August 2011
| Vol 5 , Issue 5
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August
Newsletter
Winter in the Vineyard
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| Dear , |
It has been a whirlwind few weeks since we last wrote to you! We've attended FGBC National Conference (Philip), hosted a ministry team from Alaska (Beth) and spent three weeks as a family in Medicine Hat for The Great Canadian Adventure and historic Trans-Canada Summit. In the midst of all those things, we've been pondering the meaning of the dramatic changes we've experienced as a church over the past months. Our thoughts and prayers continually returned to attempting to understand our reality and what God was asking of us for the future.
We believe that part of the answer came in the form of a God-given visual - that of a vineyard at the end of a productive growing season. We have seen God do amazing things and have felt deep loss within just a few months and are looking forward to what God will have for the future. What does that future look like? We don't know for sure, but we know Who holds the future!
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| Prayer Request | |
Fall Changes
New Leaders
Personal Financial Support
Medicine Hat Launch
Getting to Know Neighbors
Getting our Home Organized
Ministry Leaders
Personal & Spiritual Health
New Depth for Church
New Church Planters
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Living History
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The last week of July found us in different places - Philip in Ohio for our Fellowship's annual conference, and Beth and the kids in BC helping to host a ministry team of 18 teens and leaders from the Soldotna, Alaska Grace Brethren Church.
On July 30th, they started there journey home, and we headed east to Alberta. We were very much looking forward to just being together as a family - the past several weeks had been crazy; a 14 hour drive, just us, was very welcome!
The first week of August was the Great Canadian Adventure ministry week; about 50 people came to Medicine Hat from Ontario, California, Ohio, Iowa and Pennsylvania and probably a few more places I missed. It was great to re-connect with the Edwards, Greenhows and Blairs, and get to know a family who had just come to Christ. Beth was the camp cook for the week with the girls rotating to help with child care and kitchen chores - they were amazing. Medicine Hat only has about 6 0,000 people, and after several days of doing fliers, park programs and a car wash, people were starting to figure out that something was going on with this Grasslands Church!
 The third week of August was the Trans-Canada Summit. This was truly an historic event as it was the first-ever national gathering for Canadian Grace Brethren churches. It was an amazing time of fellowship, encouragement and challenge and God was very evidently at work in our midst. We also found a significant level of opposition - there were all kinds of disruptions, challenges and just plain weird things going on. But it only hardened our resolve that we would do what it took to bless Grasslands and build more unity and vision in this fledgling group.
It's hard to describe the feeling of sitting in the back of a church auditorium watching over 100 people from 3.5 Canadian Grace Brethren churches worship together, just 14 years after 6 people moved to Mississauga with a big dream and belief in the call of an infinitely bigger God. Humbled? Awed? Excited? All of those words would fit, but anticipation was probably the most dominant feeling - God is at work, and we can't wait to see what He'll do next! |
Hangin' in the Hat!
|  Part of our rationale for being in Medicine Hat for three weeks was to have family time together during the week between the GCA and the Summit. While we did some visiting with the Grasslands team and prep for Summit, most of our time was spent exploring Medicine Hat and the surrounding area. We thoroughly enjoyed going to Dinosaur Provincial Park, several museums, the fabulous Family Leisure center and a couple of beaches. We even toured a greenhouse and a well-done creation museum!
 Each of the kids found something they really enjoyed; Ana especially enjoyed playing acouple of games of chess with Daddy on the massive outdoor chess set, and Alissa was literally bouncing off the walls at the opportunity to visit a candy shop in the historic downtown. Lydia and the boys liked the terrific pools at the leisure center best, though I think the trains that were everywhere would be a close second for the boys!
We had a special treat during the Summit - Philip's twin brother, Nathan and his family joined us to share a dorm for the week. It was great to have cousin and auntie and uncle time. We were pretty impressed that Elijah figured out the difference between Daddy and Uncle Nathan after the first day.
