All Services — morning and evening — at GPC are canceled for Sunday, January 31. Enjoy the snow and play as well as the opportunity to enjoy community with others and communion with Jesus Christ as the one who took our scarlet sins and made them white as snow.

Saturday morning (9/12) at 8 am is our monthly Men’s Breakfast in the fellowship hall. You are invited to join this band of brothers who gather to encourage one another in as a disciple of Jesus.

We will be hosting homeless families approximately once every 12 weeks beginning in September. Nancy Jewell has agreed to be our volunteer coordinator. Following our worship service on July 12, Nancy will be updating us on the ministry and how we will, as a congregation participate in this valuable ministry. Please plan on hanging out for while after worship to hear how you might play a part.

There are a number of exciting things on the horizon at GPC: Worship, Cookout, Summer Flip, Grand Openings…. It works gratitude in our hearts when we see the fruit of God’s providence combined with our prayers.

Firstly, this Sunday is GIDEON SUNDAY. Our good friend, Claude Williams, will be representing Gideons International and will be sharing with us how the Lord continues to use the Gideons in their distribution of God’s Word and how we can help. We will receive donations for Bible placement during a special offering during our worship service this Sunday.

Secondly, we will host our annual SPRING CHURCH COOKOUT this coming Wednesday evening, May 20 from 6-7:30 pm. Join us for an evening of fun, food, and fellowship. Families with last names ending A-L please bring a side. Families with names ending M-Z please bring a dessert. Oh, and friends and Frisbee and football….

Thirdly, KING’S THRIFT will be hosting their GRAND OPENING PARTY from 3-6 pm on May 23; there will be two bands playing (Joe Next Door and Baco), and hot dogs and chips and drinks will be available (from 4-5:30) at no charge. Tim is looking for volunteers to help serve and bring side dishes, etc. Also, Tim is always in need of donated goods to stock the store and volunteers to help.

Fourthly, planning for the SUMMER FLIP is underway. Beginning June 7 and continuing through August 16, our Sunday morning worship time will be from 9:30 am til 11:00 am. Following our worship service, we will have events which will be either: social – to which you could invite friends and neighbors, missional – to reach out and serve our community, and familial – something which we will all do together as a church family. This is a great opportunity to shake and freshen things up, to reconnect with one another, and to recommit to reaching Kernersville. If you are willing to help plan the Sunday morning activities, please see Randy or call the church office, 993-1305.

Fifthly, we are well into our planning and preparation of this summer’s VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL. Movin’ Straight Ahead will be June 22-26. You can print off the volunteer form and the registration form via the links.

And lastly, you can view this Sunday’s worship bulletin here.

There are a number of things which are moving forward about which we’d like to keep you informed.

A new small group is beginning this Thursday evening as a part of the twentiesgpc ministry. If you are a young, grad, career married or single in your twenties, we’d love to have you join us. Please talk with Randy if you’re interested in participating. Since Randy is old enough to be twenty several times, he says the group isn’t just for those in their twenties.

Planning and recruiting for GPC’s vacation Bible school, “Movin’ Straight Ahead” is well underway. The dates for the VBS are: June 22-26. We need teachers, assistants, recreation leaders, and craft helpers. Oh, and of course, participants. This ministry is an “all hands on deck” event, and we need your help to share with our community the greatness of the salvation we have in Jesus Christ. If you would like to help, please contact Carla Collins at the church office.

The Community Garden which has now has a name: Glory Garden is moving forward. In the next couple of weeks we will be turning and preparing the soil. Our goal for this year is to have good dirt. Though we may be planting a few plants, we will be targetting next spring as the target for creating plots and developing the garden itself. If you would like to be a part of the community garden team, please contact Kathryn Sloan.

GPC middle schoolers are headed to Cedar Grove Retreat Center this weekend for their annual Spring Retreat, “Fear Factor”. We are looking forward to having a great weekend of fun and challenge (in the warm 70+ deg temps, Yeah!) as we consider how God, through Christ, has “freed me from all my fears (Ps 43:4)”.

Each student should bring the following: sleeping bag or bed linens (don’t forget the pillow), jacket or sweater (for chilly March evenings–did I say it’s going to be 70 degrees?), toiletries and wash towels, Bible, notebook, and pen as well as snacks and games to enjoy with others. If a student is planning on and has signed up for paintball, they should bring a long sleeve shirts and pants that can get dirty.

We will depart on Friday, March 6 from the church parking lot at 6 pm and return on Sunday, March 8 at 2 pm.

Parents must complete and sign a Medical Release and Liability Form, and each student must sign Covenant of Conduct Form.

