Our Mission at Guelph Bible Chapel is to know and enjoy God through the transforming power of Jesus Christ His Son
Our Values
Stand On Scripture |
We stand on the truth of the Bible – divinely inspired, inerrant, and infallible – as the basis for all that we do and teach. We commit to the words of Holy Scripture as our final authority in all matters on which it affirms, obey it as God’s command in all that it asks, and cling to it as God’s pledge in all that it promises.
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Pursue God's Presence |
Unless the Lord builds we labour in vain, for apart from Jesus we can do nothing of eternal value. Convinced of these truths, we as a church commit to pursuing God’s presence and power through His Holy Spirit in all our efforts to serve and glorify Him. We pursue Him through obedience to His Word, fervent prayer, and passionate worship – both individually and corporately.
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Love Others Lavishly |
Rooted in the life and grace that flow from Christ’s finished work, we commit as dearly beloved children of God to love one another wholeheartedly and sacrificially. We desire to build a culture of warm welcome, genuine affection, true forgiveness, humble service, intentional care, heartfelt encouragement, and mutual submission. A culture of love and grace that increasingly reflects Jesus’ gospel and heart for us.
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Disciple With Diligence |
Standing on the extravagant grace which is ours in Christ, we desire to be a community of grace. We thus commit to warm and loving welcome for all sinners, and to the grace-filled pursuit of ongoing growth in holiness, godliness, and obedience through lives of intentional discipleship. Our ambition is to grow into maturity – attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
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Evangelize With Expectation |
Jesus calls His Church a ‘city on a hill’ – shining brightly with His light for the advance of His gospel. We thus commit to lives of bold outreach, exhorting one another to intentional witness dependent on God’s Spirit. We do this expectantly – asking God in mercy to draw those around us to the hope and life made available in Christ for all repentant sinners.
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Our Statement of Faith
We Believe:
(a) In the Scriptures, Old and New Testament, as the inspired Word of God, which are entirely trustworthy, and without error in the original writings. They are the complete revelation of God's will for salvation of people and the divine and final authority for all Christian faith and life.
(b) In one God, Almighty, Creator of all things, holy and eternally existing in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is gracious, merciful, compassionate, and steadfast in love. He is also the righteous Judge of all.
(c) In the Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary in His incarnation. He lived a sinless life, died on the cross as a perfect sacrifice for our sins, was buried and rose bodily from the dead. He ascended into heaven, was exalted by the Father and now intercedes as our High Priest and Advocate.
(d) In the Holy Spirit, co-equal with the Father and the Son, who glorifies the Lord Jesus, convicts people of sin, regenerates the believing sinner, and indwells all Christians. He guides, instructs, empowers, and gives gifts to believers for godly living and for service in building up the body of Christ.
(e) That mankind, who was created in the image and likeness of God, has sinned and is guilty before a holy God, and is condemned to eternal separation from God.
(f) Salvation is provided through the death and resurrection of Christ and is the only ground for a sinner's justification and acceptance by God. All who receive the Lord Jesus by faith are redeemed by His blood and are born of the Holy Spirit. They become children of God and have eternal life.
(g) In the personal return of the Lord Jesus to take all believers to be with Him forever. His coming is to be expected at any time and will be followed by the wrath of God upon unredeemed society, and the Millennium.
(h) That the true Church is a living, spiritual Body of which Christ is the head. It is composed of all those who are genuine believers.
(i)In the two ordinances for the church:
(a) In the Scriptures, Old and New Testament, as the inspired Word of God, which are entirely trustworthy, and without error in the original writings. They are the complete revelation of God's will for salvation of people and the divine and final authority for all Christian faith and life.
(b) In one God, Almighty, Creator of all things, holy and eternally existing in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is gracious, merciful, compassionate, and steadfast in love. He is also the righteous Judge of all.
(c) In the Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary in His incarnation. He lived a sinless life, died on the cross as a perfect sacrifice for our sins, was buried and rose bodily from the dead. He ascended into heaven, was exalted by the Father and now intercedes as our High Priest and Advocate.
(d) In the Holy Spirit, co-equal with the Father and the Son, who glorifies the Lord Jesus, convicts people of sin, regenerates the believing sinner, and indwells all Christians. He guides, instructs, empowers, and gives gifts to believers for godly living and for service in building up the body of Christ.
(e) That mankind, who was created in the image and likeness of God, has sinned and is guilty before a holy God, and is condemned to eternal separation from God.
(f) Salvation is provided through the death and resurrection of Christ and is the only ground for a sinner's justification and acceptance by God. All who receive the Lord Jesus by faith are redeemed by His blood and are born of the Holy Spirit. They become children of God and have eternal life.
(g) In the personal return of the Lord Jesus to take all believers to be with Him forever. His coming is to be expected at any time and will be followed by the wrath of God upon unredeemed society, and the Millennium.
(h) That the true Church is a living, spiritual Body of which Christ is the head. It is composed of all those who are genuine believers.
