End February, 2024 Update
End of February, 2024 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 01/02/2024 to 29/02/2024 and I pray it will be of great encouragement to you.
Growth Group
I’m thankful for the opportunity to serve as a Growth Group leader again this year.
There have been several changes to the group that I co-led with Melly last year:
It is now being held at my house.
Due to the reshuffle, the group size is 12, with half being new members.
o There are greater responsibilities, with no co-leader this year.
It’s been an encouraging start for the group:
Our first meet up was a social, where we had dinner, sang songs and then prayed for one another.
The smaller group size has enabled a high contribution rate by all members during study time.
Being held in a house, has helped with fellowship as people are staying back late to chat (sometimes past 11am).
There are already organic catch ups being planned or are happening outside of the group.
Please continue to pray that I lead the group well, and that as a group, we would continue to grow deeper in the Word, prayer and in fellowship.
Yoshi (Including serving in the Membership and Discipleship teams)
Although it’s my first year serving in this ministry, I’m already finding this as one my favourite ministries (alongside evangelism).
It’s been a real joy to be involved in:
The planning meetings at the start of every session.
Playing sport and chatting with the youth.
Leading a few of guys during prayer time.
Co-leading the Year 9/10 boys during discipleship and study time.
I’m especially thankful for the youths’ openness to share about their struggles and allowing the Word of God to help them navigate through this.
I’m also thankful for the opportunity to be part of the Membership team, where the emphasis has been on helping the youth feel that they ‘belong’ in Yoshi.
As a team we’ve already rolled out a few initiatives, such as:
Issuing out ‘care cards’ for the youth to fill out, where they can express how they are feeling each week.
Turning the Blue Room into a nicer space through interior decorating.
Please continue to pray for me to grow well as a Yoshi team leader.
Luke 9:28-36 (Transfiguration) Sermon Preparation
I’m continuing to learn how to prepare sermons faithfully.
My process is to:
Meditate on the passage.
Undertake exegetical work to get me to the big idea, big question and the implications (based on the main truth) of the passage.
Develop a detailed sermon outline, which is reviewed by John.
Finally go on to write the sermon.
I’m finding sermon writing the hardest part, as my default writing style is that of ‘College Essays’.
As a result, I’ve recently been practicing to speak out the sermon, then record myself, before writing it down.
Specific to Luke 9:28-36, I’ve found it a challenging passage to prepare for.
The reasons are as follows:
Many from churched backgrounds know this passage well and have perhaps heard many sermons on it.
Yet it is also an important part of the gospels, as it’s the first time the divinity of Christ is revealed to the disciples, coming after the challenging call for them to ‘take up the cross’.
My big idea from the passage is, ‘Once we realise who Jesus is (divine identity) and what he came to do (divine mission), then we must listen to him! (imperative).
The implications for the sermon, were derived from the clear imperative stated in the passage.
I preached the sermon on the 3rd of March.
Please pray it was of encouragement to all who heard God’s word, that they would continue to see the goodness in listening to Jesus.
Learnings from Bible College
I’m doing two subjects at college this semester, New Testament Greek A and Preaching Skills and Self Evaluation
NT Greek:
Although I’m not naturally gifted in languages and struggle with rote learning, I’ve been finding enjoying learning Greek.
It’s especially been helping me in my exegetical work, as I’m starting to work at translating the text from Greek to English for sermon preparation.
Preaching Skills:
This subject has been useful, as a complement to all that John and Oli have been teaching me.
It has made me appreciate all the different processes one can take to faithfully exegete a passage, in order to come up with a big idea.
We’ll also learn how critique our own sermons, which will be very useful.
Please pray that all I learn from College, will help me to better serve God’s people.
Snapshot of other areas
Serving rollout
I’ve been grateful to be part of the serving team with Michelle and John.
Together, we’ve been able to rollout the serving booklet, and now Michelle and I are helping facilitate many from our church to serve.
Please pray for us, as we continue to refine our processes to make it as smooth as possible for people to join a ministry team.
Communications team meeting
There are still many processes that need to be ironed out within and across the various teams that make up the communications team.
Please pray for wisdom, as I work with the team to iron these out.
Please note, my next official update will only be at the end of April, as I’ll be taking a few weeks of paternity leave from the last week of March. The next update will cover:
One on One Discipleship
Yoshi study write up
Food for Thought
Doing ministry as a new father
Photo from Growth Group below.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Please note: You can support me in the following ways:
Prayer
Encouragement
Financial Partnership https://mts.com.au/give/aditya-kuthalam/
