February Connect by Bethel Sarnia

CONNECT BETHEL CHURCH

WELCOME TO BETHEL Welcome to Bethel! We are so glad to have you here! As you look through this Connect Bulletin, we trust that you will quickly find that Bethel has something for you and your family. Our hope is that you will take the next step into our community and get involved. As you do, you will begin to see that Bethel is more than just a Sunday service, it is a family of everyday people following Christ to bring hope and change to the world one life at a time.

WWW.BETHELSARNIA.COM

FEBRUARY 2018

THIS MONTH

BETHEL NEWS

SPECIAL ANNOUNEMENT Pastor Tim Gibb and the Elder Board of Directors, in conversations with Pastor Tricia Gibb, have made the decision to transition Pastor Tricia into an Assistant Pastor role at Bethel. Tricia will serve as our Connections Pastor with a focus on assistance in preaching, event planning and community outreach, volunteer coordinator, and guest follow-up. With this change, we are now searching for a full-time youth pastor and part-time children’s pastor. Tricia will continue to give leadership to the youth and children’s ministry until these positions are filled. Please join us in prayer as we desire God’s direction in these important new pastoral position choices.

THIS FEBRUARY

IT’S ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS In the month of January, our focus as a church family was on seeking God in prayer. Our relationship with God must always be our first priority. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37,38: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.” We set ourselves to seek the Lord, believing that as we gave God the first days of a new year, He will bless the rest of this year. We looked to set a tone for the rest of the year in continuing to seek God in prayer. In February, our focus will shift towards loving people. Jesus continued in Matthew 22:39 by saying: “And the second command is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Jesus then said that “on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (verse 40).

“In other words, the totality of our Christian faith simply rests on these two instructions: Loving God and loving people. “ How do you love God? Is it by singing worship songs like we do on a Sunday morning service? Singing in worship is very important because the Bible says singing brings the Presence of God (Psalm 22:3). But loving God is all about loving people. We love God by loving people.

The Apostle John in his 1st letter clearly teaches us this. Read what he wrote: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we must also love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us….We love Him because He first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar. For whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? We have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” Life is really all about relationships. Loving God and loving people. At the end of the day, this is what really matters. We can fill our lives with so many things, too often to the neglect of the things that matter most. This month of February, I want us to refocus on the relationships in our lives that matter most. On Sunday mornings, I will be teaching from God’s Word about building awesome relationships: in friendships, in marriage, in the family, in our community and in our church family. Sunday evenings, we will be focusing on loving people in our community who are not yet a part

of God’s family. We will be going through a 6 week video teaching by Evangelist Greg Laurie, who will teach us how to share our faith. In addition to Sundays, we are offering a 4-week teaching and relationship building sessions on the topic of mentoring. For the women, this mentoring class will be taught by my mother, Margaret Gibb on Tuesday nights. For the men, I will be teaching, as well on mentoring, on Thursday nights. These mid-week teaching sessions will be informative and practical on building mentoring relationships. These classes are an excellent way to get to know people in our church family. I invite you to be a participant in this month’s focus and to be intentional in continuing to develop awesome relationships with those around you and in forming new friendships with people inside and outside of our church community.

Pastor Tim Gibb

A CALL TO

By Caleb Courtney

PERSONAL PRAYER A few years ago, I sat with a beloved man from our church in his home. Hank was an electrician by trade, now 90 years old, and he had donated much of his time to help build the church some thirty-five years previous. As we shared in conversation, he recalled many adventures of his youth, and we laughed over some of the hairbrained things he had attempted over the course of his life (such as climbing up the 240-foot tower of a local petrochemical refinery after hours to see how far his ham radio would transmit and receive). Hank had been married to his loving wife Ada for over 65 years, and had lived a fun and rewarding life. Being of a younger generation, only in my early 30s, I was curious, and eager to learn from him. I asked him, “Hank, looking back over your life, is there anything you would change?” Hank stopped laughing, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I would have spent more time in prayer.” I was stunned. I’m not sure what I had expected Hank to say, but it certainly wasn’t that. I pressed further, “What do you mean?” Hank replied that of all the things he had done in life, he would take none of it with him past this life. “Not so with prayer,” he said. “In prayer we cultivate our eternal relationship with God. This is the only thing we can take with us into eternity.” His words have stuck with me ever since. Luke, the gospel writer who writes a “carefully investigated” account of Jesus’ life and message (Luke 1:3), describes that “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16). Personal prayer was a prominent part of Jesus’ life. In the gospel’s sequel, the book of Acts, Luke records that as the believers waited to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, “they all joined together constantly in prayer” (Acts 1:14). This became the pattern of the apostles and the early church, as “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of

bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). The record of Luke-Acts is abundantly clear that prayer leads to amazing, supernatural events. This is still the case today! At the turn of the twentieth century, worldrenowned evangelist R. A. Torrey wrote, “the Holy Spirit is as ready to work today as in apostolic days, when ministers and Christians really believe in Him and begin to prepare the way by prayer.”1 A more recent classical Pentecostal textbook on prayer goes as far to say that “it is quite inconceivable that a believer could be identified as Spirit-filled, Pentecostal or charismatic, without a lifestyle in which effective prayer plays a significant role.”2 As Spirit-filled Pentecostal believers living in the last days, the call for us is, as it has always been, to pray. The discipline of prayer is not motivated by guilt, but rather motivated by a love for God and a love for others. In an age of overstimulation, there are at least three practical ways to combat the distractions of life and bring focus to the discipline of prayer: making a list of petitionary prayers, praying in the Spirit, and cultivating a constant attitude of prayer. My wife is a pragmatist, and makes lists for everything from grocery shopping, to reminding herself to not put her sweater in the dryer. Initially, I mocked her mercilessly about this; more recently, I have discovered for myself that lists are very effective in bringing focus to the most important things at hand, and are helpful in accomplishing goals. A list of petitionary prayers is also an effective way to bring focus to prayer. I am reminded of the encouragement in Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Praying in the Spirit is another way to bring focus to the discipline of

