Category: Golf Course Road Church (Page 19 of 26)

Church visions are typically too broad and too generic. Most churches have focus statements and vision plans and strategies, but are they too vague? How do people in our churches know whether we’re accomplishing what we’ve set out to do or not?

A vision must be concrete and specific. We have to be able to clearly articulate our vision and goals. We have to be able to recognize it when we see it and point to it. THIS is why we’re a church! THIS is what God is doing in us and through us. THIS is why we’re at Golf Course Road! We have to own it.

Our church here in Midland is spending the next five Sundays talking very specifically about our vision and our goals. These are the things we believe our God is doing in us and through us as a community of faith. These are the concrete things we want to accomplish for the Kingdom of Christ in West Texas and beyond.

I certainly want everyone at GCR Church to be informed during this exciting season of vision and opportunity. So, allow me to direct you to a couple of helpful places – this is mainly for GCR members.

Here’s a link to all the Breakthrough information: the vision statement, the formation zones, the giving goals, the Breakthrough video, the topics and titles of the upcoming Bible classes and sermons, and a schedule of informational meetings and Breakthrough events.

Here’s a link to the weekly prayer guide that, I hope, will keep you close to the Lord and to his working in your life as we approach October 30.

Here’s a link to last Sunday’s sermon that introduced the whole thing.

Beginning this Sunday, we’re taking the individual pieces of this vision and breaking it down into smaller, more digestible chunks. On October 30, we will give more than four-million-dollars to jump start the whole thing: our commitment to transformation and mission, our partnerships with five local missions organizations, adopting three churches through our partnership with Nexus, one-hundred mission trips, twelve Christian practices retreats, twelve new small groups, and the long-needed upgrades and updates to our worship center.

We are at an important time of tremendous opportunity to personally impact thousands of people for Jesus. That’s exciting to me. By God’s grace, GCR is in a position to be a faithful force for the Gospel throughout Midland and way beyond. Not many churches are in our position with our potential. So, let’s be thankful. Think about all the possibilities. Dream about it. Listen to God. Pray and plan and participate. And, starting right now, enjoy these next couple of years at GCR. It’s a blessing. It’s a Breakthrough.

Peace,

Allan

We rolled out plans yesterday for a comprehensive vision and direction for our church at Golf Course Road. We are newly committed to creating an atmosphere here and fostering a culture in which we pay closer attention to what God is doing in us and through us. The plan includes sending one hundred of our members on short term mission trips over the next two years, significant partnerships with five local organizations that are doing important Gospel work in our city, a renewed emphasis on Christian practices that keep us tuned in to God’s work in our lives, new small groups dedicated to transformation and mission, adopting and supporting three new church plants, and every member of our church family giving two hours per month in sacrificial service for others.

As a church, we’ve been in a holding pattern for a while. We’ve been close… but  it just hasn’t happened for a while. We’ve been waiting. But now is the time for our Breakthrough.

We want to be a church, we want to be a people, who are committed to change – holy change in ourselves and salvation change in the world. We want to know that God in Christ is doing incredible things in us and magnificent things through us. And we want to pay better attention to those things, we want to more faithfully expect those things and praise God for those things, and jump into and participate in those things with everything we’ve got.

To whom much is given, much is required. This church on Golf Course Road has been and is so blessed by God – money, wealth, resources, people, relationships, creativity, energy, connections. God did not build his church here, he did not bring his people together here, just so we could worship and enjoy fellowship and this city not be changed!

Yesterday marked the beginning of a brand new chapter in the ongoing story of God’s presence and power with his saved and called people at GCR. As we enter this new and exciting season of worship and prayer and planning and ministry together, may we lean fully into the faithfulness of our God, the love of our Lord Jesus, and the equipping power of the Holy Spirit.

Peace,

Allan

The last several years have been a very difficult season for this church on Golf Course Road. Some folks would say that’s an understatement. The Adversary has thrown a lot at this community of faith. We’ve endured turmoil and upheaval and chaos that some churches couldn’t have survived. For a long time we’ve been putting out fires and dealing with situations and cleaning up  messes and fixing issues – we’ve been working so hard just to hold everything together, it hasn’t allowed us the time or energy to do much else.

But, now it’s time.

By the grace of God, the Lord has faithfully brought us through that time to this time. This is the time to stop talking about what GCR should be doing or could be doing, to stop looking back to what GCR used to do or wishing ahead to what GCR ought to do. This is the time for all of us to get it in the car together, with each other, and put the thing in gear, and finally get out of the driveway and go. It’s time right now for us to be the people God is calling us to be and to do together what God is calling us to do for the sake of Midland and all of West Texas and maybe even the world.

I’m excited about this time. I hope you are, too.

What we’re proposing is not a re-launch or a re-start. We’re not blowing anything up and we’re not throwing anything away. It’s a Breakthrough to transformation and mission. We start rolling it out at 10:15 this Sunday morning.

You ready?

Peace,

Allan

130 kids from the 5th grade down.
77 church volunteers.
52 beach balls.
10 buckets of confetti.
5 experiential learning and doing stations.
3 exciting nights.
1 crazy shark named Davy Wavy.

Tonight is the last night of Vacation Bible School at the Golf Course Road Church and it has been nothing less than a smashing success. I’m so proud of Kristin and Ashlee and Shannon for whipping up a wonderful plan to get our kids and their friends worshiping God, learning to trust Jesus, participating in local missions, and just having a blast together in the name of following our Lord. And I’m so proud of our church family. Those 77 volunteers don’t count the couple of dozen or so who helped decorate the church building on Saturday. So, in my view, this is a genuine all-church event. Our entire church has come together so beautifully to pull this off for the sake of our kids. And we’ve had a lot of fun doing it.

I’ve received so much joy watching Mark do his thing. He is a supremely talented teacher who connects so well with the children, and they love him. To watch Mark physically involve the kids with the Gospel stories about Christ, to see the boat he built for our stage, to be in the room when Mark is ad-libbing with a six-foot-tall walking and talking shark named Davy Wavy, is to appreciate not only his gifts, but his eagerness to share them with God’s Church. What a true blessing for all of us.

By the way, Brandon’s Davy Wavy is really the hit of the week. Why it takes him a full night to memorize a simple ten-word memory verse is beyond me. And I can’t decide if his voice sounds more like the Cookie Monster or Redd Foxx. But his energy and enthusiasm for the gig is making him the star of the show, no doubt.

Thank you to Kristin and Ashlee and their incredible group of teachers and volunteers. I’m so grateful to belong to a church and a ministry team that values teaching our kids how to love like Jesus. Each night has featured a different non-profit organization that’s doing Gospel work locally in Midland – Mission Agape, Reflections, and the MISD’s Family Support System – and our kids have  spent some of their time during each night working with that ministry. They’ve packed food for needy families in the Permian Basin, packed gift bags of socks and makeup and other essentials for women rescued from sex trafficking, and tonight they’re packing hygiene kits for at-risk students in our schools. Our kids are making waves in our community that will continue to have significant impact for weeks and months.

This has been an important week at GCR. We’re connecting together. We’re coming together for a common purpose. We’re teaching our children and worshiping God and serving our city in Jesus’ name and meeting a lot of new people and having a fantastic time doing it. May we have a terrific final night. May God’s name be praised and his grace be received. And may our Lord’s will be done in us and through us in Midland just as it is in heaven.

Peace,

Allan