10 Things to Thank God For from Q1 2023
At our QCM on 2 April 2023, Elder Caleb walked us through 10 things that we can be thankful for in the first quarter of 2023. We list them out here and we hope that it will be an encouragement to you!
Following our last QCM on 16 Jan 2023, we hope to pause and review what Psalm 111:1-2 calls “the works of the Lord” in our midst this quarter to give thanks together. We’re not celebrating human achievements, but as we look back, let’s see what God has been doing, and give Him thanks. We will review it in ten words. Here they are:
We thank God for the team of elders who teach and preach God’s word each week. They plan, study, write, preach, collapse and then do it again next week. We have been fed from 1 Corinthians 12-14 on church life and from Exodus, remembering the story of redemption. Recently, we also re-elected Elders Jon and Nehemiah with a strong affirmation to serve for another 3 years, so we’re back to a strength of 11 shepherds.
Elder Chong Tien has been reminding us to seek the Lord and pray for all we do. We pray in our services for gospel advance in Singapore through other churches, to the nations and for our own needs. In February, we also held a prayer walk around MacPherson to pray for the salvation of our neighbors. We’ve seen better attendance at our prayer meeting every last Sunday of the month. If you want to grow in faith, plan on being there to be encouraged. Making time for a solid, well-spent hour at prayer meeting is a no-regrets move.
We’ve had good opportunities to learn at EQUIP this quarter on how to study Scripture and on missions. We also learnt from hymn writer Matt Merker on congregational singing this quarter.
There are many servants among us who have been ministering this quarter. We don’t have time to thank the individuals who give time and effort and come early and stay late to teach children, prepare coffee, set up sound equipment and enable live-streaming, run nursery, presenting music, leading in singing. Our Lord knows your ministry that comes with stories of faith, sacrifice and struggle. As they love us in practical ways, let us thank them all for their service to us at GBC.
We made up that word since "new members" is two words but let’s praise God for every single one of the new members we welcomed this past quarter. Each person is a testament to God drawing, convicting, wooing, adopting, grafting and growing a child of God.
As Baptists, we do not think of our children as automatic members. But we celebrate how every baby is a gift of life. We have had babies born out of difficult pregnancies, challenging circumstances in this quarter. As we promised at the family dedication in January, let’s keep praying for the salvation of our young ones.
This quarter has been extraordinarily busy for missions. The slide in front reflects some of our missions efforts this quarter to Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and the UAE. We’ll hear more from the Philippines team later but we praise God for the Pua team and their VBS at Kathy’s home. We’ll also hear more about the partnership with first Baptist bandung in time, but we have the opportunity to partner to reach unreached peoples. Pastor Eugene also had the opportunity to preach in UAE and participate in a conference with Ollie. These are all ways the Lord is using us to serve the nations.
We thank God for friends in ministry. These partnerships exist because we are growing like-minded friendships around the world. Praise God for all these men and women whom we’ve befriended this quarter:
Irwan, Isriyanto, Steven and Ardi, the elders of First Baptist Bandung
John Folmar in Evangelical Christian Church Dubai in Dubai
Josh Manley in RAK Evangelical Church in the UAE
Bob, Marc, and Joel in the Philippines
Mak and Nerola in Pua
And because we are friends every one of them is praying also for GBC in Singapore.
We can point out the growth of new CGs or the faithful work of our existing CGs in ministry. On top of that, we also have untold examples of Christian love and care in the congregation. We have members reaching out to absent members because they believed we need to hear the word of God and worship, quietly making house visits. Others deliver food to the sick, babysit, buy meals or make hospital visits. We know of an older member who is going out of their way to serve another member with mental health struggles by providing rides as an act of love. On any given week we have hundreds of actions expressing John 13:33-34 “by this shall all men know you are my disciples if you love one another”. How many acts of care have you received from God’s people this week?
We thank God for tomorrow. We have much to look forward to this second quarter, such as the durians at church camp. Currently, about 200 plus members have signed up and lots of people are excited. If the Lord wills, we will even more thanksgiving points from the camp next QCM. If you are still undecided, hesitate no longer and sign up!
This quarter, we thank for God for these 10 items: shepherds, prayerfulness, learning, servants, newjoiners, babies, missions, friends, care and tomorrow.
These testify of what God's Spirit is doing in our midst. We thank and praise Him for all the ministry He is working in and through us. We continue to pray that we will glorify the Son, Jesus, as we labour on in His name to advance His gospel where He has placed us.