Equipper editor Ted Johnston shares a video that demonstrates a discussion-based Fellowship Group worship service. He then offers some observations.
[caption id="attachment_998" align="alignright" width="150"] Ted and Donna Johnston[/caption]
As Greg mentions in his cover letter, at the 2016 GCI-USA Regional Conferences we addressed the whys and hows of fellowship groups. In one workshop we held a foreshortened fellowship group worship service to show how fellowship group-sized congregations can conduct worship in a way that capitalizes on their small size.
Embedded below is a video with excerpts from the demonstration at the Orlando conference (on YouTube at http://youtu.be/PKOF2i6cD5I). Following the video I offer a few... Read the article
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This article is from GCI Pastor David Howe, an experienced life coach.
[caption id="attachment_1397" align="alignright" width="150"] David Howe[/caption]
What do you do when you come face-to-face with an obstacle you can’t get around? I don’t mean a rock in the road or something like that. What do you do when you’ve encountered something that causes you to keep falling or no solutions seem to work? It was because of this struggle that is common to all of us that life coaching was birthed. Yes, there are counselors, mentors and consultants, but having a life coach is different in some very powerful ways.
Let’s briefly examine some of the differences.
Mentors have successfully arrived where you are trying to go. They come... Read the article
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GCI provides its interns with a ministry coach. We asked three of them to comment on what they've experienced. If you have a testimony of your own about coaching, please share it using the "leave a reply" feature below.
Jillian Caranto
During the 2014 intern orientation, Anthony Mullins eagerly asked me to tell him my story. Though I was hesitant at first, looking back I’m grateful because after sharing a bit of my story, Anthony went out of his way to ask my permission to be my coach for the next two years. After seeing his humility and authenticity in listening to my story, I knew that God wanted this coaching relationship for me.
This was the first coaching relationship I had ever had so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But what I... Read the article
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by Pastor Tim Sitterley
[caption id="attachment_1222" align="alignright" width="150"] Linda and Tim Sitterley[/caption]
You've probably had occasions when you answered a knock on your front door to find standing there a couple of well-dressed people holding religious literature in their hands. Through experiences like those you've probably learned that cold-call evangelism doesn’t work too well. Perhaps you've had similar bad experiences with cold-call fundraisers. But don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater"---there are biblically sound, effective ways to raise funds to support your church or ministry. Let me share what I have learned about a key aspect of fundraising: networking.
Over the years I’ve had several business... Read the article
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by Pastor Sam Butler
[caption id="attachment_39" align="alignright" width="150"] Sam and Denise Butler[/caption]
Fundraising---it was the last thing I wanted to do! Asking people for money was, for me, like pulling teeth---painful and unpleasant.
That was how I felt until 12 years ago when the congregation I pastored in Michigan started a food pantry. We moved our meeting location with the intent of engaging a particular community. About six months after the move, we started the pantry in partnership with a large food bank in the area. They provided perishable items, and once a month we provided non-perishable personal care items.
We started slowly, serving only 25 families. We wanted to be able to
sustain what we had... Read the article
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This article is from Paul David (PD) Kurts, regional pastor of GCI's Mid-Atlantic Region. PD also serves in the North Carolina Air National Guard.
[caption id="attachment_1187" align="alignright" width="150"] Emma Lee and PD Kurts[/caption]
Some years ago I was watching a television program on the National Geographic channel, which depicted a pygmy tribesman trying to catch a monkey (you know, the other white meat) to feed his family. I sat in amazement watching the simple trap he set. He dug a hole in the ground about a foot deep but only a few inches wide. Then he dropped a bunch of peanuts into the hole and walked away.
Sure enough, an hour or so later, a monkey came out of nowhere and inquisitively approached the hole. What... Read the article
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This article is from CAD team member Randy Bloom. Randy serves as the Regional Pastor of the Eastern Region of GCI-USA.
[caption id="attachment_981" align="alignright" width="150"] Randy and Debbie Bloom with their daughter and grandson[/caption]
This we know: Our God is generous! We know this because we see all that, by grace, the Father has generously done for us and shares with us in Christ, by the Spirit (Ephesians 3:1-8; 2 Corinthians 8:9). It’s reasonable, then, to consider generosity as one of the hallmark characteristics of a Christian. Generosity is one of our core values.
All we have (including our finances) belongs to God, yet he freely shares what is his with us so that we can live abundantly (John 10:10 NKJV)---a... Read the article
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Here are reports from GCI churches in Texas, Ohio and Florida that are rebuilding. All three have participated in GCI's Outside the Walls (OTW) training with Church Multiplication Ministries (CMM). The training included a major community outreach event, which by God's grace has led to new members in all three.
Pathway of Grace Church - Mesquite, TX
Pathway of Grace participated in OTW last summer. Here is a report from lead pastor Gabriel Ojih.
[caption id="attachment_474" align="alignright" width="150"] Gabriel Ojih (left) with CMM's Heber Ticas[/caption]
He knocked on my office door one afternoon with his little niece in tow. I was in a meeting, but we invited them in. He told us his name and said he lives in the neighborhood. He... Read the article
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Many of our smallest congregations are trying new ways to join Jesus in reaching out to new people. In the article below, Bob Miller, who pastors GCI's church in Birmingham, Alabama, shares his congregation's story.
[caption id="attachment_470" align="alignright" width="150"] Bob and Ruth Miller[/caption]
Fellowship group-sized congregations often see themselves as too small to make an impact beyond their immediate members. That was our case at Grace Covenant Fellowship in Birmingham. But then God led us to change our place and mode of meeting, and that led us to shift our way of thinking about ourselves and our mission.
Given that we are both small and aging, we prayed, wondering what role we might play as a church in being Jesus'... Read the article
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This article is from Janet Morrison who directs Great Commission Trips, one of GCI Generations Ministries' mission organizations.
The first time I saw them was at LAX---seven Congolese refugees from the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi coming to a new world, a new culture. Though they had heard many things about the U.S., they did not really know what they were getting into. Neither did I.
[caption id="attachment_356" align="aligncenter" width="504"] Meeting the seven refugees at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)[/caption]
The story began for us when we visited the GCI church in Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi back in 2011. A few years after that we heard that some of the refugees were allowed to move to Australia, and we... Read the article
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