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Adjusting to Winter
| On our lovely drive back from Medicine Hat, Philip said that he he felt God had given him a visual to help explain to the people what was happening in this little body. The image was of a vineyard - in the winter, after the branches have been pruned away. We have certainly experienced pruning over these past few months, and it's not a very comfortable thing! It can be downright scary and disheartening. The more we talked about it, the more we thought that we were perhaps in the first winter for this new little vine - it did well, bore fruit, both in results of people coming to the Lord and planting a new church, but now is the time to grow the root system stronger for another season of fruitfulness.
Pray for us as we communicate these thoughts, and encourage people to take advantage of the opportunities to grow deeper and stronger that we'll be presenting. |
Anticipating the Spring
| Our original visions statement we desire to have a body of believers so in love with God and His word that it overflowed into the community around us, and in time, to other places in Canada and around the world. We feel like we need to go back to the beginning - to fall in love with God and His word, to strengthen this little body and deepen our relationships with God and each other.
To that end, we've made some rather dramatic changes to our programs and structures for the coming year. We want to lead from strength, so we'll be doing only one community group this year - for our leadership team. But how do we provide opportunities for accountability, discipleship, community and care if we aren't doing community groups this year? How will we deliver more Bible teaching that has been requested if we don't have a Sunday night program? Well, that, as they say, is the $64,000,000 question.
Here's what we'll be doing...Leaders will be opening their homes to teach classes, perhaps book studies, or basic theology, or marriage enrichment. We will be starting monthly men's and women's gatherings and will also be starting what we're calling Growth Groups - gender-specific accountability groups for 2-3 people. Now certainly, nothing will ever perfectly accomplish what we want to see happen and we know there will be gaps, but we think these things will allow people to deepen their relationships with God and each other, and that's what we hope for - so that out of renewed strength, the overflow will come, and we'll be ready to blossom and produce more fruit! Here is the document we have been working from:
Winter in the Vinyard
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As we think about winter in the vineyard we also think about the reality of our great gardener. John 15:1 " 1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener." Our Heavenly Father is at work and He loves us more than we can ever know. For our family we are tempted at times to wonder why the winter when all our resources have dried up, our finances, our personal strength and energy and ability to add more to our lives, but God is asking us to connect into the vine. The great and kind gardener knows that without the vine we can do nothing. And so we don't have finances - but He does, we don't have strength, but He does; we don't have the ability to add more people into our lives, but He does. He has put us in a place of complete dependence on Him and we know that the vine has all that we need.
The reality is that last 4 years have produced great fruit and to think that we will have a daughter church in Medicine Hat come September 11, is very much our Father at work. As we enter this season, pray that we can get more connected to the vine. We have so many things to build and rebuild. We have been working tirelessly since returning back home to helping, encouraging, envisi oning, and leading our church family into this season. We have met resistance, there are people who are deciding to stay or go, we have maturity and immaturity in front of us. There is questions for our youth, our families and our individuals to process - but my prayer is that we would all get more connected to the vine.  | | Vision and the Glory of God - Bartley Sawatzky |
That our walk with our precious Saviour would grow deeper and we would hear His voice and He would chose to call us out and produce some amazing fruit that only He can take the glory for.This past week we played Pastor Bartley's message to our National Conference in our main service. It is a powerful message (Work with his humor on Contemporary Service) - Bartley, reminded us that Jesus was the most glorified, because He was willing to make the greatest sacrifice. We glorify God when we choose joy in the difficult times. It shows we really trust Him and other people see this and it has a glorious effect. I have been in discussion with several ladies in my church. Each with very different and very difficult circumstances. I told them that they are glorious to me. Each asked why. I told them, because many other people would have used their circumstances to do nothing but sulk and complain, but they have chosen to rise up with their limitations and still serve in the midst of their suffering. To me it is truly glorious to see such faith in action. I can only hope that our family reflects some of this glory for our great King. Galatians 6:9 is a great verse and I cling to it in these times. Living to see a harvest for our great King,
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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