In Jesus’ ministry He went to where the people were, met their immediate needs, built relationships with them and told them the Good News. (Mark 1:16-20) The apostle Paul said he would be all things to all people to reach some. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23) Neither Jesus nor Paul said come to me after you have cleaned yourself up and I will tell you how awful you are – or come to me no matter how I appear to you, whether with the appearance of a Pharisee or some irrelevant religious speaker. (Matthew 11:28-30) Paul even told one group their idol, titled “the unknown god” was our God and used their wrong viewpoint to show the relevance of our God. (Acts 17:22-24) Jesus did not tell His followers they had to go to the synagogue to learn about God. He met them where they were at and drew them to God by speaking about the issues facing them. (Matthew 15:1-10 and most of the 4 gospels in general)

GCIC is looking to reach people where they are. We want to speak to their current needs and show the relevance of God. The intent is not entertainment. The saying "The mind can only stand what the butt can endure" is true, but I have found "The butt can endure as long as the mind is engaged", also to be true. The intent is to be engaging, not by the expectation that "good people" will be engaged, but by giving a presentation that is attractive enough to engage the audience. More to come...

GCIC Biblical Foundations

To begin, we must start at the beginning. The story of Adam and Eve in the garden teaches us many things. A very important lesson is in the instruction to not eat the fruit of a certain tree. Did God give this instruction, but not give the power to obey or disobey? Was the instruction valid if they had no option except to disobey? Who is responsible for their sin – God, because He forced them to disobey in His uncontrollable sovereignty or Adam and Eve, because they had a real choice and opportunity to obey? God determined they were responsible and made them suffer the consequences of their choice. Therefore free will must be a reality. God in His sovereignty, controlled His sovereignty so that Man had choice. Did free will end after the fall? Again God held Cain responsible for his actions, thus indicating free will. God apparently believes in free will. (Genesis chapters 2-4)

Why does this matter? At GCIC we believe we have free will to this day and individuals must choose to respond to God’s calling to be saved. (Joshua 24:15) We recognize God’s omniscience, but do not find God’s knowledge of the past, present and future eliminates free will. Our knowledge of Abraham Lincoln being assassinated does not mean there was no other possible actions at that time – Booth could have changed his mind – our knowledge has nothing to do with what happened. Knowledge of a particular activity does not cause it, but rather measures it. God is not constrained by time as we are – He stands outside of time observing and can intervene anywhere. Just as God observes all time we observe the past. Just as God’s observation does not remove the potentialities our observation of Lincoln does not preclude there being other potentialities. This places a great burden on us to follow Jesus’ great commission to “go and make disciples of all nations”. (Matthew 28:18-20) People have free will to choose and we must present God to them as He is – relevant to their lives; living, real, loving – the best choice.

The message of the church - a religious institution!

I saw 2 different church signs - one said "Reason is the greatest enemy of faith" and the other "Faith sees God - Intellect does not". I think I understand the intent behind these signs, but what is the message being received by the unchurched. Faith is unreasonable and counter to intelligence? If faith and reason can not coexist then we should not evangelize. To evangelize is to give the reason behind faith in God.


As Christ followers we unfortunately represent God to people that do not know Him. With that in mind we have to watch what we do and say. A never smiling follower sends the message God is not happy or fun. The statements on the above mentioned signs send the message we are idiots. I believe God gave us intellect and the ability to reason and it is OK to use it.


I do not want to attack the church or give that appearance. I was doing and saying these same things and feel like my eyes have been opened. If the American church was growing and making a difference in our society and culture I would not question the methods, but we have no results. No results are not due to the invalidity of God and scripture, so I must question our methods. Have we sent the message that God, scripture and the church are irrelevant?

The good, the bad and the ugly

As we start a new church we must be prepared to accept the consequences of reaching unchurched people. I have said several times that most people with a background in church will not be comfortable at GCIC. It is not because we will try to make them uncomfortable, but we will focus on making the unchurched comfortable. This will be in the music, videos and stage ministry, but much more than those it will be an attitude of acceptance and love for people that are messed up and messing up others. Check out this blog http://www.garylamb.org/2008/02/02/allow-me-to-rant/ on this topic.

My desire is for a church that Christ followers can come to for real ministering opportunities and a place the unloved, unsaved, downtrodden can come. They will not change in the twinkling of an eye, but we are not about changing them. We are about loving them and introducing them to a God that can change them. How many of us can truly bring positive change to ourselves without HIS help?

GCIC Beginning

Since the late 90’s my wife and I have felt a call and hunger to start a new church. We did not know when, just that we would start a new church. During the summer of 2007 we felt God telling us now is the time. No details, but definitely to get going. This led us to many questions such as where, what, how and who. God began answering these questions.

Our first thought was that God would send us somewhere else – to places we had visited and people we had begun to build relationships with. But, we realized God had been putting people in our path right here in Genesee County who were interested in planting a new church. It finally became clear that God wanted us to stay where we were.

Our observation of the churches we have served in and our personal lives was that most often the Church has been ineffective in reaching the lost in our cultures. There were some ministries we worked in or observed that were growing and impacting the community, but these had leaders of a caliber and talent I do not have (I am not Bill Hybels). If that leader was not there, it would not work. God has increased our burden for the lost and our frustration with the lack of growth. We are losing America while we sit in Sunday School satisfied with learning more stuff. I have reached the point that I am serious about the fight. A quote I read once was “A revolution is an idea with the bayonets on!” I am putting my bayonet on and charging the gates of Hell. Christianity is a fight – a fight against our own natures, a fight against Satan, a fight to save a dying people. Hell is eternal death and every day people are going there. We cannot stand for this! I will not stand for this! Satan better take notice – Genesee County is not going to hell without a fight.

In Hebrews 12:1 the Apostle Paul uses the analogy of running the race marked out for us. Unfortunately, many of the ministries I have been involved in have been on a circle track - it feels like something is going on, maybe even fast, but in the big picture there is no ground being covered no matter how fast or how well you run as long as you stay on the track. We need to get off the circle track! We need to run a race worthy of Him who has commissioned us to “Go and make disciples”!