – it is God who waits for us!
God wants to – that is why so much is still possible! The adventure in Rapperswil has just started and we want to be a part of it.
Maese and Gisi Hager

ICF ZÜRCHER OBERLAND

Adventure community

End of August about 40 men and their sons were part of our legendary adventure camp. Not even a storm warning could keep them away from spending an adventurous night in the Baptist cave. The impressive story of the Anabaptist in Zurich took over the conversation around the camp fire. After a hike, including a treasure hunt the second camp was set up in the Kemptner Tobel. Among other activities it was all about fellowship, conversations and spending time with the children. What was great was that once again some participants were there who usually don’t go to ICF.At the monthly family event we will continue offering you and your friends various possibilities of experiencing fellowship and getting in contact with ICF: www.icf-zo.ch/community/family-events.html

Ursula and Jani Schmitter

BANK ACCOUNT DETAILS FOR DONATIONS

ICF Zurich:
Raiffeisenbank Zurich, 8001 Zurich
Clearing number: 81487
Account number: 89622.47
IBAN: CH85 8148 7000 0089 6224 7
SWIFT-BIC: RAIFCH22
Paid to: ICF Zurich, Hardstrasse 219, 8005 Zurich

ICF Rapperswil:
Raiffeisenbank Zurich, 8001 Zurich
Clearing number: 81487
Account number: 89622.50
IBAN: CH04 8148 7000 0089 6225 0
SWIFT-BIC: RAIFCH22
Paid to: ICF Zurich, Rapperswil, Hardstrasse 219, 8005 Zurich

ICF Winterthur:
Raiffeisenbank Zurich, 8001 Zurich
Clearing number: 81487
Account number: 89622.24
IBAN: CH27 8148 7000 0089 6222 4
SWIFT-BIC: RAIFCH22
Paid to: ICF Zurich, Winterthur, Hardstrasse 219, 8005 Zurich

ICF Zürcher Oberland:
Raiffeisenbank Zurich, 8001 Zurich
Clearing number: 81487
Account number: 89622.43
IBAN: CH96 8148 7000 0089 6224 3
SWIFT-BIC: RAIFCH22
Paid to: ICF Zurich, Züri Oberland, Hardstrasse 219, 8005 Zurich

ACTS:
Raiffeisenbank Zurich, 8001 Zurich
Clearing number: 81487
Account number: 96475.41
IBAN: CH91 8148 7000 0096 4754 1
SWIFT-BIC: RAIFCH22
Paid to: ACTS Stiftung, c/o ICF Zurich, Hardstrasse 219, 8005 Zurich

GESUCHT

Die ACTS Stiftung von ICF Zürich sucht per sofort oder nach Vereinbarung für den Standort Zürich einen/eine

Leiter/in Kontaktstelle ACTS Stiftung (80%)

Dein Profil

• Dienstleistungsorientierte, kommunikative und belastbare Persönlichkeit

• Abgeschlossene kaufmännische oder vergleichbare Ausbildung

• Weiterbildungen im Sozialwesen oder in der Kommunikation

• Erfahrung in einem vergleichbaren Umfeld und Führungserfahrung

• Du identifizierst dich mit den ICF Werten und Zielen und lebst danach

• Hohe Sozialkompetenzen, Empathie und schnelle Auffassungsgabe

• Fähigkeit, in einer dynamischen Umgebung konzentriert zu arbeiten

• Stilsicherheit in Wort und Schrift in Deutsch und Englisch, Französisch von Vorteil

• Gute IT- Anwenderkenntnisse (MS Office)

Die Aufgaben

• Allgemeine Administration (Korrespondenz, Datenverwaltung)

• Organisation der Kontaktstelle mit selbständiger Gestaltung und Optimierung von Arbeitsprozessen

• Entgegennahme und Triage von Telefonaten, Post- und Internetanfragen von Hilfesuchenden

• Führen von Falldokumentationen und Klientendossiers

• Administrative und organisatorische Unterstützung der Geschäftsleitung

• Kommunikation (Newsletter und Jahresberichte)

• Bewirtschaftung der ACTS Homepage

• Betreuung und Weitervermittlung von Volontären

• Repräsentationsfunktion von ACTS gegen innen (ICF) und aussen

Unser Angebot

• Zeit- und (in christlichen Organisationen) branchengemässer Lohn

• Abwechslungsreiche, vielseitige, selbstständige und verantwortungsvolle Arbeit

• Positives und kreatives Arbeitsklima

• Weitere Informationen zur Stiftung erfährst du unter www.acts-stiftung.ch

Wenn dich diese Herausforderung anspricht, dann richte deine schriftliche Bewerbung mit Foto an:
ACTS Stiftung c/o ICF Zürich
Thomas Zindel
Hardstrasse 219
8005 Zürich
thomas.zindel@icf.ch