(i)In the two ordinances for the church:
- Baptism as an expression of identification with Christ and a commitment to follow Him.
- The Lord's Supper which is a remembrance of Christ.
The Gospel and Conversion
GBC Stands on the gospel of Jesus Christ. But what is the gospel of Jesus Christ?!
The word “gospel” means “good news.” In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 the apostle Paul summarizes the gospel in this way:
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”
Paul here refers to the gospel as a ‘word’, or message that was preached and received, grasped and believed. But he also says that believing this message – holding fast to it – leads to our being saved – our salvation depends on faith in the gospel!
In vv.3-4 Paul breaks the gospel message down for us:
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received”
In using that term – ‘first importance’ – Paul’s pointing to the core of the gospel message he received and passed on to the church:
“that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
The first element to note here is Christ. The gospel’s about the second person of the Trinity – Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, God the Son – who’s always been God – took on humanity through miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit, and was born of the virgin Mary two thousand years ago. As a human He was tempted in every way as we are, but lived a sinless life of perfect obedience to God. The last three years of His life were spent doing good, and through His teaching and life, perfectly revealing God’s nature to humanity. Jesus’ ministry is reliably recorded and divinely preserved for us in the Biblical Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
A second element of note here is that Christ Died for our Sins in accordance with the Scriptures. The Bible shows us that Jesus was put to death on a Roman cross. He really died! To the point that when His body was taken down, it was buried in a Jewish tomb. But Jesus’ death was not an accident – it was the predetermined plan of God, revealed through the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
The word “for” in this phrase means “in the place of.” The death Jesus died was a substitution – He died in place of someone else.
All of us were born with an inclination to sin – to rebel against God’s just rule, to reject His boundaries in favour of going our own way. All of us have sinned through our actions, words, and thoughts.
In Gen 2:17 God told the first man, Adam, that if he sinned, he would surely die – the penalty for all sin is death. God’s holy and just judgment is that you and I – who are sinners – deserve death.
But the message of the Gospel is that because God loves us, and desires to forgive, and redeem, and shower His love on us despite our rebellion and guilt, Jesus came to die in our place. He took our sins on Himself and suffered the punishment of God in our place. Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures.
But there’s a third element of note here – Jesus didn’t stay dead! We read in v.4 that He: “…was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
God’s giant stamp of approval on what Jesus did for us was raising Him from the dead. Jesus was resurrected on the third day and appeared to many of His disciples to prove it. Jesus' resurrection is the most impactful miracle in human history – a historically verifiable event on which history hinges (BC - AD). By raising Jesus, God made clear that the full price for sin had been paid by His Son.
These elements form what Paul describes as the core message of the gospel. But notice he doesn’t just speak of preaching and delivering this – he points to a response from the Corinthians: they receive the message, they stand on it, they hold fast to it through believing, and thus they’re being saved. Which leads to our second consideration – ‘conversion.’
The message of the gospel isn’t just information. God calls everyone everywhere to respond to this message, firstly through repentance – which means agreeing with God that we’re sinners, renouncing our sins and turning our back on our old way of life. And secondly, God calls us to respond to the gospel by believing it – which means putting all our trust and confidence in the person of Jesus as our substitute, whose death was enough to rescue us from the hell we deserve.
Scripture calls this response ‘faith’ – believing the gospel and turning to build our lives on its truth and implications. Through faith we’re forgiven from the penalty of our sin and reconciled with God. But Scripture also asserts that when we put our faith in Jesus – when belief and repentance meet gospel truth – something spiritual and invisible, but very, very real – happens inside us: God’s Holy Spirit rushes into our heart – not the ticker, but the emotional and intellectual core of our being – and He makes His home inside us. When this happens, God gives us new spiritual life – He changes our hearts from stony hearts enslaved to sin, to soft hearts that become responsive to God’s work, and long to please Him. Through His Holy Spirit, God adopts us as sons and daughters, He transforms us into new creatures – this is salvation. True, saving faith in Jesus will inevitably, unstoppably, & always lead to the outworking of this new spiritual reality in our lives.
We can’t open someone’s chest and look into their hearts to see faith, but the fruit of faith can’t remain hidden – that’s impossible. Saving faith transforms us. Scripture refers to this transformation as ‘conversion’, or ‘regeneration’ which means ‘new birth’ – being born again, being made new, being made alive in Christ. This is the core of God’s desire for all people, this is the purpose of the gospel, and this is the heart of God’s redemption in this world. This is a free gift of God, received through faith in the gospel.
Apart from this new birth – we may have everything else the world has to offer, but we will have nothing!
Lots of people’ve heard about Jesus, and may even believe the accounts of His life are true. But no one is saved until they turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, call on Him to save them, and are born again through faith and by God’s Spirit – until conversion becomes reality in their lives.
Once God’s saved us, the very first thing we ought to pursue is baptism.
