“My last resistance to the idea of God’s wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in 100 days! How did God react to that carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandfatherly fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators’ basic goodness? Wasn’t God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.” Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge.

“I am not what I ought to be,

I am not what I want to be,

I am not what I hope to be in another world;

but still, I am not what I once used to be,

and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

John Newton

(author of Amazing Grace)

De mens lijdt dikwijls het meest,

Door het lijden dat hij vreest,

Doch dat nooit op komt dagen.

Zo heeft hij meer te dragen

Dan God te dragen geeft. (Dutch)

Translation:

Man suffers often most,

Because of the suffering he fears,

But will never come about.

Thus he is burdened more,

Than God has designated for him.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Dear Sir,

. . . You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work.

Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself.

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer.

And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must”, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.

. . . Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. . . Describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember.

If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place.

And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sound – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it.

Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance.

And if out of, this turning within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it.

A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it. So, dear Sir, I can’t give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to, the question of whether you must create.

Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. . . as I have said,  if one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn’t write at all…

Yours very truly,

Rainer Maria Rilke

Paris

February 17, 1903

This is the seventh in a series of blog posts called, “My Top Ten Mistakes in Ministry (That I Can Share Publicly.)” After many years of ministry experience as a church planter, pastor and seminary professor, I think I’ve finally learned that one of the best kept secrets to surviving well in the ministry is to stop making the same old mistakes that others (like me) have been making for decades. Instead, let’s all start making some brand new, bold, innovative and creative mistakes!

We began this series with an introduction called, “Ladies First” in which veteran church planter wife, Shari Thomas, addressed the tough topic, What I Wish I Had Known About Church Planting from the perspective of the church planter’s/pastor’s spouse. We then took a look at:

Mistake #1 (these are in no intentional order), “Failing to Understand the Importance of How I Define Ministry Success.”

Mistake #2 Managing My Time and Not Managing My Life

Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Difference Between my Goals and Desires.

Mistake #4: Not Understanding the Difference Between Pursuing the Grace of God and the God of Grace.

Mistake #5: Not Understanding the Way Up is the Way Down

Mistake #6: Not Understanding the Priority of People Over Programs

Mistake #7: Not Understanding Product Living VS Process Living

I have to confess that I belong to what Pastor Mark Buchanan calls the Cult of the Next Thing. Buchanan writes, “It is dangerously easy to get enlisted. It happens by default–not by choosing the cult but by failing to resist it. It is dangerously easy to get enlisted. It happens by default–not by choosing the cult but by failing to resist it.”

For me the Cult of the Next Thing is sinful discontentment cast in religious terms.  It has its own sacred terms like: our ministry vision, our mission, our goals, our objectives. Please don’t misunderstand, these are good things, but we begin to believe that we can’t ever really be happy until we get them.

This Cult also has its own Mantras we church planter types often quote: I’ll be happy when we have a certain number of people in worship every Sunday. Or I’ll be happy when we are self-supporting financially as a church. Or I’ll be happy when we are self-governing with our own elders or deacons. I’ll be happy when I’ve been able to pass this baton (you name it) to another leader. I’ll be happy when I’m not sick anymore…when the kids are older…when the kids are gone….

And this Cult has its own shrines in other ministries that are doing better than ours.  And it has its own ecstatic experiences: those fleeting moments when you finally reach a goal you’ve been living for and looking to for so long. It feels great. But like sand through your fingers it ever so quickly slips away from you. So then you must look ahead to the next experience.

Author Isaac Rubin writes, “The joy and happiness from the process lasts much longer and can be much more satisfying over the duration of your life. But if you are totally goal-oriented in a success-oriented culture, and if the product is the only goal, you will destroy much of the possibility for true joy and happiness in life. That is because almost all of your life has to be the process and not the product. If you can’t learn to appreciate and enjoy the process of living itself, there goes your joy in life.

If you get nothing out of the doing, because you are always looking for the high that will come at the end, you’re in serious trouble. But if you learn to be nourished by the whole process, that result at the end of the road, positive or negative, is not terribly significant. You just go on to the next process. You must learn to understand and appreciate “Process Living” because the process is really what life is all about. We are in process 98 % of the time. If you are living for that final 2%, you’re in trouble. And the truth is most of us are in serious trouble.”

