Category: Stay Connected

Here is a video with pictures of a back-to-school outreach recently held by the GCI congregation in Cicero, IL (in the Chicago area). The lead pastor (shown in the last picture) is Israel Hernandez.

On YouTube at https://youtu.be/3hgFWCmdQyk.

Here, from GCI President Joseph Tkach and GCI Vice President Greg Williams, is a Speaking of Life video that introduces GCI’s new Home Office in Charlotte, NC, and the staff members who work there serving GCI pastors and congregations around the world.

On YouTube at https://youtu.be/pKbE580m44s.

This report is from Hazel Tabin of Grace Communion Fellowship, one of GCI’s congregations in the Los Angeles, CA area.

We are beyond grateful that our first Vacation Bible School (VBS) was a success! Though only three kids were registered just a few days before the event, we ended up having 22 attend—12 five through eight years old, and 10 nine through twelve years old (pictured below).

The VBS theme was “Game On,” which focused on sports. It allowed the kids to talk about their favorite sports and warm up quickly to one another. The theme helped the kids understand how God wants every one of us to be a part of his team. The topics focused on Jesus—that he cares, gives us hope, helps us believe, loves us, and gives us joy. The children listened to stories, learned Bible verses, sang, danced, played team games, and created crafts. All these activities focused on the lesson for the day.

In one of the crafts, the kids decorated water bottles with the words “Jesus loves you” and the name of our church, its location, and the time our service starts. On our last day of the VBS, the older kids went on a “mission” and handed out the water bottles to people at a nearby park. It was great to see their friendly smiles as they joyfully gave these bottles away. One of the kids even emphasized the information of the church service and invited them to come!

The Sunday service following the VBS was different than usual. We invited the kids from the VBS and their families to attend. The kids performed in the service, telling about God’s great love. The VBS teachers shared a summary of what they taught the kids. The sermon expounded the message, “Let the little children come to me.” A primary goal of the service was to let the parents and everyone else know that we value children and want them to experience the love Jesus has for them. We were encouraged to hear the parents’ positive comments and invited them to return the following Sunday.

Here are links to reports on recent events in GCI-Philippines:

• Strategic planning workshop held
• Congregation’s 40th anniversary celebrated
• ACCM preaching class conducted

A group of five GCI-USA Pastoral Residents, one Ministry Intern and five Regional and Lead Pastors gathered recently in Cincinnati, OH, for a Pastoral Residents’ training conference. Following the theme “Preparing to be a Pastor,” the training began with a study of John 13:1-17 that looked at the humility and other-centered ministry of Jesus with his disciples in the Upper Room. The “go-and-do-likewise” interactive study set the tone for the three days of training.

Additional training sessions addressed these topics: Mentoring Matters, Loving Your Neighbor, the Spiritual Practice of “Go,” Ministry Action Plans, and Healthy Church. As the conference ended, the participants joined the Sunday worship service of Christ Fellowship Church to honor and celebrate the generosity of the congregation that hosted the conference.

Here are comments from those who attended:

• “I liked the intentional focus on what it means to be a pastor.”
• “I was encouraged by the honesty and transparency of all involved. I also enjoyed getting to know one another better and seeing the humility and wisdom of the other pastoral residents.”
• “Seeing the depth of wisdom, maturity and commitment in these mostly-young people was inspiring. I can’t wait to see how God continues to work in their lives!”

GCI’s U.S. Pastoral Resident Program is coordinated by Anthony Mullins. The next gathering is being planned for June 23-25, 2019 at GCI’s International Home Office in Charlotte, NC. The Pastoral Residents and Interns are currently meeting twice-a-month by video chat to work through the CORE curriculum provided by GiANT Worldwide.

Crossing Borders, a GCI GenMin chartered mission organization, recently completed its 25th trip to Mexico (they conduct two each year). Crossing Borders’ director Lee Berger submitted the following remembrances and pictures from the most recent trip.

We continue to see that our mission trips are all about relationship—relationships our missionaries from all over the country have with one another, relationships with our Mexican ministry partners, and relationships with the people we are blessed to serve in Mexico. As shown in the pictures below (click to enlarge), our recent trip included all sorts of service activities involving about a dozen of our ministry partners. Each partner has their own unique set of challenges—ministry on the border in Mexico is very demanding! Over the years, these partners have come to trust us as supporters of their ministries and as encouragers of them personally.

