Slideshow image

Message from the Senior Pastor

After three farewells in three months – Brett, Mark, and Jodene – I’m excited to begin introducing our new team members. This coming Sunday in our online and onsite services we’ll be introducing Marjy Robertson to you. She and her family have been part of GBC for a number of years now and Marjy has been involved in our children’s ministry and taught SRE as a volunteer. During COVID she also led our online community in prayer from time to time. She joined our team in late October as our Serve Team Leader. This is a one-day a week role overseeing all of our volunteers (and there are several hundred of them!).

In the weeks to come we’ll also be introducing you to Kat Lewis-O’Connor who has been appointed as our youth and youth adults coordinator. She has been a long-time volunteer youth leader and we’re super excited to have her on the team.

Greg Williams has joined our team as part of our Operations Team and you’ll meet him soon too (though some of you may know him as he was part of GBC many years ago).

There are two new team members to introduce you to. One we don’t yet know – we are still praying for a children’s coordinator – and one we do. Belinda Lakelin, who preached last year on Plan A (and many of our Life Groups have done or are doing the Plan A material) has agreed to consult with us on how we do evangelism as a community of faith. This has been enabled by the changes in staffing and will be a one-year, one day a week position to help us as we seek to reach out to our community.

Finally, I am meeting with the Pastoral Selection Committee in the next week to discuss the pastoral appointments of Matt Willis and Roxane Lawler. This would be a decision that would be made at our AGM in March so I can’t say much more than that (though many of you have guessed) but you should hear more soon.

I’d appreciate your on-going prayers for our “new” team and for the appointments that we are making (and there may be more – these are the first steps). I hope that encourages you about where we’re up to and keeps you in the loop!

See you Sunday

Marc Rader | Senior Pastor

Message from the Pastoral Team

As many of you are no doubt aware, we have been working at strengthening our capacity to care for our congregation for a few years. The two major “projects” have been the development of GBC Cares with its three areas of care (Food, Practical, and Visitation) and the increase of our elders with a focus on care. We now have nine elders who meet monthly (along with the senior pastor and the GBC Cares section leader) to discuss how we can more effectively care for our congregation. They also meet regularly for prayer and engage in follow up and care of those we are aware of.

As we continue our return to “normal” after 2020 we want to continue to strengthen our ability to care. As a first step the elders have decided to attempt to call everyone on our database who is not in a LifeGroup. You may have received an email informing you of this desire. If you didn’t it may be because your details aren’t up-to-date on GBC Links. If you have an account on GBC Links we’d love for you to update your details in the next week or so. (And in case you’re wondering, GBC Links is our online community hub. We ask people to set up an account for privacy purposes; we can’t have an “open” database. You can join through out website. If your details are correct and you don’t hear from an elder in the next month or so – and the purpose of the call is pretty simple: touch base, make sure our details are correct, let you know how to contact the elders – please contact us at elders@gymeabaptist.org.au so we can get in touch with you.

We look forward to touching base real soon!