The story is told when Alexander the Great conquered the entire known world, he wept because there were no more worlds for him to conquer. The opiate of winning the next battle was now gone and he was left trembling in withdrawal, unable to live and love life in the present.

Elizabeth Elliot summed it up well, “ Don’t let your living for tomorrow slay your living for today.” If you’re not very careful you will always be living for tomorrow and find yourself being robbed of all of your todays. I wish someone had talked straight to me about that common and so costly mistake in life and ministry.

Steve Childers is the President & CEO of Global Church Advancement, an inter-denominational ministry that provides church planting training, consultations, and resources for church planters, pastors and missionaries throughout the world. Steve has trained Christian leaders from more than 50 countries (curriculum in five major global languages), representing over 200 denominations and mission agencies in 5 continents (& 5 languages). Steve is also an author, Professor of Practical Theology (since 1995) and the Director of the Doctoral program at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches church planting, missions, evangelism and spiritual formation. To learn more about GCA:

Browse the GCA Website: http://www.gca.cc

Join the GCA Cause: http://bit.ly/X5bZC

See the GCA Blog: http://www.gca.cc/blog/

Follow GCA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/_gca

Follow Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevechilders

Check out upcoming GCA Events: http://gca.cc/Seminar_Overview.htm

Support GCA: http://gca.cc/Support_GCA.htm

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts called, “My Top Ten Mistakes in Ministry (That I Can Share Publicly.)” After many years of ministry experience as a church planter, pastor and seminary professor, I think I’ve finally learned that one of the best kept secrets to surviving well in the ministry is to stop making the same old mistakes that others (like me) have been making for decades. Instead, let’s all start making some brand new, bold, innovative and creative mistakes!

We began this series with an introduction called, “Ladies First” in which veteran church planter wife, Shari Thomas, addressed the tough topic, What I Wish I Had Known About Church Planting from the perspective of the church planter’s/pastor’s spouse. We then took a look at:

• Mistake #1 (these are in no intentional order) called, “Failing to Understand the Importance of How I Define Ministry Success.”
• Mistake #2 called, Managing My Time and Not Managing My Life
• Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Difference Between my Goals and Desires.
• Mistake #4: Not Understanding the Difference Between Pursing the Grace of God and the God of Grace.

This time we’ll take a brief look at another common mistake church leaders make that I wish someone had told me about before I went into the ministry.

Mistake #5: Not Understanding that the Way Up is the Way Down

One of the supreme glories of the Gospel is that it is primarily through weakness that God chooses to show His strength. And it’s through foolishness that God loves to manifest His wisdom. The Apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear when he writes,

“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. (1Cor 1:26-29).

In their excellent book entitled Liberating Ministry From the Success Syndrome by Kent and Barbara Hughes (required reading for all church leaders!) they write, “To you who deem yourself unusually ordinary be encouraged: God must have liked ordinary people because he made so many of us!” I wish someone had told me years ago not to hold my weaknesses in disdain—but to know that God’s plan is to work through my foolishness and weakness so that He might manifest His wisdom and strength.

I also wish someone had explained to me more clearly that God’s kingdom is an upside down kingdom where “God is opposed to the proud but He gives grace to the humble.” and “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted “and “When pride comes, then comes dishonor, But with the humble is wisdom.”

And I wish someone had helped me understand more deeply these profound words written by Oswald Chambers:

“God can achieve his purpose either through the absence of human power and resources, or the abandonment of reliance on them. All through history God has chosen and used nobodies, because their unusual dependence on him made possible the unique display of his power and grace. He chose and used somebodies only when they renounced dependence on their natural abilities and resources.”

To those of you who consider yourself unusually gifted (you know who you are!) this means you must be very careful not to trust in your strengths illegitimately. In fact, unless you humble yourself and renounce your dependence upon them, all your labor and even your fruit is apt to be in vain. It will all be burned away (see Hughes’ book for more details).

What are some of the ways we can know we’re at risk in this area?  In C. Peter Wagner’s book, Humility, he lists 5 Signposts Along the Road to Pride:

1) Yearning for Praise and Accolades
2) Keeping Score
3) Rejoicing in others failures
4) Resenting others successes
5) Compulsively defending yourself

The paradox of grace is that the way up is the way down. One of the reasons there is often such little display of God’s presence and power in many of our lives and ministries today is because of the unknown root sin of pride and self-reliance. The Bible teaches that God’s presence and power normally dwells in a humble and contrite heart. “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My Word” (Is 66:2).

