What is Refuge?

GRPC is heading full steam into battle. The battle we are fighting is the epidemic of the fatherless. There are 143,000,000 orphans around the world today and we will begin by helping one.

This past Sunday I introduced the Refuge Ministry for about 10 minutes. What are some of the things that we will be doing in the near future and distant future?

1. We will be looking to help local children who are need of families through foster care, providing for foster families, assisting foster families, helping our own families become foster parents.

2. We will continue to offer help to families who want to adopt both domestic and international children through grants, covenant loans, raising support, counseling, and support groups and networks.

3. We will have projects throughout the year that the entire church can be involved in.

4. We are hoping to partner with international orphanages (which we are already doing) to help them meet their ministry needs, send our people on short term missions and support them in their efforts.

5. We would like to begin partnering with organizations who are need of building orphanages.

There are many more things that we will be doing...this is just a start to help at least one. What are some of the practical ways that you can get involved? First, get in contact with Pastor Dan and let him know that you are indeed interested in helping in some way. He will put you in touch with the right people and sign you up for Refuge updates. The Refuge needs people who are interested in:

1. Praying for the ministry.

2. Financially supporting the ministry so that we can partner with "children at risk" ministries across the world. EVERY PENNY will go toward helping GRPC minister to the children at risk around the world.

3. Adoption

4. Foster Care.

5. Administration, Advertising and Promoting the ministry

6. Website Designers

7. Contractors and Construction workers and skilled workers who can assist in construction projects.

8. Members who can help organize short term missions trips across the world.

Obviously, this is just a start. There is a place FOR EVERYONE who wants to be involved in Refuge.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or ideas that you might have. We are so excited about embarking on this journey. We want as many people as possible to come along for the ride.

Evangelical Mythos Pt. I - The Bible and Me

Pastor Dan's sermon from 9/7/2008
Scripture Reference: II Peter 1:12-21; 3:14-18
Click here to listen.

The Evangelical Mythos

Mythos--The pattern of basic values and attitudes of a people, characteristically transmitted through myths and the arts.

Something has been passed on to each successive generation of American Christians. The question we must ask is whether or not the truth of the Gospel has been transmitted or some useless fables.

To be called an Evangelical used to mean something very specific. Calling oneself anEvangelical was a way of identifying oneself with the truth of Scripture, the doctrines of grace and faith, the belief in Christ as the Messiah and the desire to give God glory alone. However, today, through the watering down of Scripture, the doctrines of faith and grace and of the person and work of Jesus Christ and exactly who and what God is, Evangelical has come to mean something much different. All one has to do is turn on the television (TBN etc) and see that many in the church have fallen WAY off the deep end of kookiness and idiocracy. If what I see on TV represents true Christianity than I am damned.

I would argue that Evangelical is an all-inclusive term that does not mean what it used to mean. This is why I cringe when I am lumped in with a bunch of people who claim to be "Evangelical" yet they do not even know what the Gospel is, what the Bible says, what they believe, or even why they believe it.

Evangelicalism has become something you "feel" or "experience" or have a "relationship" with rather than what you "know" and "believe". It has become all about the persons subjective experience rather than about the good historical news of who Jesus is, what God has revealed about himself in Scripture and what duty God requires of man.

Over the next few weeks I want to examine five areas in which the pillars of the church have cracked and in many cases have come crashing down. I want to look at Scripture, Faith, Grace, the person of Jesus and the glory that is due to God alone. I hope that you will come along on this journey and that you will be challenged by God's Word as you ask what myths you may have bought into in the evangelical world.