Fall 2014 Facebook Demographics for GAC FB page

Cycling is for Lazy People

James Schwartz a Toronto lawyer and cyclist wrote a very funny and informative blog recently entitled Cycling is for Lazy People. Great stuff.

My favourite paragraph is:

I sold the last car I owned in 2010 and bought a couple solid bicycles because I was too lazy to maintain the car*. I was too lazy to renew my license plates each year, too lazy to fill up the gas tank, too lazy to shop around for insurance rates, and too lazy to take it to the car wash.

Pastor Jacob Birch and GAC's proposed new Vision Statement

I want to roll out here on my blog today a proposed new vision statement that GAC is currently considering. I want to do a little reflecting on it for my own benefit and yours perhaps as well. This also gives you the opportunity to react to it in the comments.

GAC is following Christ 

as He disciples people from all nations and every generation 

through us 

for the glory of God. 

What is vision? A short, inspiring statement of the "preferred future" you are trying to achieve. 

It can't and shouldn't do everything but a vision statement should summarize the Why? and the main What? questions of any organization. Why are we doing something as opposed to nothing? and What is it we are trying to do. 

Things i like about this version of the vision statement are:

1. Its use of biblically rooted verbs, nouns and concepts. 

    Follow - This is the most ancient call of the gospel ... to follow Jesus. Matthew 4:18, 8:22

    Christ - or maybe we should use Jesus? Christ emphasises his position... as the Messiah. Jesus emphasizes his mission... as the preacher, healer, convict from Galilee Matthew 26:71, Mark 1:24

    disciples - This is the most ancient title of the closest followers of Jesus Mark 10:32

    nations - Jesus' target market from the beginning Matthew 28:18-20

    generations - A vision for people in each age group... not just seniors or young families or youth Psalm 145:4

    glory - The uber motivation for everything the believer should do. 1 Corinthians 10:31

  

2. Its focus on Christ being the prime worker. 

We are not the subject of our own vision statement. Christ is the worker. He is the one discipling the nations and generations through us. Which is of course very biblical. John 10:14-15

I think that too many vision statements are too enamoured with what the church is attempting and not connected enough to WHOM is attempting it. It is God working, God enabling, God empowering, God changing, God giving, God transforming. 

What is our responsibility in this revamped statement?

To follow Christ

To stay connected to Him so that He can complete His mission through us. 

3. Its explicit inclusion of people from many nations and generations. 

Our new vision for GAC is competing with other visions for GAC... most notably among some of our critics that we are becoming "a seniors church". By specifically branching out to include congregations and to start church plants among different cultural groups and generations, GAC wants to offer worship services in the "heart language worship services" of as many tribes, nations and generations as possible. 

Re-Updated - Pastor Jacob Birch and The "Something" That is Wrong with Niagara

Update - September 12th 2013

With this week being the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide's Week to End Suicide campaign AND it also coinciding with the observed uptick in suicides here in Niagara Falls each fall, i thought i would include here 3 or 4 of the best @afspnational tweets of the week.

In America there are 2 suicides for every 1 homicide. In Canada in 2011 there are 598 homicides and 3,500 suicides... 5 times as many people take their own life in Canada as have it taken from them.

Ephesians 4:32
32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Original Post - July 9th 2013

A while back a truly horrific article was published in the Niagara Falls Review. Its 2nd sentence contains the assertion that "something is amiss" in Niagara.It went on to detail that 11% of Niagarians over the age of 20 ATTEMPT suicide every year. That is nearly double the 5.9% of Ontarians that try to end their lives every year.

In April CNN and Foxnews carried live coverage of the NRPS and the OPP talking a man back off the ledge at Table Rock  just above the Horseshoe Falls.

Today a man tried to run his car into the Niagara Gorge right by the Niagara AeroCar Tourist Attraction.

Bodies are regularly found in the river, most of them never reported. In fact the team at Niagara Helicopters supposedly makes a run every morning before they begin taking up tourists to check the whirlpool and lower Niagara River for bodies and body parts.