With this truth in mind, I wish someone had made clear to me early in my ministry that coming to the cross of Jesus Christ is not meant by God to be just a one time thing for us (at conversion) but an ongoing process. The Apostle Paul wrote “…just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him” (Colossians 2:6). Coming to God in humility means learning to keep coming to Him in repentance and faith through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Paul wrote,  “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). As God progressively shows us our sin of pride we must learn the secret of coming in humility again and again and again to the cross of Jesus Christ for not only pardon but also for power to change.

It is only at the cross that the streams of God’s transforming grace will begin to flow into our lives. Like water, God’s grace and power always flows down to the lowest place. As you respond to this reminder, prayerfully meditate on the words of the nineteenth century hymn writer, Horatius Bonar,

“I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Behold, I freely give the living water. Thirsty one, stoop down and drink and live”.

——————————

Steve Childers is the President & CEO of Global Church Advancement, an inter-denominational ministry that provides church planting training, consultations, and resources for church planters, pastors and missionaries throughout the world. Steve has trained Christian leaders from more than 50 countries (curriculum in five major global languages), representing over 200 denominations and mission agencies in 5 continents (& 5 languages). Steve is also an author, Professor of Practical Theology (since 1995) and the Director of the Doctoral program at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches church planting, missions, evangelism and spiritual formation. To learn more about GCA:

• Browse the GCA Website: http://www.gca.cc
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GlobalChurchAdvancement
• See the GCA Blog: http://www.gca.cc/blog/
• Follow GCA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/_gca
• Follow Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevechilders
• Check out upcoming GCA Events: http://gca.cc/Seminar_Overview.htm
• Support GCA: http://gca.cc/Support_GCA.htm

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts called, “My Top Ten Mistakes in Ministry (That I Can Share Publicly)” After many years of ministry experience as a church planter, pastor and seminary professor I think I’ve finally learned that one of the best kept secrets to surviving well in the ministry is to stop making the same old mistakes that others (like me) have been making for decades. Instead, let’s all start making some brand new, bold, innovative and creative mistakes!

We began this series with an introduction called, “Ladies First” in which veteran church planter wife, Shari Thomas, addressed the tough topic, “What I Wish I Had Known About Church Planting” from the perspective of the church planter’s/pastor’s spouse. We then took a look at

• Mistake #1 (these are in no intentional order) called, “Failing to Understand the Importance of How I Define Ministry Success.” Last time we covered
• Mistake #2 called, “Managing My Time and Not Managing My Life”. This time we’ll take a brief look at another painfully common mistake church leaders make that I wish someone had told me about before I went into the ministry. That’s
• Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Difference Between my Goals and Desires.

Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Difference Between My Goals and Desires

Dreams and Goals

In the Sermon of the Mount Jesus said, “Do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matt 6:24

This is one of many famous quotations from Jesus that we’ve heard so often we think we really understand it. But the hard truth is that we’ve often either forgotten it or never really learned it in the first place. So let me try to remind you of the stunning present relevance of these words of our Lord for you and me today.

In these famous words of Jesus we are meant to learn the simple but life-changing truth that God means for us to focus our attention, energies and worries primarily on the things we can do something about today— and then trust him with all those things that are out of our control tomorrow and in all the tomorrows that lie ahead. Just like with the Israelites, the Lord wants us to learn how to trust Him for our manna (our “daily bread”)—one day at a time (Sweet Jesus!).

In the trenches of real-life ministry, the task before you can be so overwhelming that you can easily feel like one very small person standing all alone with a very small axe in your hand looking up fearfully at a massive forest that you’ve been “called” to cut down. The task can be absolutely paralyzing unless you learn how to put on those “Gospel Blinders”, go into “biblical denial” about all those things that lie ahead of you now that could eat your lunch—and instead set a very reasonable, achievable goal for cutting down just a few trees each day.

Then you must learn the art of giving yourself each day–not to fulfill your desire to remove the whole forest–but to accomplish your goal of just taking down those few trees (and they better not all be about ministry!). Only then can you be free from the oppressive, crushing, joy-robbing demands of the whole forest.

