Weekly Announcements

Spring Outreach: The Abba Pregnancy Resource Center's Spring Banquet will take place on May 14, 2015 and GCF is set to have a significant role in it. Five of our members are serving on the Banquet Committee, and more than ten others are committed to helping in one way or other. Please see your bulletins for more information and ways you can be involved. Most of all, please join us in praying that God will pour out his blessings upon the ministry of Abba and upon the pro-life movement at large.

Sabbatical: Pastor Charlie will be leaving for Sabbatical on May 18 and returning August 18. Please join us next Sunday, May 17, for his sabbatical sermon and time of prayer over his family.

Safe Families for Children: A ministry which helps families in crisis. Services include temporary housing for children whose parents have lost jobs, homes or are going through rehabilitation. Safe Families’ main focus is family reunification by preventing children from entering the state’s social services. Most of the families in need have limited support systems. The ministry calls families from local churches to host the children. Each host family shares the love of Christ through this act of service. For more information about the ministry, contact Ruby Gunderson at ruby@safefamiliesmn.org.

Thursday Morning Prayer Meeting: Please join us for an hour of prayer on Thursday mornings from 6:00-7:00 a.m. at the church office. Women should bring at least one other person with them so that we can honor the Lord by maintaining appropriate boundaries. If you are unable to stop by the church office, feel free to join in wherever you are. For more information, contact Pastor Charlie at charlie@gcfmn.org.

Stay Connected: All of our announcements are posted on our blog at our church website (gcfmn.org). If you would like to receive our weekly electronic newsletter please contact Traci Veek (traci@gcfmn.org).

Next Week’s Fighter Verse:

“For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.”

Lamentations 3:31-33

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The Secret of all Failure is our Failure in Secret Prayer

“We may be assured of this—the secret of all failure is our failure in secret prayer” (12). So writes the anonymous author of the classic little book on prayer entitled, The Kneeling Christian (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids: 1971). He means that the reason we so often fall into sin or live in discouragement or fail to bear fruit is because we do not cling to God in Christ above all things. We do not diligently seek him or lean on him or plead with him or draw on his strength. We give ourselves to busyness over communion with God and in this way we seek to accomplish in our flesh what can only be accomplished in the power of the Spirit. Giving first place to what our dear author calls “secret prayer” is indeed a key to the Spirit-filled life but let’s be clear: prayer is not magic, rather, it’s a relationship. It’s not as if we simply have to file requests with God, being careful to use just the right words so that we can get him to respond as we wish. God is not a vending m

Deacons - How They Serve and Strengthen the Church (Part 1)

One of the next important priorities for GCF is to establish deacons in the life of the church. On March 14, 2021 we were able to establish an elder team. Currently, we have a team of four elders overseeing the congregation of GCF. However, there is more work to be done. I have come to see that establishing an elder team was the bare minimum that needed to happen for GCF to survive. I believe GCF now needs to turn our attention to raising up a team of qualified and willing deacons to serve the congregation so that it will not only survive but thrive. I would like to begin a series of blogs on deacons to help us understand who they are and what they do in the life of the church. In this blog let me provide three reasons why I think deacons should be near our top priority. Number 1: It is Biblical. Paul instructs Timothy to install elders who will help him pastor the church. For whatever reason, it seems the churches in our circles treat the installment of elders as non-negotiable

Does the Doctrine Divide? by Patience Griswold

“Oh, I try not to talk about doctrine. It’s so divisive.” This is a sentiment that I’ve heard expressed, as well as implied, on many occasions, and one that raises the question, does doctrine divide? In answering this question, we must keep in mind a very important truth and that is that everyone holds to some sort of doctrine . “Doctrine” is defined as “a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a church, political party, or other group.” Regardless of whether or not someone publicly holds to a statement of beliefs from a particular church, every Christian, by definition, holds to a particular set of beliefs. As Carl Trueman observes in his book The Creedal Imperative , [W]hile Christianity cannot be reduced to doctrine, to mere teaching, it cannot be meaningfully separated from it, either. Even the most basic claims, such as “Jesus is Lord,” carry clear doctrinal content that needs to be explicated in a world where, as we have noted before, every heretic has his text and n

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