The Church

What is the church like?
Click for official website (polish)

God’s Glory Church has been in existence for around 20 years now. It associates with the ‘Kościół Zielonoświatkowy’ (Evangelical Pentecostal Church) which is the largest single grouping of protestant churches in Poland, with each church group being autonomous, independent and free to govern itself and own its own property, and open to working with other church groups.

It is a founding member of the 'Evangelical Alliance' in Poland.

Around 5 years ago, Jack Orlowski, an English teacher, became the main Polish pastor of the Church following a powerful and supernatural call of God. He took the bold step of giving up all he and his family had, left his city, job, friends and ministry and moved to  Nowy Sacz, by faith. His obedience to the call, as well as his personal sacrifice, brought a huge change to the spiritual dimension of the town. He started working in a local school as an English teacher and serving the church. Pastor Jack was also given a strong vision from the Lord about the church and the town. His gifted and passionate teaching and heart for people brought many to the church by the grace of God. That was also a moment of great transformation and release in the spiritual realm in our area. At that time, there were 25 believers meeting, and this has now grown to about 100, plus children, plus many visitors and ‘sympathisers’.  Many gifted people have become involved in the church since then. Some came from other parts of Europe following a similar call, believing that God is going to do great things in this town. People travel too from surrounding towns to meet with us both on a Sunday and during the week, for ‘small-groups’. Some have purposely chosen to live in Nowy Sacz, purchase property here or seek employment here, precisely because they feel called to work with GGC.

Each year we baptise new believers and focus on mission and preaching the Gospel.

Last year in GGC, saw the introduction of 8 housegroups across the city, with around 80% attendance. These have hugely blessed the church and the local community, bringing personal and spiritual growth to members, as well as reaching the local population through group based projects.

GGC is a church which firmly believes in empowering and investing in its members.  The church provides training and ministry opportunities for all with a heart to serve. With a long term vision, it is already investing in the next generation of leaders by sending them to bible college, training others in music, multimedia, preaching, leadership and other related ministries.

GGC is a stable and mature church, enjoying good relationships with the other Christian, protestant churches in the city. It is found that GGC members are spiritually sensitive and faithful, hardworking people. From the outward-focusing good works we undertake in the community, we uniquely enjoy good press, with occasional newspaper articles about GGC and its ministries (click here for 'Prasa o nas' newpaper cuttings)

GGC have a foundational three-fold vision:
1) for Prayer and Worship to be a passion, with sound, systematic bible teaching alongside,
2) for building a ‘family’ church with healthy relationships between people, strong families and confident youth
3) for blessing the community in and out of the church by serving in any way possible. 

GGC as a church has a vision for a large church having a significant influence on the town, in terms of values, and of bringing blessing to the community.

Ministries

What does the church do?

This is a church of outstanding potential, amazing talent and passionate serving hearts.
As a sign of the measure of faith and the heart to serve of GGC members, the following is a list of most of the ministries currently undertaken by GGC.

1 Uniquely in Nowy Sącz,  GGC provides a legally recognised Sunday School, as protestant Children do not attend the Catholic religious teaching provided by the local schools.  GGC have an approved programme providing the children with nationally accepted educational qualifications, which must legally be accepted by schools.
2 GGC run two weekly youth groups both of with have a sound bible-based programme aiming at investing in young people giving them training in the area of character development, practical and relational skills and strengthening their faith.
3 An Alpha course is provided as needed for new comers resulting from evangelistic meetings, or personal contact.
4 A project for the homeless provides food and clothing for a number of homeless people, especially in the cold winters. This has led to seeing some of them housed, employed and being born again.
5 GGC also provides for the needs of around 15 particularly poor families, providing them with, for example, financial assistance, Christmas hampers, transport help and education.
6 Having a large number of teachers in the church, GGC provide the community with educational services too. This range from English language teaching, mathematics and other general homework assistance.
7 A local Romany gipsy community has richly benefited from a new educational initiative of which GGC is the patron. GGC have provided chairs, tables, staffing and educational services for a temporary ‘pre-fab’ building established on public land.
8 The ‘New Hope’ mission for recovering alcoholics has been a very successful and necessary ministry in Nowy Sącz. With many of the attendees being born again and attending the church.
9 Since the early years of the church a regular Prison ministry has been very fruitful.  This provides relationship building with inmates, through letter writing and visits, as well as English lessons, and Bible Study meetings. One of the former inmates of years ago was very powerfully born again as a result and is now a proven, trusted deacon and small-group leader in the church.
10 In conjunction with the Samritan’s Purse, easy year GGC provides the ‘Christmas Surprise’ ministry, supplying up to 800 children with Christmas presents. GGC members visit schools, children’s homes and invite others to special meetings to present the packages. The presents are usually prepared  and provided by foreign donors, but Christmas 2006 saw a customs and excise delay making it uncertain they would arrive in time. GGC members took it upon themselves in faith, to provide almost 100 packages themselves, from their own limited finances. A special offering brought in around 2000zl to help cover some of the costs. Faith has risen as a result and 2007 promises to be even greater.
11 The ‘Level-12’ Youth Conference (now on its 20th meeting) convenes three times a year with usually over 100 attendees. Lead by Pastor Jack Orlowski and Trevor Hawes of GGC, together with four youth pastors, this seeks to build firm foundations of Christian Character, a life of faith, and knowledge of God’s word.  (see http://poziom12.kzns.org (in polish)) Between meetings GGC run youth leadership training events.
12 This year GGC will start a new youth initiative 'Mega-Mlodziezowa' (MegaYouth) centered in Nowy Sacz. Without their own building this will be logistically difficult, but as usual, their focus is on serving and responding to the call of God even before he provides a permant base for them.
13 With a number of excellent English-polish translators in the church, GGC provide translations of many English resources, such as Enemies of the Soul discipleship course (OCC), and many other articles on a range of subjects. This ministry is necessary as there is only a small, but growing, resource base of good Christian material in Polish.
14 GGC also has an active Website (www.kzns.pl (in polish)) aith over 400 visits a day including video, weekly sermon recordings, and helpful advice and teaching on a range of topics. Through this website the leaders receive a lot of contact with people throughout Poland to whom advice and support is given. Click here for a recent sermon in English.
15 ‘Generation-T’ and ‘Mission Poland’ are two major mission organisations in Poland who train up and send out missionaries to Poland and beyond. Pastor Jack Orlowski serves on leadership of these, and 2007 will see a sizeable team sent to Nowy Sącz.
16 GGC also works with the Gideon Bible organisation and is responsible for the storage and distribution of 8000 bibles in the area.
17 A monthly gazette is also published by the church full of interesting articles on faith, history or bible teaching, testimonies, crosswords, humour, encouragement, editorials and announcements.
18 Pastor Jacek Orłowski also runs a Marriage preparation course for people both in and ouside the church. Such a course is proving key to our desire for healthy families and strong relationships and marriages.
19 As mentioned GGC also run up to 8 house groups where they systematically study the word of God, offer discipleship, prayer, outreach projects and offer support to one another.

In addition to the above, GGC also provides the usual activities of healthy churches - evangelism, worship concerts, prayer nights, fasting, teaching conferences and family support, easter events, new year meetings, councelling, giving to the poor, leadership training, mentoring, active discipleship and church weekend retreats.

Again, this list is provided to demonstrate that the church is far from apathetic, and is faithful, active and hardworking, bringing fruit forth from what little they have. These existing ministries would be greatly enhanced by having their own premises on which to host them. There are also further ideas which members already have on their hearts to do, but cannot be undertaken until a building is secured.

Please help us continue these ministries!