End July, 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 July and I pray it will be of great encouragement to you.

Holiday Club

• I’ve never been involved in serving in a children’s holiday program in the past and so I was greatly appreciative for the opportunity to do so this year.

• I had two roles during the 3 days that Holiday Club ran.

  • Firstly, as one of the Grade 5/6s teachers and;

  • Secondly, as one of the performers on stage during assembly time.

• It was both a challenge and a joy in teaching the Grade 5/6s.

  • The joy was in teaching the children about the faithfulness of God to the people of Israel, in the story of Joseph from Genesis.

  • The challenge especially came on Day 3 of Holiday Club, in helping the children continue to learn well, despite the tiredness that we all felt by then.

• As always, it was a joy in performing on stage, in helping the children to learn more about God and bring smiles to their faces in the process.

• Please pray for the children who attended Holiday Club, to continue being exposed to Word whether they attend our church or not, and to come to know Christ.

Bible Studies for Growth Group

• I’m continuing to have the opportunities to write bible studies for Growth Group, which included one evangelistic study in June and two Hebrews studies in late July.

• I’m continuing to grow in competency in this area and the feedback from John has been encouraging.

• I’ve especially tried to focus on moving away from comprehension type questions, so that questions can draw out more meaning from the text and give everyday life application to benefit our congregation.

• Please pray, that I continue to grow more competent in this area.

College

• I’ve started the subject Ministry Formation with Peter Hastie at the Presbyterian Theological College this semester.

• The subject will cover the many facets of practical pastoral ministry and the personal spiritual development of the minister.

• Please pray that the knowledge gained from this subject will help me to reflect on my own development as I seek to enter pastoral ministry one day.

First Sermon

• I’m thankful to have been given the opportunity to have preached my first sermon at Surrey Hills in late July titled, “Finding Certainty in an Uncertain World”.

• The preparation for the sermon was quite challenging and demanding in having to tie together a preconceived topical title/theme with the passage from Matthew 6.

  • I perhaps ended up spending close to a 150 hours in exegeting the passage, writing multiple drafts, re-writing content and practicing out loud.

• Praise God, that all the preparation paid off in impacting the hearts of many in our congregation, which I praise God for.

• Please pray that God will continue grow me in competency in this area, as I continue to focus on the heart as the target, for my next two sermons coming up (In September and October).

Snapshot of other areas

• Kid’s Talk and Kid’s Church.

  • I’ve got a few kid’s talks to write coming up.

  • I’m continuing to serve the grade 5s and 6s, at least 5 to 6 times each term.

  • Praise God, I’m growing in confidence in this area.

• 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.

• Discipleship

  • I’m continuing to regularly disciple a number of men.

  • I’m praising God for the opportunity to disciple two non-Christians too, who both attended Food For Thought and Christianity Explored.

• Social Media Ministry

  • Praise God, this ministry is continuing to run well.

  • We have hit over 200 followers now!

Also here are some of the things I’ll be doing in the near term until my next official update for you at the end of August. So please keep me in prayer.

• Preparing for a workshop on evangelism that I’ll be giving at church camp.

• Preparing for a sermon on Psalm 85:1-7 on revival that I’ll be giving on the Sunday at Church during the church camp weekend.

• Developing a strategy for volunteers to share the Gospel during Community Day.

• Preparing a short talk at the Connect and Coffee in mid August based on my testimony but focusing on aspects of apologetics and polemics.

• Developing a communications strategy to bring together the disparate teams working in the communications space at our church.

• Continuing to be trained to be a church planter through the Reach Australia ‘Church Planting Incubator’ program run by PCV’s Richard Wilson and the Reach Australia ‘Learn to Lead’ program for ministry apprentices.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.