Saturday, February 14, 2015

GGC Finance

 
Discipleship leads to Mission. This is the heartbeat of our Church.

At GGC we encourage our people “to give generously…and to steward well”

We believe that your donations carry a heavy responsibility by our Church to be managed well in order to make our vision a reality.

Your generous donations are allocated to what we call “Holistic Discipleship”. Holistic Discipleship contains 3 areas: Spiritual Formation, Community and Restoration.

In Spiritual Formation we focus resources on Bibles; on books; on apologetics; educational DVDs; social media; sending individuals and groups to conferences; leadership development; enhancing worship services; workshops; teachers and guest speakers with the sole focus of making disciples who are confident when they are sent out to their workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, rec leagues and with friends, family and strangers.

In Community we center resources on financing events that help connect people and help build relationships. We want to create a yearly retreat where we focus on relationships with each other and with God. We envision building a coffeehouse that helps connect the Church to the community.

In Restoration, we believe in giving money away!  We don’t want to be a church that just spends resources on itself. We want to financially support organizations, churches and ministries that are already fighting injustice in the city and around the world. We envision in the future financing projects that build orphanages and build wells where clean water does not exist.

This “Holistic Discipleship” leads to Mission. It will lead to stories of people meeting Jesus; stories of people being helped; stories of people finding friendships. Because of this we ask you to join us for we believe your investment will be meaningful and worthwhile as it helps build the Kingdom of God.

Photo Credit: Mirco Razon

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Feeding the Fire by watching True Blood!!??


It is sometimes hard to admit, but I have become a fan of the hit TV show "True Blood". It is a show that has a great story and the constant barrage of hanging endings have kept me intrigued, that I'm eagerly anticipating the next episode. The show is definitely not for kiddies and not for people that have a hard time with discernment. For this show and many like it, discernment is to be used. The show at times is too much on the sex and the violence. But to it's credit, they have created a captivating story line and meaningful characters that you care about.

One of the most intriguing parts of the show are the "Christians" especially the ones that go to Church called the "Fellowship of the Sun". They are the lamest and most judgmental-hate filled people of the show. You would have the Pastor mix Jesus with hate and violence. Sadly, these characterizations have become a growing trend in Television. I have yet to see a "Christian" character show love and compassion while at same time disagreeing with an issue. I mean disagreeing with someones life choice or behavior, does not mean you hate them. But for some reason, that seems to get lost in translation. It concerns me, that possibly millions of people will "think" or "believe" that all Christians act like the ones from the "Fellowship of the Sun". However, it is hard to admit that there are a few, yet loud "Christians" who act and behave exactly like the "Fellowship of the Sun". It bothered me quite a bit. But there was a line by Sookie (played by Anna Paquin) that made me roar and cheer as if someone had scored a Touchdown or scored a Goal. She screams at the Pastor- "Jesus would have been ashamed of you!!" At that moment, I wanted to hug Sookie and twirl her in the air. The Pastor promptly responds with a smile, "I guess we have to agree to disagree".

In bed, I had a good conversation with my wife about the importance of painting an accurate picture of Christ. So many people unfortunately, get a distorted and corrupt view of Jesus and what the Church should be. That night, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about it, pondering about what I just saw. I even prayed about it- talked about it with God. Told Him, how it hurt me that many people are not seeing the real Jesus in Christians. As we talked that night, my heart started to stir and started to beat faster. I knew this was something that I was passionate about. For some reason whenever I get passionate, I start raising my arms crying out to God to do something. I started to hit my pillow, only to be interrupted by my wife asking me, "what the hell are you doing?" I guess it does look weird when your supposed to be asleep and your arms are flailing in the sky and your hitting your pillow.

As the night started to get quiet and I was about to sleep, a nudge to my heart and thought to my head simultaneously came. And it was the word "discipleship". And it hit me, people need discipleship. They need to be taught the truth, they need to be shown a true and accurate picture of Christ. It was Jesus' last command to "Go out and make disciples". The problem is we have either neglected this command or we have taught falsely. How often do Christians disciple other Christians? Do they leave that job to the Pastor? When Jesus said this last command before he left earth, it was for every Christian not just a select few! The lack of discipleship is not only just hurting the walk of Christians but also non- believers who are constantly being shown an inaccurate view of Jesus and what following Christ looks like.

Sometimes I wonder, if the Church had done its job in discipling believers with an accurate picture of Christ, maybe we would smile a lot more when we watch a "Christian" character on TV instead of always feeling nervous and nauseous like your about to vomit your supper on the TV.

Who knew that watching "True Blood" could feed the fire needed to help the Church become more passionate about discipleship.




Thursday, August 12, 2010

Summer Movies!!











Inception: 5 Stars out of 5
- seriously this movie was amazing!
- brilliant cast, awesome story
- brilliant movie about dreams
- it was actually something that I can relate too, especially the dreams part

The Other Guys: 2 and a half stars out of 5
- had it's funny moments
- Will Ferell and Mark Wahlberg had awesome chemistry
- stupid funny, the storyline was pretty weak
- was expecting more

Raptors Trade!

The Raptors trade Marco Bellinelli to New Orleans for Julian Wright

We got more athletic with this trade, but other than that nothing to get excited about. This is going to be a long year...sigh..not one of those AGAIN! But it's sad to say that I'm used to it...

GGC Turns 1!!

We just had our first anniversary service and it was amazing! I'm really thankful for what God has done this past year. When I watched our retrospect video, I was truly touched by it. I am so proud of my team. They are truly amazing people and they work so hard. I am so blessed to have them. GGC would not be anywhere it is now without these remarkable people. There have been good times and there have been bad times, but we sticked it out together and it has been quite the adventure. Year one truly have some great memories and great stories- that one day we will share to our kids. I can't believe we made it this far, it has absolutely been a crazy ride.

The greatest part is that it's just the beginning. There is more story to be told. The adventure has just begun. We continue our quest to make Jesus famous. We continue to establish the DNA of a 'Come as you are Missional Community' where we are the Church every single day.

So year 2 begins...what's going to happen next?


Monday, August 2, 2010

Jalen..aka Mr. Laughy


My son is amazing, I love him to death! I am so proud to be a Dad and I'm so thankful for what God has blessed us with. I'm proud of Shaula too, she is an amazing mother and wife. She works extremely hard and she keeps me in line ;) Life is so beautiful right now, that I forget about all our financial problems....or maybe I just remembered..lol..hahahahaha... But God is good, I cannot tell you how He has provided for us during this time. It is absolutely amazing. I'm not sure why I'm so surprised, I mean He always comes through- I hope one day it will just become an expectation.

Jalen is getting so big right now and it's only been 10 weeks. I'm already sad that he is growing up. I want to cherish each moment even when changing his diaper, his poo seems to be getting worse and worse. I miss the old poo already. Time just keeps going faster and faster. Got to enjoy every moment of it. I'm looking forward to seeing my son grow up. I pray he grows up to be a good boy and has lots of girlfriends. But in all seriousness, I really hope he grows up to love Jesus just as much as I do. Following Jesus and having this awesome relationship/friendship with the Creator is LIFE! It is my joy and it gives me peace; a purpose and meaning to this life. The adventure that will never end, yet the story is just beginning.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Chuck's mom is Sarah Connor!?!?



They just announced at Comic Con 2010 that Linda Hamilton aka Sarah Connor from Terminator 2 will be Mama Bartowski in Season 4 of NBC's Chuck! This is going to be awesome!! I cannot wait for Season 4! Chuck returns on Monday, September 20, 2010 on NBC!