The word “gospel” means “good news.” In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 the apostle Paul summarizes the gospel in this way:
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”
Paul here refers to the gospel as a ‘word’, or message that was preached and received, grasped and believed. But he also says that believing this message – holding fast to it – leads to our being saved – our salvation depends on faith in the gospel!
In vv.3-4 Paul breaks the gospel message down for us:
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received”
In using that term – ‘first importance’ – Paul’s pointing to the core of the gospel message he received and passed on to the church:
“that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
The first element to note here is Christ. The gospel’s about the second person of the Trinity – Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, God the Son – who’s always been God – took on humanity through miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit, and was born of the virgin Mary two thousand years ago. As a human He was tempted in every way as we are, but lived a sinless life of perfect obedience to God. The last three years of His life were spent doing good, and through His teaching and life, perfectly revealing God’s nature to humanity. Jesus’ ministry is reliably recorded and divinely preserved for us in the Biblical Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
A second element of note here is that Christ Died for our Sins in accordance with the Scriptures. The Bible shows us that Jesus was put to death on a Roman cross. He really died! To the point that when His body was taken down, it was buried in a Jewish tomb. But Jesus’ death was not an accident – it was the predetermined plan of God, revealed through the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
The word “for” in this phrase means “in the place of.” The death Jesus died was a substitution – He died in place of someone else.
All of us were born with an inclination to sin – to rebel against God’s just rule, to reject His boundaries in favour of going our own way. All of us have sinned through our actions, words, and thoughts.
In Gen 2:17 God told the first man, Adam, that if he sinned, he would surely die – the penalty for all sin is death. God’s holy and just judgment is that you and I – who are sinners – deserve death.
But the message of the Gospel is that because God loves us, and desires to forgive, and redeem, and shower His love on us despite our rebellion and guilt, Jesus came to die in our place. He took our sins on Himself and suffered the punishment of God in our place. Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures.
But there’s a third element of note here – Jesus didn’t stay dead! We read in v.4 that He: “…was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
God’s giant stamp of approval on what Jesus did for us was raising Him from the dead. Jesus was resurrected on the third day and appeared to many of His disciples to prove it. Jesus' resurrection is the most impactful miracle in human history – a historically verifiable event on which history hinges (BC - AD). By raising Jesus, God made clear that the full price for sin had been paid by His Son.
These elements form what Paul describes as the core message of the gospel. But notice he doesn’t just speak of preaching and delivering this – he points to a response from the Corinthians: they receive the message, they stand on it, they hold fast to it through believing, and thus they’re being saved. Which leads to our second consideration – ‘conversion.’
The message of the gospel isn’t just information. God calls everyone everywhere to respond to this message, firstly through repentance – which means agreeing with God that we’re sinners, renouncing our sins and turning our back on our old way of life. And secondly, God calls us to respond to the gospel by believing it – which means putting all our trust and confidence in the person of Jesus as our substitute, whose death was enough to rescue us from the hell we deserve.
Scripture calls this response ‘faith’ – believing the gospel and turning to build our lives on its truth and implications. Through faith we’re forgiven from the penalty of our sin and reconciled with God. But Scripture also asserts that when we put our faith in Jesus – when belief and repentance meet gospel truth – something spiritual and invisible, but very, very real – happens inside us: God’s Holy Spirit rushes into our heart – not the ticker, but the emotional and intellectual core of our being – and He makes His home inside us. When this happens, God gives us new spiritual life – He changes our hearts from stony hearts enslaved to sin, to soft hearts that become responsive to God’s work, and long to please Him. Through His Holy Spirit, God adopts us as sons and daughters, He transforms us into new creatures – this is salvation. True, saving faith in Jesus will inevitably, unstoppably, & always lead to the outworking of this new spiritual reality in our lives.
We can’t open someone’s chest and look into their hearts to see faith, but the fruit of faith can’t remain hidden – that’s impossible. Saving faith transforms us. Scripture refers to this transformation as ‘conversion’, or ‘regeneration’ which means ‘new birth’ – being born again, being made new, being made alive in Christ. This is the core of God’s desire for all people, this is the purpose of the gospel, and this is the heart of God’s redemption in this world. This is a free gift of God, received through faith in the gospel.
Apart from this new birth – we may have everything else the world has to offer, but we will have nothing!
Lots of people’ve heard about Jesus, and may even believe the accounts of His life are true. But no one is saved until they turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, call on Him to save them, and are born again through faith and by God’s Spirit – until conversion becomes reality in their lives.
Once God’s saved us, the very first thing we ought to pursue is baptism.
Partners
Guelph Bible Chapel is an affiliate member of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), the national association of evangelical Christians in Canada. The EFC provides a national forum for Evangelicals, fosters ministry partnerships, conducts research on religious and social trends and provides a constructive voice for biblical principles in life and society.
We are committed to accountability and transparency in our finances and are a member of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities. Financial Statements are available upon request.
We collaborate in ministry with other organizations in support of our mission and vision, including Celebrate Recovery Canada, Precept Ministries Canada and Vision Ministries Canada.