Here is an update to previous prayer requests for retired GCI pastor Roger Abels. It was provided by Roger’s daughter Courtney (Abels) Harmon.
Donna and Roger Abels
Thanks to all who have asked for updates about my dad. We have been in a waiting period for the last ten days; waiting for the pneumonia to clear up, for him to breath on his own enough to not be considered “critical” and for the fever to stay down with medicine.
Doctors have just cleared dad to move to a long-term rehab facility, and although we are concerned about additional complications (that have had a track record for arising every time he has tried to move to a different hospital), we are hopeful about him leaving ICU permanently this time.
Thanks for continuing to pray for him and us! I have a peace in the midst of this storm that I know is the result of your dedicated prayers.
Cards may be sent to:
Roger and Donna Abels 1827 Ransom Dr. Ft Wayne, IN 46845
As noted in previous prayer requests, Arlen Bryant, who pastors the GCI congregation in Cookeville, Tennessee, is battling brain cancer. He made a trip recently to Vanderbilt University for an MRI to check the tumor and discuss options for further treatment. Please pray that the tumor has not grown and that additional treatment can get going quickly and be effective. Arlen is very weak and in need of our prayers.
Cards may be sent to:
Arlen and Jean Bryant 2054 Benton Young Rd Cookeville, TN 38501
GCI members and guests from Wisconsin, North Dakota and Minnesota gathered recently for Snowblast 2016. What typically is a camping experience with lots of outdoor activities ended up being held indoors due to extremely cold weather (20 degrees below zero, with a wind chill of 35 below). It was a family-style event with participants ranging in age from 6 to 80 (click on the pictures below to enlarge).
The event was held at Inspiration Point, a Christian camp/retreat located on Spitzer Lake in west-central Minnesota. The facility provided us with a worship center, dorm rooms, dining hall and recreation center. Indoor activities included volleyball, basketball, knitting/crocheting, pottery, wood pen turning, Zen Tangle, static electricity, DIY natural body care, perennial flower jugs and game room. These events were taught by members who offered special skills passed on to them from their parents or acquired from their professions and hobbies.
The theme for Snowblast 2016 was Ministry of Presence—Love God, Love Others, Make Disciples. Chapel messages included Listening by Doug Johannsen, Discerning by Carolyn Lane, and Loving without an agenda by Tom Kennebeck. Interactive adult breakout sessions were conducted by Troy Meisner and Becky Deuel. A live band accompanied worship.
A recent post on The Surprising God blog highlighted a brochure produced by GCI pastor David Gilbert (with assistance from Ted Johnston and Gary Deddo). The brochure gives a simple presentation of the gospel grounded in incarnational Trinitarian theology with an invitation to the reader to attend the church that distributes the brochure. David has made this evangelism tool available to anyone who wishes to use it within their congregation or ministry. To download it in Word for Windows (.docx format), click here. To download another GCI-produced gospel tract click here.
In this issue of GCI Weekly Update, Joseph Tkach highlights our calling to evangelism (click here), and we share a tool to use in proclaiming the gospel (click here).
On this page we share a recent post on the Patheos blog titled “Trinitarian Confidence in Evangelism.” It’s a helpful reminder that the basis for our confidence in evangelizing is not ourselves, but the being and activity of our Triune God. Below is an excerpt from that post; to read the full post, click here.
How can we go out boldly and share Christ with confidence? God not only saves us, God IS our salvation. It makes sense then that God Himself should be the ultimate source of our confidence when we are sharing about His great salvation. We can trust that God is working in us and the people we speak to about Christ.
“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” (Isaiah 12:2 ESV)
God works together as Father, Son and Holy Spirit to perform our salvation, to be our salvation and to bring men and women to salvation. Sharing the gospel works because God works when we share the gospel. Our confidence is in God –God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
In a previous post we announced the death of Ed Graham and asked for prayers for his widow, Shiela Graham. Here is a note of thanks from Sheila:
Ed and Sheila Graham
A huge thank-you to my church family! During these tough days of Ed’s illness and death and aftermath, I’ve been constantly encouraged by your loving comments, cards, phone calls and especially your prayers. During his illness, I read your comments to him. He loved them all but especially smiled at the references to his softball playing days. Please continue to pray for me. Love to you all.
