GBC Community Update: Sharing your faith-be a friend

Good morning. I hope you’re making this a great week.  While we’ve finished our teaching series “Servant” please don’t lose focus on the call on our lives to serve. As society opens up there are going to be more opportunities coming to share our faith.  We have Oasis Camp coming up, our Repair Café next week through the Guelph Tool Library, and an initiative with Michael House to name a few.  Don’t limit them though to just church activities!  Our community needs volunteers, sports associations need help and on and on it goes.  The amazing thing is God has given us gifts and talents that can be used to let the light of Jesus shine. Figure out what you’re passionate about and then go and be a servant.
 
 
GBC Summer Jobs!  
 Are you between 15 and 30 years old?  Are you looking for a meaningful summer job?  
 Do you like developing programs for children or doing projects with your hands?  
 If so, consider applying for one of two positions available this summer.  The roles will be focused on delivering our OASIS summer camp, supporting children and youth ministry and doing light duty facility and grounds maintenance work.    
 Roles will last 8 weeks and pay $15.25 per hour for a 35 hour week.  Start dates can be as soon as the beginning of May.   
 Speak to Pastor Chris or Dan Chapman for more information. 
 
 
Join us on Sunday in-person or on our livestream as we start our new spring series “In focus”-God’s call on this church
Sunday we begin our new series for the spring. We will be bringing focus onto God’s call for this church.  After our 100 Days of Prayer in 2020 we felt God calling us to bring focus onto 4 specific areas of ministry: outreach, small groups, prayer and our Sunday morning experience. Since then this has guided much of what we do here at GBC. So, We’re going to examine this from a biblical perspective.
This Sunday Patrick kicks it off looking at the topic of outreach examining the study of Jonah. What can we learn that pertains to today? Find out Sunday!
Remember, you can join us as we gather in-person or you can connect through our website www.guelphbiblechapel.ca  our YouTube channel as well as Facebook LIVE
 
 
Thought for the Day:  Sharing your faith: Be a Friend
Tuesday I started my new series of thoughts on sharing our faith. I examined first that we should look at our motives and why we’re doing it before getting started. So, motives in the right place? Great!  Let’s look at the next step.
Be friends to be friends, not to “get someone saved.”
This is huge. I think it’s easy to give the impression that we’re only friends with someone to try to “get them saved.” This leaves people feeling used and devalued, which is the opposite of how God feels about them.
If I’m going to be friends with someone, we are going to be friends whether or not they come to know the Lord.  That being said, sometimes I will pray for more friends who don’t know God because I want people to know about Jesus. I want people to naturally see how much joy He’s brought into my own life! (And I also don’t want to get stuck in a totally Christian bubble.) But I’m definitely not going to stop being friends with someone if they don’t become a Christian.
That said, our friends are very influential in our lives, so it’s important to be careful about whom you choose to be your closest friends. We can have acquaintance friends and then we can have close friends who play a significant role in our lives. And those close friends make a big difference in the person you become.  It’s important to choose them wisely.  So just be careful as you choose close friends (no matter what their faith), and ask yourself: “Do I like who I become when I’m with this person?”
As you’re genuine friends with someone, as you spend time together and are there for them in hard times, then they’ll know you care. And that will make it so they can actually hear your heart and your love when you tell them how much Jesus loves them.  That opens the door for conversations and natural opportunity to share your faith. More on this next week!
 
In His grip,
Pastor Chris