Understanding the difference between your goals and desires can truly help set you free from a life dominated by anxiety and fear. I think it was from Dr. Larry Crabb and/or Dr. Dan Allendar that I first learned (way too late!) this idea that:

• Your Personal Goals need to be defined as those things that are within your control, relatively speaking (because nothing is every REALLY in your control), while you must learn to see

• Your Personal Desires as those things normally not in your control.

Let me try to bring this lofty idea down for a landing regarding practical ministry issues. Under this definition if, as a church planter or pastor, you want to have ten people become Christians and be baptized in your church this year, that would be a desire but not a goal because you cannot control that outcome.

The key that can often open the door to new, heart-freedom is when you learn how to WORK toward Your Goals . . .

. . . and PRAY for Your Desires.

What you must learn to think (and to say!) is that your desire is to have ten people trust in Christ and be baptized in your church this year but your goal is to do practical, tangible things like set aside regular times to pray for the lost, make so many contacts with people in your community every week, train six people in evangelism, have three evangelistic gathering events, etc.

The key that really opens the door to heart-freedom in all this is that you learn to work toward your goals and pray for your desires. The value of this approach to life and ministry is that it serves to remind you that the outcome of your life and ministry ultimately rests with God—and not you!

I’m convinced that one of the primary reasons so many Christian leaders drop out of the ministry today is because they have never learned this simple distinction between their goals and desires. Their desires become their goals and when their desires are not meant, for whatever reason, they become angry, bitter, depressed and frustrated.

But there is a freedom and peace about your life and your ministry that can be yours if you will learn, by God’s grace, how to understand the difference between your goals and desires. Oh how I wish someone had shared this with me thirty years ago. As Steve Brown would say, “You think about that!”

Steve Childers is the President & CEO of Global Church Advancement, an inter-denominational ministry that provides church planting training, consultations, and resources for church planters, pastors and missionaries throughout the world. Steve has trained Christian leaders from more than 50 countries (curriculum in five major global languages) representing over 200 denominations and mission agencies in 5 continents (& 5 languages). Steve is also an author, Professor of Practical Theology (since 1995) and the Director of the Doctoral program at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches church planting, missions, evangelism and spiritual formation. To learn more about GCA:

• Browse the GCA Website: http://www.gca.cc
• Join the GCA Cause: http://bit.ly/X5bZC
• See the GCA Blog: http://www.gca.cc/blog/
• Follow GCA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/_gca
• Follow Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevechilders
• Check out upcoming GCA Events: http://gca.cc/Seminar_Overview.htm
• Support GCA: http://gca.cc/Support_GCA.htm

This is the third in a series of blog posts called, “My Top Ten Mistakes in Ministry (That I Can Share Publicly)” After many years of ministry experience as a church planter, pastor and seminary professor I think I’ve finally learned that one of the best kept secrets to surviving well in the ministry is to stop making the same old mistakes that others (like me) have been making for decades. Instead, let’s all start making some brand new, bold, innovative and creative mistakes!

We began this series with an introduction called, “Ladies First” in which veteran church planter wife, Shari Thomas, addressed the tough topic, “What I Wish I Had Known About Church Planting” from the perspective of the church planter’s/pastor’s spouse. Last time we looked at Mistake #1 called, “Failing to Understand the Importance of How I Define Ministry Success.” This time we’ll take a brief look at Mistake #2 (these are in no intentional order) I wish someone had the wisdom and guts to tell me before I began church planting/pastoral ministry more than 30 years ago.

Mistake #2: Managing My Time And Not My Life

In his classic article, “Tyranny of the Urgent”, Charles Hummel writes, “‘Have you ever wished for a thirty-hour day?’ Surely this extra time would relieve the tremendous pressure under which we live. Our lives leave a trail of unfinished tasks. Unanswered emails, unvisited friends, unread books and articles, etc., haunt quiet moments when we stop to evaluate. We desperately need relief.

But would a thirty-hour day really solve the problem? Wouldn’t we soon be just as frustrated as we are now with our twenty-four allotment? “A mother’s work is never done”, and neither is that of . . . any pastor. Nor will the passage of time help us catch up. Children grow in number and age to require more of our time. Greater experience and success in life and ministry normally bring more exacting assignments. So we find ourselves working more and enjoying it less.”