Cards may be sent to:
Sheila Graham 111 Pueblo Drive Gainesville, TX 76240-9473
SEP Mexico was held on December 28-January 1 a couple of hours from Guadalajara, Mexico. The youth camp provided a great time of worship, learning, relationship-building and spiritual nurture for 35 campers and 9 staffers from different parts of Mexico including Mexico City and Francisco Villa—a community in the state of Tamaulipas (near the U.S. border) where there is much danger due to drug cartel activity.
Pastor Heber teaching
Speakers for most of the camp were Pastor Heber Ticas (pictured teaching at right) and his wife Xochilt Ticas. Through their messages, campers were immersed in the love of the triune God as they engaged in various topics including God’s universal love, forgiveness, our true identity, and God’s plan for relationships. The youth also had a great time participating in games and sports (mainly soccer and volleyball).
Morning sessions at camp were divided into two tracks. Some of the oldest campers participated in the leadership development track with Pastor Ticas while the rest took part in the discipleship track with Natanael Cruz, pastor of the GCI church in Mexico City. The discipleship track developed topics from the general camp sessions, presenting the loving, inclusive nature of our Savior.
The highlights of the week came on Wednesday and Thursday:
During a time of prayer and worship on Wednesday morning, it was evident that the Holy Spirit was moving us to set aside scheduled presentations to give him room to work in a a special way in and through our youths. Many tears were shed as hearts were being healed by the love of the Lord that gripped those who were present.
On Thursday morning Heber and Xochilt shared their story of 24 years of marriage as an introduction to the topic of One Flesh (God’s plan for marriage). This topic really connected with the youth, especially the young ladies.
Reflecting on the camp experience, Heber wrote this note:
At SEP Mexico we saw clearly that the Spirit is working in the lives of our young members in Mexico. We are thankful for the hard work that the Mexico camp committee did in making the camp a success. We also are thankful for the financial support from the Jon Whitney Foundation, the GCI Southern California Hispanic District and other partners in GCI-USA and GCI-Canada. Without their generosity it would have been difficult for many of the campers to attend.
Fred Sanders, professor of theology at Biola University, wrote a humorous blog post in 2009 that assigned alternate meanings to the word GRACE used as an acronym to stand for different Christian groups and perspectives. Though it’s a bit esoteric (and sometimes off-center), I’ve quoted below part of his post, hoping to bring a smile to your face and then to make a point.
What does GRACE stand for?
Existentialist: Genuine, Real, Authentic Christian Existence
Catholic Mysticism: Gazing Raptly At Consecrated Eucharist
Emergent church: Generational Resentment Against Conservative Evangelicals
Arminians: God Respecting Autonomy Conditionally Elects
Dispensationalists: Getting Raptured After Charting Endtimes
Used with permission of Leadership Journal
This list makes me chuckle, though neither Sanders nor I mean any disrespect. We may not agree with all these groups and perspectives on every point of doctrine and practice, but all authentic Christians agree we are saved by grace and called to share this life-changing gospel with all people everywhere.
As a church, GCI proclaims that Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension is good news for all. We provide congregations where people are welcomed into fellowship and helped to grow in our Lord’s grace and knowledge through worship and sharing in Jesus’ ongoing works of service, in the Spirit, to the world.
That is what we are about—what we stand for, and I thank God that, more and more, we are known for what we are for, rather than (like the cartoon) what we are against.
As our name (Grace Communion International) indicates, we are for sharing God’s love for all people all over the world, and bringing them into communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We desire people everywhere to grow in right, loving relationship with the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. Rather than to be known for what we oppose, we aspire to be known for what we are for—actively sharing God’s grace, forgiveness, inclusion, hope, love, faithfulness, communion and mercy. This is our aspiration as a denomination, as congregations and as individuals.
