GPBC Blog

By Jessica Heimbegner --

It has been a blast to add on being the Interim Youth Director at Greater Portland Bible Church. We started gathering in person at the start of July and have created the rhythm of a mid-week bright spot during one of the most challenging times I have ever known youth to face. Our focus this summer has been on hope, joy and peace during this pandemic. Our theme verse is...

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

How does the bible define hope, joy and peace? We have looked at people in the bible who were in the midst of suffering and simultaneously filled with hope, joy and peace anchored in a deep faith that God keeps his promises.

Everyone any age can get on board with wanting hope in 2020. The biblical definition of hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness. In similar words, Hebrews 10:23 says this about hope, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.”  We release God's hope when we are full-of-faith encouragers in our circumstances, to others and even to our own self. 

God exemplified encouragement when a beside himself Elijah turned to God while hiding, hungry and scared. God loves when we turn to him for rest, step into purpose and trust in Jesus. We actually have read through a lot of familiar stories for a look at hope, from David’s encounter with Goliath as well as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego’s experiences with the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzer. All of these young believers possessed a good understanding of God’s word with a firm faith that boldly produced hope for themselves and others in hard circumstances. 

When it comes to joy, the bible points to joy that is available to us during pain and suffering that is internal. We were all made by our loving God who fully knew we would be on earth at this time of the world. It’s always a good time to discover, develop and deploy our God given gifts.

Nehemiah led by God, negotiated, assessed, planned and directed an incredible accomplishment of rebuilding the walls of protection around Jerusalem. Walls that lay crumbled awaited a Nehemiah to lead an extreme makeover. His assessment upon completion? “The joy of the Lord is our strength.”- Nehemiah 8:10. Unleash the Lord’s joy by doing what He made you to do. Jesus modeled it during his time on earth in the midst of tumultuous circumstances—he did so much inspiring, performing miracles, loving well, teaching the tough stuff and giving his life to conquer death for EVERYONE.

We will be talking about peace for the rest of August encouraging ourselves that biblical peace is not temporary and promised to us by God. We will focus on our choices, holy living and prayer life. This summer the Youth who have showed up week after week have been kind to listen to me excitedly read the bible and encourage them to grow their faith.

We are also about serving, playing lots of games, laughing and sharing life. Youth have had opportunities to serve this summer by taking the Fun Wagon over to the Habitat for Humanity housing and helping at the Children’s ministry Bingo Night. We have been dodging balls, slip’n’sliding, nerf battling, playing capture the flag, enjoying tag variations with pool noodles and making a lot up as we go. 

I am joined by an incredible leadership team of awesome adults that show up voluntarily that are a blessing to me and our youth. I get teary eyed over how much our group all need this summer’s youth ministry, all of it.

Thank you Lord for your hope, your joy and your peace in this time!