We concluded our series on Foundations of Grace, and in particular our consideration of Isaiah 62:6,7. It is my desire for GPC to be praying church. Here are the last five points:

1. We must expect and believe that God wants us to pray and will answer our prayers. God has made sweet promises regarding prayer. Thomas Boston has said, “He will be very gracious unto thee, at the voice of thy cry…Then shall ye go and pray unto me and I will hearken unto you…Before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” These promises keep the head of prayer above water; God is bound with his own promises.” As we pray, our prayers pray the promises as we lay hold of them in our coming to pray.
2. We must ask our Father for an authenticating and authoritative outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This is Acts chapter 2. The church of Christ needs power to boldly love and make the gospel known. The world is watching and Christ has said that the world will know we are his disciples by the way in which we love one another. We need the seal of authenticity as well as the authoritative conviction to make salvation known.
3. We must not be afraid of emotion. Presbyterians have never been accused of being too emotional. Emotionalism as an extreme is just that, an extreme. Are we endanger of too much joy in worship? too much lament for sin and brokenness? Andrew Murray was confused by the revival he witnessed in South Africa, and because of that confusion was ready to try and stifle revival. We must not be afraid of the power of conviction and the joy of salvation. You can read about Andrew Murray’s experience here.
4. We must surrender to the will of Christ as revealed in the Great Commission, and be willing to take risks in obeying that will. Evan Roberts prior to the Welsh Revival of 1904 prayed, “Lord, bend me.” In that prayer, Roberts was offering himself to God. We too, need to faith to trust him and power to obey his will. You can read about the Welsh Revival and others here.
5. Lastly, we must learn how to pray. Prayer is battlefield of the Christian. It is here that resistance is softened and strongholds are cast down. When we fail to recognize what prayer is and that we must learn to pray–and learn to do it better, we will make prayer into a prattling of wish-lists rather than an entering into the presence of God to worship him and intercede for others.

John Piper in his book, Let the Nations Be Glad, gets it right when he writes

Life is war. That’s not all it is. But it is always that. Our weakness in prayer is owing largely to our neglect of this truth. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against ht powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den. God has given us prayer as a wartime walkie-talkie so that we can call headquarters for everything we need as a the kingdom of Christ advances in the world. Prayer gives us the significance of frontline forces and gives God the glory of limitless Provider. The one who gives the power gets the glory. Thus prayer safeguards the supremacy of God in missions while linking us with endless grace for every need.

As you pray this week, keep these in mind for us as a church that we might be his people, here, faithfully praying, believing, and obeying.

Well, we only made it through four of a nine point sermon on prayer this past Sunday. By way of review, here are the first four points.

1. We must be devoted to prayer. It was both the practice of the early church (Acts 2:42) and the exhortation of the apostles (Colossians 4:2) that the church devote herself to prayer.
2. We must seek agreement-being of one purpose in our asking. This agreement is what Jonathan Edwards was inciting in his work: A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of all God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom on Earth, pursuant to Scripture Promises and Prophecies in the Last Days. If you’re curious, and I hope you are, you can read it here.
3. We, that is the church, must repent first: confess and forsake sin. It has been said that revival among the masses always begins with awakening among believers. The Welsh Revival of 1904 began with Evan Roberts’ message to the youth of a small Welsh congregation. You recall, his message was simply this: You must confess any known sin to God and put any wrong done to others right. Second, you must put away any doubtful habit. Third, you must obey the Spirit promptly. Finally, you must confess your faith in Christ publicly. Great revivals begin with simple messages.
4. We must ground ourselves in the foundational theology of the cross. Before the revival of the First Great Awakening, the church was mired in apostasy which, at least in the Church of Scotland, tended towards a binding legalism which denied the free-offer of the gospel to sinners. This legalism was exposed in the Marrow Controversy of 1722. You can read the book which caused all the debate here.

Revival above everything else, is a glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God…I want to emphasize particularly his atonement, his death upon the cross, his broken body and his shed blood. Again I am quoting to you pure fact which you can check for yourselves. You will find that in every period of revival, without exception, there has been a tremendous emphasis upon the blood of Christ.

Martin Lloyd-Jones, Revival

We’ll conclude this Sunday on prayer. Until then? Well, be devoted.

On Sunday February 22, we’ll be concluding our three part sermon series, The Foundations of Grace. Our sermon text will be Isaiah 62:6, 7 which reads,

I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.

I preached my first sermon as a pastoral candidate at GPC on this very passage. The work of extraordinary prayer which God has employed through his watchmen have always stirred me to pray more earnestly for revival. During the sermon, I’ll be making use of some of those stories.

Speaking of stories, I recall that in 1985 while a student at Appalachian State, I watched a video of an aged seminary professor who preached on the role of prayer in the great revivals of the church. I don’t doubt that several who watched that video with me during that InterVarsity large group were bored out of their minds. Who on earth is this guy?

Granted, a talking head on a t.v. screen is not that exciting nor engaging, but I was riveted. The professor was Dr. J. Edwin Orr, and you can view some of his lectures, read some of his articles, and listen to some of his talks here. Almost twenty-five years later, I still love to hear those stories. Take some time and listen to them. You’ll be  inspired and challenged and encouraged by the gracious work of our Father through humble men and women throughout the ages.