Our problem is often, unknowingly, allowing the urgent things in life to crowd out the truly important things. We all live in a constant tension between the urgent and the important.

The Gap Between the Compass and the Clock

There is an ongoing contrast between two things that continually influence our lives: the clock and the compass. Stephen Covey, in his book, First Things First, describes the clock as representing such things as our commitments, appointments,schedules, goals, activities; it’s how we use and manage our time. The compass represents our core life values, our conscience, our sense of personal vision and life mission; it’s what we believe is truly important in life and how we manage life.

The struggle comes when we experience a gap between the compass and the clock–when what we actually do with our time doesn’t contribute to what is truly most important in our life. In an effort to close the gap between the compass and the clock, many of us naturally turn to the field of “personal time management.” Traditional time management theory suggests that by doing things more efficiently, you’ll eventually gain control of your life and that increased control will bring personal peace and fulfillment.

Although there is much to gain from such things as planning, prioritizing and goal setting, the bottom line is that mere increased efficiency normally does not lessen the gap between the compass and the clock. In fact, I was a living example of someone who had learned how to get a lot more work done in less time, but what I was actually doing with my time was not at all what truly matters to me the most. This is why I wish someone had asked questions and said things to me like:

“How many pastors on their deathbed wish they had spent more time at the church?”

“The worst enemy of the best is often the good.”

The Answer is Not Learning to Get More Done in Less Time

The gap between what is deeply important to you (your compass) and the way you spend your time (your clock) cannot be closedby simply learning to do more things more efficiently. The answer is not found in learning to get more things done in less time. In fact, increasing your time management efficiency can actually make things worse! What is needed is a new way of thinking—learning how to manage your life and not just your time, and learning how to shift your focus away from things that are urgent to the things that are trulyimportant.

Often, unless we take intentional, proactive steps to fight against it, we’ll inevitably become slaves to the “tyranny of the urgent”.  It’s been said that, “Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.”

In Isaiah 30:15 we read, “For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, ‘In repentance and rest you shall be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength.’” At the root of our frantic propensity to overwork is the sin of pride—an exalted sense of our importance to the Kingdom of God. We secretly and arrogantly think things like: “If I dare to stop, the Kingdom of God just might not make it and my ministry would surely self-destruct!”

Some of us need to show our faith in God not by working harder but by working less!

Some of us have been hitting it too hard for too long, and we desperately need extended time to rest. For some it might be 6 months for others it might be 6 weeks, or maybe 6 days. For some of us the most spiritual thing we could do now is to go home and go to bed and sleep!

A seasoned missionary in Peru came up to me at a conference once to tell me that in all his years in the ministry, he has learned that there are two types of missionaries in Peru—those who take siestas (naps) every day and those who leave the field. He said, “If you don’t learn to take your siesta on your first term, you normally will not be back for your second term.”

Not Just Starting Well . . . But Finishing Well

It’s one thing to start ministry well. It’s another to finish well. We must remember (and keep reminding each other) that the ministry is not a sprint, but it’s a cross-country event. So we must pace ourselves. We must build into our lives a Sabbath Rhythm of work and rest, work and rest—daily, weekly, quarterly, yearly.

The Scriptures tell us, “When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he instructed his disciples to cross to the other side of the lake” (Matt 8:18). Jesus knew when it was time for him and his followers to pull away from the pressing demands of ministry. My prayer for you and for me is that we will too, before it’s too late.

Steve Childers is the President & CEO of Global Church Advancement, an inter-denominational ministry that provides church planting training, consultations, and resources for church planters, pastors and missionaries throughout the world. Steve has trained Christian leaders from more than 50 countries (curriculum in five major global languages) representing over 200 denominations and mission agencies. Steve is also an author, Professor of Practical Theology (since 1995) and the Director of the Doctoral program atReformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches church planting, missions, evangelism and spiritual formation.

To learn more about GCA:

• Browse the GCA Website: http://www.gca.cc
• Join the GCA Cause: http://bit.ly/X5bZC
• See the GCA Blog: http://www.gca.cc/blog/
• Follow GCA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/_gca
• Follow GCA President (Childers) on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevechilders
• Check out upcoming GCA Events: http://gca.cc/Seminar_Overview.htm
• Support GCA: http://gca.cc/Support_GCA.htm