End November, 2023 Update

Written By Aditya Kuthalam

End of November, 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 01/11/2023 to 30/11/2023 and I pray it will be of great encouragement to you.

MTS Recruit Conference

  • Early on in November, I attended the two day MTS Recruit Conference in Upper Plenty to serve as a peer group leader.

  • This conference was for those either ready to or were considering doing a ministry apprenticeship in the near future.

  • The peer group I co-led, specifically consisted of delegates who were currently in university and were considering an apprenticeship after a few years of work.

  • During the peer group time, I had the great privilege and joy to help delegates reflect on their gospel convictions for considering gospel ministry as well as to help them flesh out practical steps towards an apprenticeship.

  • Praise God that he is raising up many workers for the future harvest.

  • Please pray that each delegate would grow in their gospel conviction, godliness and maturity and that God would open doors for them to undertake an apprenticeship.

Community Day Evangelism

  • I’m thankful for the opportunity to have led the walk-up evangelism team during Community Day.

  • We had close to 10 pairs from our church family faithfully undertake the work, with each pair doing so for an hour.

  • Evangelism was done with these pairs asking visitors questions from a survey about beliefs and when appropriate, the gospel would be shared.

  • Information was gathered from the survey and will prove useful as we consider looking at updating material for Food For Thought and Christianity Explored.

  • Please pray for all the visitors who heard the gospel and that in God’s kindness, he would bring them to faith.

  • Please also pray for all who volunteered from our church to grow in their conviction and confidence in doing walk-up and other forms of evangelism.

Christianity Explored Term 4

  • I’m grateful for the privilege to be one of the co-leaders again for Christianity Explored in Term 4.

  • We’ve had up to 6 non-Christians participants attend over the various weeks.

  • The level of engagement and questions asked by those participants have been encouraging.

  • Please pray for the rest of the sessions that they would run smoothly and that those participants would be saved.

 

Growth Group End of Year Review

  • Growth Group has come to an end for the year.

  • I’m grateful that we’ve had a consistent turn out throughout the year with a group that is made up from 17 members.

  • It has been a big learning curve for me in not only learning how to teach well, but also learning to pastorally care and lead our members well.

  • This is an area I’m continuing to grow in and look forward to serving again next year.

  • Please pray for the year ahead to be fruitful for all the growth groups at St Stephen’s.

Snapshot of other areas

  • Psalm 12 Sermon Prep

    • I’m currently preparing for my sermon on Psalm 12 that I’ll be preaching on the 7th of January.

    • Please pray for all the time that I put into preparation, will yield in a sermon that will impact the hearts of our church and will glorify God.

  • Discipleship

    • I’m continuing to my discipleship relationships with a number of men from church.

    • Please pray for continuing fruit in all my discipleship relationships and especially for the new Christians to grow strong in their faith. 

  •  Hospitality

    • Loraine and I are continuing to meet up with those from our church, with an increasing focus on helping newcomers and disconnected members to be connected with the more established members of our church.

 

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

  • Men’s Ministry Talk at the lawn bowls event

  • Preparation for Psalm 11 kid’s talk

  • Preparation for Psalm 12 sermon

  • Completion of Christianity Explored Term 4

Photo from MTS Recruit Conference below.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Please note: You can support me in the following ways:

Aditya Kuthalam
Previous

End January, 2024 Update
Next

End December, 2023 Update