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July
Newsletter
His Ways are Best - His Future is Brighter
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| Dear , |
Matthew 6:33 - "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
This has been our key verse for our current sermon series at Community of Hope. Putting God's kingdom first over all things. It is one of those things we have always pursued and longed for, but continue to discover that God wants to test us in it. Do we really want His kingdom or our own? Do we really value His will over ours? Is it His plans or our plans? Is it His stuff or our stuff? Is it our lives or His life?
This reality of kingdom first is pretty cool when our plans, and our will and our stuff is all in line with God's. But what happens when God decides to change the plan as we knew it or understood it? What happens when God decides to take away the stuff? What happens if His will is different than ours? And we didn't even know it till we woke up one morning and everything changed?
As you read this newsletter, pray that we would continue to release our will, way, and stuff to our great King and choose to follow Him.
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| Prayer Request | |
Summer Outreaches
New Leaders
Personal Financial Support
Medicine Hat Core Formation
GCA Medicine Hat 2011
Getting to Know Neighbors
Getting our Home Organized
Ministry Leaders
Personal & Spiritual Health
Outreach Focus for Church
New Church Planters
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He Gives
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On this journey of starting a new church in a new city, and a new region of Canada. God has definitely given. He has given us a great support of people and churches who have supported us all along the way. He has given so many awesome prayer partners and even churches who have monthly prayer teams just to serve us. And then there are the hundreds of people and churches that have sacrificed financially - just so we can be Christ's hands and feet here.
If this was not enough, He has given us health and safety and the privilege of children and the miracle of our children born at unique times, like Lydia days after Grace Community was launched in Mississauga and Elijah born days after Community of Hope was launched here in Surrey, BC. All the prayers that had gone before us in arriving here in December of 2005 and all the prayers since are gifts from our great King. God then continued in His miraculous way to give miracle after miracle, from our relationships with the city pastors to our relationship with Cedar Grove to helping form a core and then a launch team to start Community of Hope in September of 2007 and all the beautiful people God has given us to initiate His work here in Surrey.
Another miracle was the gift of a family called to church planting who just needed a little more nurturing and encouragement; now they have been sent out and are ready to launch a new church in a new Province and a new city, Medicine Hat.
Not to mention the hundreds of miracles and answered prayers as God directed us to the Theatre and people were saved and baptized, and many have taken classes and have grown in their faith. God opened our home to start the church and then the church offices and then opened the door for us to move into an amazing office space at a great price and in the heart of our target area. This with great visible presence in our community. An opportunity to have a ministry centre that could be used beyond Sunday mornings.
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He Takes Away
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In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." - Luke 14:33
One of the key verses we memorized from our Experiencing God study this spring.
God has been checking us to see if we really do want to be his disciples. Since the fall of 2010, our church budget has struggled and it became clear that we could not maintain our programs, either financially or with staffing. So God took away our Sunday Night programs - first Awana and our classes and then Freedom Session. Believing this was sufficient sacrifice to enable us to move ahead, we pressed forward only to discover that God was not done yet.
Our giving went really south in May and June, in a way that I may never understand, but it is God who provides and it is God who takes away. So we say blessed be the name of the Lord. He is to be praised. We no longer had the ability to pay our staff and so we had to let go of my assistant Wes. A few weeks later, it was decided to move services from the Theatre to our office space to save money over the summer and to try to recover some of the losses we had incurred over the spring. It was a bit of a reluctant yes from our leadership team, as we all understood the financial place of our church.
Having made that decision in faith, we pursued agreement with land owners and secured our advertising and signage. We had even canceled our contract with the Theatre, communicated the move to our entire church family and prepared to be in the offices for the summer months. On Wednesday morning, our landlord came and said to us. "I have decided I don't want you meeting here after all." - Wow - in fact as I talked further with him, it was clear that as pub owner he really didn't want us on the property at all. In a very rapid turn of events we went from having support staff, Sunday night programs, training classes, a recovery program, office space, and a ministry centre - to simply meeting in a Theatre on Sundays.
"The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." - Job 1:21b |
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Faithful are the Wounds of a Friend
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"Better is open rebuke than hidden love." - Proverbs 27:5
This spring has not only been a time of great loss, but of open rebuke. I enjoyed a great time with my fellow pastors at our NW Focus retreat and while there, a brother confided in me that I had offended some of the very people that I sacrificed my 4 months of the fall to serve and love. That was a deep blow to my heart and I am still processing the best way forward to make this situation right.
Upon going to a special district Ministerium in June, I was rebuked by some of my brothers. I had said something that created offense and was starting to break our trust. Wow - what a need for grace and mercy from our loving Saviour. As James 3:6 says, The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell."
With the very purpose of setting out to do good, in the midst of that activity, I caused harm. Though each of these situations are built upon great sacrifice on my part and reflect great investment, yet they have been poisoned by my own lack of understanding, self-
control and discretion. 1 Samuel 15:22 says: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams."
Our obedience is always greater than any sacrifice we can make. I have confessed my wrong and have been processing ever since. God teach me your ways that I may walk in them.
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Our Hope is in Him
| "But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Romans 8:24b, 25
Our faith is proven in our responses. What are we really trusting in? Ourselves, our strategies, our resources, or in our circumstances?
What if everything changes, what if things are taken away? What if all we had left to depend on was God?
Did we come here to build the church or did Jesus say He would build His church?
Did we build structures and programs to make disciples or did Jesus say we should make disciples?
Did we place our hope and trust in the facilities and staff to accomplish the work or are the people of God to do the work?
One of the key verses that have guided my life for the past 10 years is 1 Thess 5:24 "The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it." God has called us and though in moments we can wonder or doubt, He is not wavering, He is not in doubt. God is able and He will do it. He will do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. He will build His church and amazingly enough He chooses to use broken, weak people to do His great work.
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God is at work!
Even this morning as I write this newsletter I received a phone call of answered prayer. Though we finish packing the offices today, I travel to the states to pick up supplies for a neighbourhood block party that we are having tomorrow. Yes, the same day we are moving out of our church offices to storage, until God shows us otherwise.
Beth & I just got back from a date on Wednesday night, made possible because I married a neat couple on Saturday that represents a new beginning, hope and future. I was just at meeting last night planning for the logistics of doing church in the park because we have a few people who will be getting baptised at the beach next weekend.
This week has been filled with conversations, widows in distress, orphans, broken people, people hungry for God, and even the gift of interns who God gave us for the summer to help us. It was just last week we had a great birthday party for Alissa at our home with 15 of her classmates and several parents came and thanked us and we made more connections for the kingdom.
We have started our weekly park programs and I was able to share my faith with an older gentlemen in the neighbourhood. Several people in the church are starting Gospel of John studies with friends and recently we have witness 3 people coming to Christ through these studies.
We are preparing to send over 40 people from our church to Medicine Hat, Alberta to help our daughter church get started. I had a call from another church in Ohio that wants to come help with the GCA this summer in Medicine Hat.
Beth & I are getting excited as our home is emptying of boxes and our lives are getting positioned to reach our neighbourhood and our home to be a place of welcome to our kids friends and our community.
So we sing with the song writer: "My hope is in the Lord, Who gave Himself for me And paid the price of all my sin at Calvary"
Would you seek the Father on our behalf?
Pleading with the Father that He would release His blessing and fruit, much fruit that remains,
Philip, Beth, Lydia, Anastasia, Alissa, Elijah, and Josiah Bryant
You can support us by sending a gift to:
GBCanada USA, P.O. Box 836, Charlotte Hall, MD 20622
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