Dear Inquiring Reader,

Now that the year 2008 has passed, I thought I might write a short overview of the past year at GCBC.

The church is made up of a cross section of blue-collar workers, fathers, mothers, teenagers, and white-collar professionals. The church has a cross section of ages from 4 months to the elderly. Everyone at GCBC is admittedly experiencing the trials of life and grateful for the grace of God. We happily look forward to meeting together each week for corporate worship on the Lord’s Day.

The preaching from the pulpit and the teaching at Sunday School each week remains Christ centered for the purpose of glorifying God and increasing the church in the knowledge and the grace of God. Pastor Young has spent a good number of months challenging the church through the preaching about the life and teachings of Jesus. It has been good (not for the flesh but for the soul)

By His grace there were two baptisms this past year. A mother and her teenage son acknowledged faith in the sacrifice of Christ for the forgiveness of sins and were baptized in the baptismal inside the fellowship building

Every Lord’s day, after our worship service, we have a fellowship potluck luncheon usually starting about 12:30-1:00. This has been a wonderful time of fellowship wherein the church has opportunity to spend time together. Often times over lunch, there will be matters of doctrine discussed and/or questions regarding the sermon that we all just heard. It has been a time of growing in the knowledge and grace of God and a wonderful time of getting to know and love one another. The adults have time for meaningful conversations and the children have opportunity to play in the churchyard..

We conduct our Sunday school in the afternoon following lunch. We all, including our children, sit around the tables with bibles open and take turns reading the text we are about to study.

This past year, after working through a several week study of the Baptist Catechism. I taught and led discussions on a verse-by-verse study of the book of Joshua. It was very good for all of us to see Joshua close up. In Joshua we saw a man of faith who was obedient to his call who led a very dedicated life according to the will of God, but was not immune from making mistakes and errors in judgment. That is the encouragement for me, that even Godly men as recorded in Holy Scripture have made big mistakes in judgment. See Righteous Noah getting drunk and laying naked in his tent (Gen 9:20ff), Abraham wandering down to Egypt and lying to Abimilech about his wife Sarah, (Gen 20) The deceiving Jacob Genesis chapters 27-31 Moses getting angry and twice striking the rock in disobedience to God’s command, King David, the man who had a heart after God committing adultery and murder. How about zealous Apostle Peter denying the Lord Jesus three times and Apostle Paul who was a persecutor of the church?

As we study the lives of these ordinary men that God raised up to advance His Kingdom and bring glory to His Name we are encouraged in the fact that they were merely men like us, sinful and fallible. Joshua was one of these men who were great examples for us and yet not perfect.

We, as God’s people are exhorted by the word of God to walk in a manner worthy of our calling pleasing the Lord in all that we do and to be strong and courageous in the challenges of living a Godly life in this crooked world. The encouragement is that there are times that, even in our best attempts, we will fail in our zeal to follow after the commands of our Sovereign Master but during those times of our blunders, He will not fail us. In His faithfulness He will teach us in our trials and strengthen us to persevere. In His matchless grace He is faithful to preserve and be with his chosen people through all of their vexing earthly difficulties to the end. Our duty is to trust Him. This life of faith and obedience is exemplified in the life of Joshua. He endured faithfully to the end. Even at the end of his life he was exhorting his fellow men and leaders of his nation to remain faithful in honoring God in their lives. Joshua was a spiritual man who believed the promises of God and lived by them. Oh for the grace to be as faithful as Joshua.

Joshua 1:5-11 ESV
God said, “Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

It has been a blessing to see the church growing in the grace of God, but even more impressive to me is that she is growing in the love of Christ and love toward each other. There is a genuine sense of love and “caring for each other” in the body.

There is nothing fancy or overly impressive in the church group or about the 108-year-old building in which we meet, but for me that is the beauty of it. From the physical perspective there was nothing much impressive about Jesus and His small band of followers either. As imperfect as we are, our worship service is formatted to be a straight forward worship of our Almighty God uninterrupted by man centered hand shakings and man glorifying accolades. Our prayers are that in all that we do we bring glory to our Savior and that we are more and more conformed to the image of Christ. Being impressive in the physical sense is not a part of service or our prayers.

The number of the people attending on a regular basis has slowly increased to around 40 and sometimes close to fifty. Therefore parking in this old residential neighborhood around the church building has become a concern over the past year. By the grace of God we finally were able to raze the old house across Gates Street with the view of making a parking lot for off-street parking. We (a few men and a bunch of children, you should have seen it, it was great watching those kids hauling and laying bricks) installed a brick walkway (with used bricks that were a gift form God) to make an entrance from the Gates St side so that when the rain covers up the front sidewalk, people can get in without walking through the muddy puddles that accumulate on the front sidewalk.

In the front of the building we need to install a new sidewalk and a curb. That is a costly project that will have to be attended to in the future when the Lord gives opportunity and grace . The rainwater and the dirt that accompanies it settle in a low spot right along the front of the building. The city of Bonham has suggested that if we install the curb and gutter they will correct the drainage problem if it continues. We are keeping that in prayer.

We have continued to support three outreach-sending ministries throughout the year of 2008---Heart Cry Missionary Society, and ARBCA, (Reformed Baptist Churches of America) and Chapel Library (Mt. Zion Bible Church).

We also have had the privilege of helping organize the new “Texas Area Association of Reformed Baptist Churches.” The organization meetings took place over the past two years where the group of churches met to discuss doctrinal issues and the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. After approximately eighteen months of meetings, the group of seven Churches agreed to form an association. The bylaws were drawn up and agreed upon in the fall of 2008. The purpose of this alliance of Churches is cooperation in matters concerning the teaching of doctrine, the planting of additional Christ centered churches, the sending out of missionaries, and the potential financial support of one another. We are having our first joint worship service later this month at Heritage Baptist Church in Mansfield TX.

It is sheer joy in knowing that God did not send a possible Savior Who is unable to save men from their sins. It is also very humbling to be so undeserving and yet be one that has received His grace and mercy.

In closing I would like to direct your attention to a quote by Dr. James White an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

Dr. White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization, an author of more than twenty books, a professor, and accomplished debater. He wrote, “One of the glorious truths of Scripture is that Jesus is not a hypothetical Savior, a mere wanna-be who fails with regularity. No, we proclaim a powerful Savior who perfectly does the will of the Father. His death did not make the purchase of men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation possible, it actually accomplished that which the Triune Majesty intended.” End of quote.

This is the description of the Savior that we at GCBC believe in and teach about.

We serve an Omnipotent Sovereign God Who is mighty to save.

In the year ahead of us, our desire is that the Lord would give us grace to continue to grow in the love of Christ, faithfully preach/teach correct biblical doctrine and that the church would continue to grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus and by His grace be more equipped to glorify Him in our lives, our culture, and do our part in making Him known through out the nations.

Humbly submitted,
Dale P. Sterzer
GCBC elder/pastor