Questionnaire Reminder

Dear GEMS counselors,

If you haven't yet completed this survey, please do so as soon as possible! It will only take a couple minutes and it would be of great help to us as we begin to prepare for our 2011 Fall Workshop!

Thank you and blessings!
~Julie Ball & Tami Cleveringa

Questionnaire

Dear GEMS Counselors,


Are you still feeding that fire? Is your PASSION for loving Jesus and serving others heating up? We have been praying for you as you encourage your girls in their own heart's fires and pray also that your own heart is lit up as well! This has been a great theme, don't you think? Working through the PASSION acronym has given each of our GEMS meetings a specific focus and it all points to Feeding the Fire in our hearts for God.

As we continue to pray for you, we are also looking ahead to next year already! We will be going to our training in Michigan in April and will begin to plan our next Fall Workshop while we are there. In order to better serve our area, we would like each one of you to complete an online survey with questions about our upcoming Fall Workshop. We will use the responses as we plan times, dates, and places for our Fall Workshop. It is only a 10-question survey, so it shouldn't take you much time at all to answer and help us out. Your comments may be the most helpful to us, so please don't hesitate to make a quick comment in addition to answering the multiple choice questions.

Please also feel free to forward this link to other counselors in your club who may not have email addresses on file with the GEMS Service Center. We would love to have as many responses as possible.

Thank you so much in advance for your time and help. We desire for these training workshops to be a valuable tool for you as you lead your GEMS. Please click on the link below and fill out the survey by Feb. 28.

Fall Workshop Questionnaire

God bless,

Julie Ball & Tami Cleveringa
Area Coordinator, Leadership Trainer

Go Fishing

"Come follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him.

Matthew 4:19-20

One of my earliest Sunday School memories is singing the children’s song, “Fishers of Men.” We’d cast our imaginary poles and reel in our imaginary fish as we sang, “I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men, if you follow me.”

In his book, Fish! – The Call of The Master Fisher, Roger S. Greenway gives a convicting and compelling call to all people to go fishing – open up and talk about God!

Living in a small community where preschoolers still sing “Fishers of Men” and there are multi-layers of evangelism to children at home, church, and school, I was especially challenged by the chapter, There Aren’t Any Fish In This Pond. Greenway tells about a time that he attended a church that had very little outreach to the people in its neighborhood. He writes, “The members reasoned like this: Around here, most people already have a church, so it’s no use talking to them. The rest aren’t interested in church, so talking to them is a waste of time, too.”

When he and his wife were invited to the church’s annual picnic that took place on a farm with a large pond, he asked if there were any fish in the pond. He was told, “Just frogs and weeds.” An avid fisher of men and fish, Greenway went to his car, took out his fishing rod, and from the chuckles of the locals, knew they were probably all thinking he was a crazy missionary. After a couple of casts, the snickers stopped. Greenway landed a thirty-six-inch northern pike.

How often have you and I assumed there were no fish in the pond? How often have we assumed that friends, co-workers, and neighbors have a relationship with Jesus? How often have our clubs quit extending the invitation to come after the first few weeks of the season? Greenway said of this church family, to me, and maybe to you, “These were gracious, warmhearted Christians who meant well, but they had become so introverted that they’d lost the fisherman’s spirit of adventure and faith.”

In the Parable of the Wedding Feast the king sent the servants out “fishing.” They were to invite people to come to the wedding feast. He said, “Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find” (Matthew 22:9). And they did ­ finding both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests (Matthew 22:10b).

PASSION Step: The Master Fisher has called us to go fishing. Who will you open up and talk about God to today?

The Lord doesn’t call all of us to venture into unfamiliar places. He wants many of us to fish close to shore, which means in general North America where people have been familiar with Christianity for a long time.

Roger S. Greenway