Here are some of the activities our 17 missionaries were involved with during this 25th mission trip:

• One of our partners, Pastor Pedro, is facing a deadline to make payments for the land on which his church building sits. He and his wife are working hard to expand the size of the building while paying off the land debt. We were able to provide some monetary help.
• We supported another ministry partner family by providing two meals and playing with their three boys all day. We spent time listening attentively to their needs and stories, laughed and prayed, painted the exterior of their house, rebuilt a storage shed, repaired their broken computer (by which they homeschool their children), and strengthened friendships and ministry bonds.
• We visited a family for whom we built a small house several years ago.
• We distributed bags of socks and toiletry items to homeless people.
• We visited some partner churches where we shared messages about godly unity and thankfulness. We also conducted a four-station Vacation Bible School.
• We visited a senior citizen’s home and had some of the residents up dancing to lively praise songs.
• We sponsored a group lunch with personal gifts for each ministry partner.
• We conducted a Fiesta at a children’s home, complete with a new water slip-and-slide that we brought with us, water-blaster tubes, two meals, lively Uno card games, various craft projects, soccer, breaking a piñata filled with candy, and more.

God willing, we will head back to Mexico on December 7-10, 2018 to distribute Christmas gifts. For information, go to www.cbmission.org, or contact Lee Berger at 903-746-4463 or by email at lee.berger@gci.org.

Here are reports on two community outreach events conducted by GCI-USA congregations.

Derby, Kansas: Community Fun Night

GCI’s Derby congregation (located near Wichita), recently held a community “Grilling and Games” fun night. Held on the church lawn, this was the first outside-the-building outreach event for the congregation in its new location. In addition to festive street signs, the congregation promoted the event with a Facebook ad linked to their website where families could sign up for a free gift-card drawing. About 30 non-member guests attended, most coming due to personal invitation. The guests joined members for food and yard games, with a few also touring the church building. The congregation plans to conduct a Back 2 School outreach event in August followed by a Backpack Blessing worship service.

Mesquite, Texas: Community Care Fair

GCI’s congregation in the East Dallas area recently held a Community Care Fair. About 200 people from the community benefited from the event, which included a free “yard sale,” blood drive, job fair, bounce houses, refreshments and prayer booth. Members joined with beneficiaries of the congregation’s weekly food distribution ministry to set up the event, barbecue food, sort seven pallets of clothing, help guests take their new treasures to their cars, and clean up. The event was funded with contributions from community businesses. It was an inspiring time of participating with Jesus in his compassion for the community!

We are pleased to introduce the newly formed GCI Media team:

Led by Media Director Michelle Fleming, the Media team was filled out recently when Joe Brannen (from Dallas, TX) and Charlotte Rakestraw (from Tallahassee, FL) joined the GCI Home Office staff in Charlotte, NC. Joe serves as Digital Content Developer, and Charlotte serves as Social Media and Correspondence Coordinator. The team works closely with GCI’s publications editors and authors (including Ted Johnston, Rick Shallenberger, Gary Deddo and Michael Morrison), GCI information technology, and various consultants in producing GCI’s denominational media (publications, websites, videos and social media).

Here are profiles of the three GCI Media team members (click each image to enlarge):

GCI members Lloyd and Mary Elwell, leaders in GCI’s congregation in Rochester, NY, founded a ministry in January this year that they call Hidden Pearls. Its mission is to reach out to cognitively-delayed people and their families in the area surrounding their church building, to help them comprehend the gospel and to provide pathways for them to be included in all aspects of Church life.

According to the Elwells (pictured at right), “Our thinking was to reach out to and disciple both the cognitively-delayed and their families.” In ministering to this focus group, Mary and Lloyd emphasize all aspects of Christian life based on personal experience—their youngest son is cognitively-delayed and Mary is involved professionally with the cognitively-delayed. Their oldest son also brings to the ministry the perspective of a sibling.

At first, the Elwells envisioned that their focus group would come to their church. They prepared brochures and began passing them out to agencies and other contacts in the community. In January they started to hold meetings but found it difficult to get participants to the church. Scheduling of staff and availability of transportation was a problem, so they changed their strategy. After receiving permission, they began holding the meetings at a group home that serves this focus group. Now they have a small group with all six housemates in the home participating (they are pictured below participating in one of the small group meeting learning activities).

Each meeting has a “remember phrase” that sums up the main theme of the lesson. During the meeting there are discussions, questions are answered, and there is lots of fun and a snack. One participant has closed the meeting with prayer on several occasions. Often the group home staff sits in and helps. Several have commented on the small group to staff at other group homes. The Elwells hope to see the number of small groups serving this focus community multiply.