Thanks Gateway!

• On Monday our team delivered over 320 book bags to George I Pair Elementary School in West Columbia. The administration, teachers and students were more than grateful that their students will start the school year off right. Thanks to David Gold for leading this effort. Thank you for your generosity!
• Book bags and supplies were also delivered to several students at nearby elementary schools.
• Our Concert of Hope for the Homeless raised over $4400 on Saturday for the Oliver Gospel Mission. Thanks Shelly Sims for your leadership and vision! Thanks to all the volunteers of GBC!!
• God is using Nancy Counts and her team by making a difference in the lives of young students at Lake Murray Elementary and Ballentine Elementary with the Good News Club. Pray for them!

Thanks to all of you who serve as volunteers at Gateway!

Who Was So Depressed He Asked God to Take His Life?

God spoke to me recently using a devotion by Rick Warren. With Rick's permission, I am sharing his devotion with you. God bless...


“I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for”. (Jeremiah 29:11 MSG)

Here’s a Bible trivia quiz: Can you name any of three men who became so depressed that each of them asked God to take his life? Answer: Moses, Elijah, and Jonah. Each of them got depressed, but for different reasons; depression is always a symptom of a deeper problem. Like a warning light on your car, depression is meant to get your attention; it shouts something is wrong! The real problem is not how you feel, but the cause of those feelings.

Here are three of the most common causes of depression:

1. Fatigue - Moses’ problem
When you try to maintain a hectic pace week after week in spite of physical and emotional exhaustion, you set yourself up for depression. Or, if you try to play God, attempting to control everything and everyone around you, depression will eventually catch up with you. In Moses’ case, the solution was to learn to delegate (Numbers 11:10–17).

2. Fear - Elijah’s problem
Whenever you swallow your anxieties, your body keeps score. Instead of focusing on your depression, ask, “What is it that I’m afraid of? What’s got me worried?” Resolve the worry and your blues will vanish, if that’s the cause. In Elijah’s situation, the antidote was to trust God to handle things out of his control (1 Kings 19:1–18).

3. Frustration - Jonah’s problem
When you don’t see a purpose behind the events of your life, when it all seems so arbitrary or hopeless or unfair, then depression strikes. Life without meaning and significance is depressing. That’s why God’s solution to Jonah’s depression was to help him see the bigger picture. Perspective is a powerful cure. When Jonah finally understood God’s purpose for his life, his depression faded.

Does life sometimes seem like an endless rat race to you? Ask God to open your eyes and help you see his purpose for your life.

God, who made you, has this to say about you:

“I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for” (Jeremiah 29:11 TEV).

Communicating Jesus’ love in a practical way

JESUS: And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me." Matthew 25:45 (NLT)

Jesus had a heart for the poor and he had a special place in his heart for children. We have an opportunity to share the heart of Jesus with a group of children.

Back to School Supply Drive: August 9 - 23

Gateway has taken the challenge to adopt a local elementary school in West Columbia and to provide school supplies for the children. We want to encourage these students by helping them to start the school year off right. There are 320 students in the school whose families do not have the resources to purchase school supplies for many of them it is a decision between buying food or school supplies.

George I Pair Elementary School is designated as an at-risk school due to the number of children who live at or below the poverty level. Ninety-two percent of children at this school are on free or reduced lunch. This means that 92 percent of the children in this school are from a family where buying school supplies is nearly impossible. Many of the children live in single-parent homes.

This is where you come in. This Sunday you can adopt a child by stopping by the Back to School Supply Drive table located at the worship center entrance. Pick up one school supply card for each child you wish to sponsor. Purchase a back-pack and fill it with the supplies. The average cost is $20 to complete the need for one child. Return the completed back-pack to Gateway on or before August 23rd. We will deliver the supplies on Monday the 24th.

Mary found a deal at Walgreen – $10 for 2 back-packs. So we are adopting 2 children for only $30!

This past Sunday 140 children were adopted for school supplies. We have 180 more children who need to be adopted.

We have a great opportunity to communicate to the children and their families in a very small but practical way that Jesus loves them and that we want them to have a great school year. If we go over our goal, we have a second school who has requested assistance.

Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do. Galatians 2:10 (NLT)

Blessing Others

NEWS FLASH – Our old campus is officially leased with an option to purchase by NewSpring Church of Anderson, SC. Pray that God will bless them as they reach people for Jesus!

All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. Acts 4:32

While in the process of turning our former facilities over to NewSpring, we have had the privilege of blessing other ministries. Today I met a church planter from Charleston at the old GBC campus. It was so cool to be able to give him two trailers loaded with chairs for his new church. It will save the church plant more than $10,000. That’s a lot of money that can be used in other areas of ministry.

It’s been like that since we relocated to our new location.

• Last week a pastor from Rock Hill got a load of stage lights.
• A local church was given all of our choir robes. (You probably didn’t even know that we had choir robes!)
• Several churches received musical scores for their choirs.
• CIU received carpet and chairs for their studio where Dan DeLozier teaches students in his communication program.
• Our staging from the old worship center is being used by numerous church plants all over Columbia.
• The first church planted by Gateway, North Point Church, received our old portable baptistery.
• Church plants have benefited from sound system components.
• When the government changed the frequencies that wireless microphones can use which required us to purchase new receivers, we sent our old system to churches overseas through Crossover Communications International.
• Office equipment, chairs and nursery equipment was given to a church plant in North Myrtle Beach.
• A local church received office furniture.
• Refrigerators and other pieces of kitchen equipment went to a local community ministry.
• Nursery equipment is being used by another local church.
• Christmas decorations went to yet another local church.
• A refrigerator, chairs, cabinets are being used in the Live School office.
• Even a local Boy Scout Troop received carpet and chairs.

I appreciate the Spirit of God in Gateway that allows us to share with others. In reality, it’s not even ours! It belongs to the Lord. We simply are passing the blessing along to others.