GBC in the Community

A part of what we believe, as Christians, is that God loves everyone exactly the same, whether they acknowledge Him or not. So we are not just interested in the lives of people already in the church, we also love and care about the people who live in our community and those who live overseas. In church-speak, 'outreach' and 'mission'.

Overseas

As individuals we are not able to make much of a difference in our world. So we need to work together to change the things that need to be changed, and also to keep hold of values that are still important to us. As one church community we are also not able to change the world by ourselves, so in mission we have chosen to concentrate, mainly, on one area - slavery. It is quite shocking to realise that at least 27 million people around the world, today, are slaves, and that a lot of the products we use may have been partly made using slave labour. In the last few years organisations such as World Vision have been advocating for the chocolate industry to become slave-free. Yep, there is a lot of slavery occuring on cocoa farms in West Africa where most of the cocoa for our chocolate comes from.

Click here to learn more about Slavery and GBC's mission focus.

Local Community

• Gawler Baptist Church is part of the Gawler Interchurch Council, which administers the Christian Pastoral Support Programme in all public schools in Gawler.  The church supports both this programme both financially and with practical help,
• Gawler Baptist Church is on  a roster with other churches to bring a worship service on a Wednesday to the elderly in  Trevu House Residential Aged Care and Southern Cross Care SA Inc.
• Gawler Baptist Church is part of the combined church outreach of Gawler Awakening Network.  This mainly happens at Christmas, as part of the Gawler Christmas Street Festival, and live nativity is usually the main focus.
• Youth Group (details of which are on the church website) has attracted young people from the community.
• Ceifa Craft: as per website, meets every Wednesday morning at 10am during school terms, and is open to everyone.
• The TEAR group (Transformation, Empowerment, Advocacy and Relief) at Gawler Baptist Church has been involved with outreach both at home and overseas.
• In the lead up to each Christmas the group’s outreach is focussed on the Useful Gift Catalogue, where the church can purchase long-term development gifts e.g. toilets, for poor communities.
• The group also lobbies the government on issues such as the Millennial Development Goals so that suffering can be relieved.
• We have made Aboriginal Reconciliation a focus, and have connected with a local Aboriginal “auntie” over a number of years, through whom we have been involved in a variety of cultural exchanges.  We are looking forward to more of these.  We also have financially contributed to TEAR’s outreach work with Aboriginal communities.  
• We have been concerned about Cambodia for some time and we are following the journey of TEAR fieldworkers, Bryan and Lisa , who are living in a slum in Phnom Penh.  We have gained more insight into their situation by connecting with Bryan and Lisa on their visits home, and also via our church deacon, Cal , who has been to the slum in Phnom Penh.  We will also continue to have email contact and phone link-ups with Bryan and Lisa.