prayer. As we carry out the mission of Jesus until he returns, we must build ourselves up in our most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit (Jude 2021). The Holy Spirit infuses our prayer with passion and anticipation. As we ask Him, the Spirit prays through us, both in tongues and in supernaturallyinspired words, as the apostle Paul acknowledges when he says, “I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding” (1 Corinthians 14:14-15). According to Paul, this type of prayer can also take the form of singing! Finally, and most importantly, we must nurture a constant attitude of prayer. In Romans, we are exhorted to “be faithful in prayer” (Romans 12:12). Similarly, in Thessalonians, we are told to “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18). I believe that this type of continual prayer is “not so much the articulation of words as the posture of the heart.”3 We can navigate through whatever circumstances come our way each and every day, with a prayerful attitude and

a Spirit-attuned response. Prayer is the example of Spirit-filled believers in the New Testament, and was an essential part of Jesus’ life and ministry. As Spirit-filled believers today, we have the privilege of constant communion with God, and of cultivating our eternal relationship with Him in prayer. Whether praying from a list, praying in the Spirit, or conducting our daily life with a constant attitude of prayer, let us renew our commitment to the discipline of prayer again today.

Notes 1 R. A. Torrey, “The Place of Prayer in a Revival,” in How to Promote and Conduct a Successful Revival, ed. R. A. Torrey (Toronto, ON: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1901), 27. 2 Robert L. Brandt and Zenas J. Bicket, The Spirit Helps Us Pray: A Biblical Theology of Prayer (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1993), 388. 3 R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 211), 97. This article originally appeared in the Winter 2018 issue of SAGE, a magazine published quarterly by Mission Canada of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.

Caleb Courtney is a public secondary school teacher, and a licensed minister with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. He and his wife Stephanie have four young children, and together oversee the worship and music ministry at Bethel Pentecostal Church in Sarnia, Ontario. Caleb recently completed a Master of Theological Studies degree in Pentecostal Studies.

Sun SUN

FEBRUARY 2018

Mon MON

TUE Tue

Wed WED

Thu THUR

FriFRI

SatSAT

7:00PM REVO

10:30AM Service Pastor Tim Gibb Building Awesome Relationships

9:30AM Prayer GroupPrayer Room

6:30PM Young Adults (18-25) at the home of Dave & Gwen Bette

7:00PM REVO 6:00PM Rescue 6:30PM Prayer

7:00PM Men’s Study on “Mentoring”

6:30PM Bible Study & Hymn Sing-Prayer Room

FAMILY DAY OFFICE CLOSED

Family Skate 4-5pm Clearwater Arena Blue Rink

6:30PM Service Video 3: Tell Someone

6:30PM Young Adults (18-25) at the home of Dave & Gwen Bette

6:30PM Service Video 4: Tell Someone

7:00PM Women’s Study on “Mentoring”

9:30AM Prayer GroupPrayer Room

6:30PM Service Video 2: Tell Someone

10:30AM Service Pastor Tim Gibb Building Awesome Relationships

6:30PM Grief ShareBoardroom

6:30PM Young Adults (18-25) at the home of Dave & Gwen Bette

10:30AM Service Pastor Tim Gibb Building Awesome Relationships

6:30PM Bible Study & Hymn Sing-Prayer Room

6:30PM Service Video 1: Tell Someone Communion

10:30AM Service Pastor Tim Gibb Building Awesome Relationships

6:30PM Grief ShareBoardroom 7:00PM Women’s Study on “Mentoring”

9:30AM Prayer GroupPrayer Room

7:00PM REVO 6:00PM Rescue 6:30PM Prayer

7:00PM Men’s Study on “Mentoring”

7:00PM Women’s Study on “Mentoring”

9:30AM Prayer GroupPrayer Room

12:00PM Keenagers Pizza and Movie

6:30PM Bible Study & Hymn Sing-Prayer Room 6:30PM Grief ShareBoardroom

Fire In February Conference at Port Huron Assembly of God

6:00PM Rescue

7:00PM REVO

6:30PM Prayer

7:00PM Men’s Study on “Mentoring”

March 1

Sarnia Sting Faith Day 4:30PM Pre-game Rally 7PM Game Neighbourlink Coldest Night Fundraiser

6:30PM Bible Study & Hymn Sing-Prayer Room 6:30PM Young Adults (18-25) at the home of Dave & Gwen Bette

OUR PASTORS PASTORS TIM & KIM GIBB

Lead Pastor pastortim@bethelsarnia.com

PASTOR TRICIA GIBB Student Ministries Pastor tricia@bethelsarnia.com

6:30PM Grief ShareBoardroom 7:00PM Women’s Study on “Mentoring”

Pastoral Care pastorkeith@bethelsarnia.com

6:30PM Prayer

7:00PM REVO 7:00PM Men’s Study on “Mentoring”

WATCH A SERVICE LIVE ONLINE Can’t make it to church on Sunday morning? You can watch the service LIVE online at http://www.bethelsarnia.com/live or through the Bethel App.

DOWNLOAD THE BETHEL APP Apple Android

PASTORS KEITH & PATRICIA PATRICK

6:00PM Rescue

Windows

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