In all things, we seek to be for what God is for. What is that? In John 3:16 we learn that God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son. Then in John 3:17 we learn that God did so not to condemn the world, but to save it. God, in Christ, is for us (all of us!)—that is the powerful lesson we rehearsed in the recent Advent/Christmas season. God’s desire is that we live in loving relationship with him and with each other. In this understanding we do not presume that we have all knowledge or have obtained perfection, but like Paul, we press forward, motivated by our “upward call” in Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14 ESV).
Of course, being for certain things means God is against whatever opposes those things. And we should follow suit, just as we are shown in Scripture. However, we ought not switch priorities—God is against what opposes his purposes in order to protect and bring about what he is for. He rescues and redeems us from sin and evil (which he is against) in order to accomplish what he is for, namely, making us his glorified children who share in Jesus Christ’s own sonship and communion with the Father by the Spirit. Were God not for something, there would be no reason for him to be against anything. This is the trajectory of Paul’s thought in Romans 5 where he acknowledges the fall, our sin, and the need for forgiveness and reconciliation. But then he uses the phrase much more (four times for emphasis) to show that we are saved for something: “Much more,” he writes, by receiving “the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness,” we will “reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17). Karl Barth makes a similar point in Church Dogmatics:
Divine grace is primary and the sin of man secondary, and…the primary factor is more powerful than the secondary…. We cannot contradict the order which [God] establishes. We are forbidden to take sin more seriously than grace, or even as seriously as grace. (The Doctrine of Creation, part 2, vol. 3, 41)
It is my continual prayer that as a church we be known for being a safe place where people find love, hope, recovery and healing from bad doctrine, church abuse and infirmed teaching and counseling. I pray we be known as a church that fulfills John 13:35—known for our love for one another. I also pray we be known for joyful participation in the work of God—the work Jesus defined this way: “The work of God is this, to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29).
What are we for? We are for God, who is for his people, just as we see and hear in Jesus. Our work is to introduce people to Jesus, helping them trust him, receive his forgiveness and share in his own faith, love, hope and joy. We are for following Jesus, the head of the church (Colossians 1:18), as he through the Spirit and the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17) leads us to participate with him in fulfilling the Father’s mission.
We are for living and sharing the gospel, giving birth to all kinds of churches in all kinds of places for all kinds of people. That is our motto, our mission/vision, and our passion. I pray it is our constant focus.
Does your congregation have its own website? If so, is it effective? In a recent post on Thom Rainer’s LifeWay blog (click here to read it), Jonathan Howe noted that effective church websites prominently display the church address and worship service times on the home page, then make it easy to navigate to the following eight “must-have” sections:
Staff names and titles (preferably with pictures)
Information about children’s and youth ministries
Sermon archives (video is best, but audio works too)
Church calendar
Contact information (with someone responsible for responding to inquiries rapidly)
Statement of beliefs
Links to social media profiles (being active on social media is vital in our culture)
Major church news items
Note from editor: It also is vital to keep the website up-to-date (fresh). Showing out-of-date material (particularly on the home page) suggests the church is out-of-date (if not dead). Check your website today and see how you’re doing.
We received the following prayer request from GCI-USA elder Gary Dry.
After a lot of poking and prodding, including an echo-cardiogram, my cardiologist found I have a congenital heart murmur. That led to a cardiac cauterization showing I have a 100% blocked artery in my heart and a dysfunctional aortic valve. Next stop is a cardio-thoracic surgeon for open-heart surgery to replace the valve, and perhaps bypass surgery to deal with the blocked artery. I should know more after an upcoming visit to the doctor.
I would appreciate your prayers, knowing that, as always, I’m in the best of care from the doctor known as Jesus. So, as my Aussie friends say, “No worries mates!”
Reflecting on the camp experience, Heber wrote this note:
