Great Commission Update - Mar 2025

For almost a year, the GCA Mission Advance Team has been prayerfully considering and rigorously discussing where we believe God is leading GCA over the next ten years. In humility, we acknowledge that though we make plans, the Lord is the one who establishes our steps. (Proverbs 16:9) We also acknowledge that unless the Lord builds His house, we labor in vain (Psalm 127:1) and that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5.) Yet, we also know that it is our responsibility to consider how to stir up one another to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24) and that we are expected by our Savior to glorify Him by bearing much fruit and thereby proving to be His disciples! (John 15:8) We want GCA to continue to be as faithful and even more fruitful over the next ten years than we ever have been!

To this end, we spent a lot of time in prayer, discussion and reflection about WHO WE ARE as an association; WHAT the NEEDS are of both our member churches and the communities we serve; and HOW we can ADDRESS those needs strategically and wisely. God was faithful to our team and we’ve felt a deep unity of mission as we began to formulate more concrete answers to these questions. Today, we want to share with all of you a portion of what God has laid on our hearts.

As we thought deeply about who we are as an association, we realized we’re far more than just an organization – we’re a family of churches. What connects and unites us together, far more than a shared history or even a tie to a national denomination, is our shared mission of advancing God’s Kingdom together in our assigned harvest fields. We’re not just seeking the flourishing of one or a few churches, we’re working together for every church to experience spiritual renewal and to flourish as God intended. We want to be strategic and joyful as we go about this spiritual work with passion and faith.

As we thought about how best to articulate this, our team settled on the following mission statement that we hope and pray encapsulates the heartbeat of every GCA church: We are a family of churches who cultivate and catalyze one another for spiritual renewal and joyful flourishing as we advance God’s Kingdom together.  Our team has begun the process of evaluating every task, strategy and resource against this statement. We want to focus on and prioritize the ministries that help us fulfill this mission. You will see this statement on most of our GCA publications and media pieces as we go forward because we want to persistently remind each other of our shared mission as we labor together. We want to become even better in connecting our churches together on this mission and communicating about all the great work that God is doing in and through our member congregations.

In keeping with this mission and identity statement, we also began to set out tangible goals and objectives for the next ten years. We want to aim well towards fulfilling our shared mission and we also want to develop specific tools to help our congregations fulfill those goals. We’re calling this whole initiative: ADVANCE 2035. In this newsletter and in subsequent communications, we’ll be sharing more details but for now, you can be confident that we’re working on setting wise goals in church planting, church replanting, baptisms, leadership development and the development of additional financial resources to be stewarded for kingdom advancement.

Over the next few months, we’re having several vision feedback meetings with ethnically diverse groups of pastors and key leaders from a wide variety of church types and locations across our fellowship, to ask them to help us to refine these goals and clarify our vision. By our annual meeting in October, 2025 we want to bring to our family of churches a clear set of agreed-upon, tangible goals and tools that we will work on together as a family of churches for the next ten years! We covet your prayers and input into this process!

The Apostle Paul wrote the following challenge to the Corinthian church: According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. (1 Corinthians 3:10-13 CSB)

Our foundation is Jesus and His Kingdom. We’re all temporary stewards of our association, building on the solid foundations of leaders and churches that came before us. We want to build wisely, lovingly and faithfully on those foundations to encourage our churches in becoming even more effective and fruitful as together we advance God’s Kingdom! We’re truly grateful for each of you and your congregations who partner with us in this shared mission!

Grace and Peace,

Christopher Cole

Associate Director of Missions

Before His death, Jesus tried to prepare His disciples for the reality ahead. This was just after Peter declared that Jesus was the Son of the Living God in Mt. 16:16.

Mt. 16:21 “From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

Try to imagine the surreal information that the disciples are trying to grasp in Jesus’ statement.  We read it casually, they heard it catastrophically!  Jesus wasn’t alone in this journey into Jerusalem; they would be also tagging along.  They would likely become collateral damage if these events unfolded as Jesus described. 

It is such a shock that Peter takes Jesus aside and reprimands him for his negativity.  I can imagine the disciples breaking out in song from the musical Annie, “The sun’ll come out – tomorrow!” in order to reassure Jesus and themselves.

We, too, reprimand God when He won’t agree to our “only good times allowed” theology.  Let us consider Mt. 16:21 as a reality check for our journey in this life with Jesus.  Here is a three-day outline to consider for our lives.

Day 1 – He must suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and teachers of the law.  His humiliation is an example and a warning to his children.  We too shall suffer many things, and sometimes from the hands of those who know better.  1 Pt. 4:16

He must be killed – He died a vicious and violent death. It wouldn’t be pretty on the cross.  Our faith is costly and bloody. This was all done because He loved us so.

Day 2 – The only thing for the disciples to do is wait.  The disciples are not waiting in faith; they wait in fear.  Barricaded in locked rooms, with no plans to keep an eye on the tomb, they have lost and now they await their fate.  In our suffering, our greatest act can be to wait in faith for God’s purpose to be revealed (Ps. 27:14). The state between tragedy and triumph, the Day 2 state, is a wrestling match between faith and fear, but God’s love shall hold us fast.

Day 3 – Raised to Life on the Third day. We have hope and a purpose because the tragedy would not deny Jesus the triumph.  His honest conversation with His disciples in Mt. 16:21 shows us that He is never afraid to tell us the truth. He said in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” All who believe in Him shall triumph on the last day, over the suffering, through the waiting, free from sin and on to Glory.  He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!!

In His Grace,

Dr. Mike Stewart

Executive Director of Missions