May 3rd UPDATE – Grace Valley Church

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Big news! After nearly 5 months of languishing in the deep abyss of home renovations, we have emerged and finally moved in to our new home. We couldn’t be more happy with it! As of April 16, 2016, our home address is 59 James Street, Dundas, ON L9H 2J8. We are so grateful to the many people who helped make this possible (you know who you are) and we pray that our home will be an effective base for mission in the community.

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FUTURE HOME OF GRACE VALLEY CHURCH?

We are currently in the process of applying to have 69 King Street, Dundas rezoned to allow for a place of worship. Our initial meeting with the city was encouraging, but the hard work now beings. We hope to canvas the neighbourhood to introduce ourselves while the requisite studies are done to complete our application. Please pray that God would enable us to use this space to worship together and bless the community of Dundas.

Prayer Update

Hi again from your friends at Grace Valley Church. It’s been a long time since our last update, so it’s time once again to fill you in on developments in Dundas. Since we’ve moved, our family has been able to get to know our neighbours and share with them some of the vision of Grace Valley Church. We are thankful for the positive reaction so far and look forward to seeing how God will work through these relationships in the future.

Our small groups continue to meet on Thursdays and Sundays, building community and casting vision for Grace Valley Church. We remain a group of about 50 people, which is a nice size for a launch team. Of course, we’d love to see our numbers continue to grow, so if you know of anyone interested in helping start a gospel-centred church in the Valley Town, please let us know! One exciting development is that we have already hadtwo births in our fledgling group, with one more little one on the way. What a blessing!

Over the next months we intend to explore ways to serve Dundas as a church while inviting our non-Christian friends and family to some low-pressure social events. These events are a great way to introduce non-Christians to the church community without making them feel uncomfortable. At Grace Valley Church we hope to evangelize through developing relationships. This is a slow process, but we believe — to adapt a quote from Teddy Roosevelt — that many non-Christians “won’t care what you believe until they believe that you care.” Pray that God would open up opportunities for Grace Valley to show Dundas that we care.

Having begun the work of planting GVC, I (Paul) am committed to implanting a missional-evangelistic DNA into the church right from the start. We do not want to simply receive membership transfers from other churches. We want to see people encounter Jesus in a saving way. To that end, this spring, I entered a residency program with Al Dayhoff of Evangelize Today. Over the next year, I will spend 5-10 hour/week forging relationships with non-Christians, interviewing 50 or more non-Christians on religious topics, and conducting 7 “self-discovery” projects designed to help me understand myself better — what makes me tick, why I am the way I am, what sinful tendencies I need to address, and what gifts God has given me that I should develop. See evangelizetoday.info for more information.

I am very excited about this opportunity. It will stretch me in ways I’ve never experienced, but I believe it will make me a far more effective church-planter and pastor. The cost of this residency is approximately $8,000. It is not part of the Grace Valley Church budget, so I will need to raise this tuition amount outside of budget fundraising. I really do believe that this is an important step in achieving the goal of planting a truly gospel-driven church in Dundas. How can I teach our membes to share the gospel effectively if I don’t do it myself? I need to lead by example.

If you would like to make a special one-time donation to this project, please contact me. You will be able to receive a tax donation receipt for your contribution.

Please note that my email address has changed:[email protected]Or call me on my cell: 905.517.0936

Finally, we are appealing to our prayer partners and friends to consider helping us achieve our fundraising goal for Grace Valley Church. Many people have shown us tremendous generosity thus far and we are very grateful. We still need $100,000 to reach our target. Please prayerfully consider how you could contribute to this goal. And of course, contact Paul about how to make your contribution.

ITEMS FOR PRAYER

Pray that our family transitions well from living in the “country” to living in town
Pray that Paul’s residency with Evangelize Today proves fruitful
Pray that the neighbours of 69 King Street will receive our presence positively
Pray that our rezoning application is successful
Pray that our launch team would grow in evangelistic zeal
Pray GVC will grow in number and spiritual maturity
Pray that we will remain true to the gospel in an increasingly inhospitable culture
Pray that we will reach our financial goal of raising $100,000 soon

PLEASE NOTE:

Please take note again of my change of email address and make sure that emails received from me will not be moved to junk box. Gmail may treat this email as a phishing scam or spam.

Here’s a few pictures from our launch team’s last potluck get-together at Mike and Angela’s. It was a great time of fellowship with everyone, and a perfect opportunity to introduce some other friends to Grace Valley Church. We even had a hay-ride!

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