End August, 2023 Update

End of August 2023 Update

To my supporters, thank you for your continued support in partnering with me for the sake of advancing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This update covers the period from my last update to you, until end of August, 2023 and I pray it will be of great encouragement to you.

Discipleship of non-Christian men coming to faith

• I’m continuing to disciple a number of men, including a few non-Christians.

• In terms of the Christians:

  • It’s been a blessing to read the Bible and other Christian books with them, as well as to see God working in their lives.

• In terms of the non-Christians:

  • I’m discipling two of them, with one recently coming to faith!

Food for Thought (Term 3)

• Whilst we’ve had less non-Christians attend FFT this term, there has been much fruit in all the conversations that were had.

• I’m grateful to have been involved as part of the team organizing FFT, from announcements, to printing out graphics, organizing teaching sessions etc.

• I led the study on Meaning and am continuing to grow in my competency to teach Evangelistic programs like FFT.

• Please pray for all those who attended FFT this term, that they would return to explore our faith in greater depth through a program like Christianity Explored.

Eat and Share

• Loz and I hosted Eat and Share on the week of August.

• We had a number of people attend and it was an enjoyable time of fellowship and getting to know one another.

• Loz and I continue to love being involved in hospitality and having people over to our house for a meal.

• Please pray Loz and I will continue to have more opportunities to host people.

Connect and Coffee Talk

• I was invited to share my testimony at Connect and Coffee in August.

• Part of sharing my testimony was to teach (from an apologetic perspective) on the other worldviews that I had encountered as a Christian.

• I was grateful to have spent time with the seniors of the church and received a lot of encouraging feedback for my talk.

  • Praise God he was glorified!

• Please pray that my testimony would encourage all those who attended to be encouraged to continue evangelizing their non-Christian friends and family.

Kids Church + Kidswise Training

• I’m thankful to continue being trained as a kids ministry teacher under Ian and Kirsty to the grade 5/6s.

  • Part of this has included to not only make the lessons understandable but also interactive and enjoyable.

• I also attended the Kidswise training by Sandy Galea and found this to be valuable in how to run a Kid’s team, as well as how to better teach the children.

• Please pray that I grow in competency in this area.

Church Planting Incubator

• In the last week of August, I went on a two-day Reach Australia Church Planting incubator retreat in Melbourne’s CBD.

• It was headed by Richard Wilson from Valley Presbyterian and we had Derek Hanna from Reach Australia join us.

• Part of this retreat was to view how City on a Hill ran their service as well as to receive insight from PCV planters, Dave Martin and Aaron Boyd.

• It’s been good to continue to learn about how church plants are a good model to see de-church and unreached people reached with the gospel.

• Please pray, whether this is a direction in which God can use me in the future.

Snapshot of other areas

• Sermon Prep

  • It’s been a steep learning curve in learning to write a good sermon.

  • In God’s grace, the sermon usually tends to come good by the 4th or 5th draft!

• Service Leading, Bible Reading, Congregational Prayer

  • Praise God, I’m growing in confidence in this ministry and continuing to reflect on the feedback received in order to better serve in these areas.

• Growth Group Leading

  • Growth Group has been going well.

  • We’ve focused on honoring God through song, prayer, study of the word and time in fellowship.

  • Both the men and women in our group are all well looked after by either myself and Melly or by other men/women, so that no one is left without care.

Also here are some of the things I’ll be reporting on at my next official update for you at the end of September. So please keep me in prayer.

• Reflections on the Psalm 85 sermon I delivered at the Church Camp weekend.

• Reflections on the workshop I delivered at the Church Camp weekend.

• Update on the communications ministry.

• Update on the evangelism team that I am running during Community Day.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.