End of Feb, 2023 Update
Time is flying by so quickly and I can’t believe that we’re already at the start of March.
Here are some snippets of what I’ve been up to in February and how the Lord has been at work.
Up front service (Service leading, bible reading and congregational prayer)
Praising God that I’ve been a lot more comfortable up front with service leading, bible reading and congregational prayer which has helped me to be more effective in serving our church in this way.
I’m also starting to find ways when up front in how to best help our congregation respond well to our Lord in each part of the service.
Growth Group
Leading Growth Group has been very enjoyable as the 16 participants in our group learn about the works and character of Jesus in Luke Chapters 8 and 9.
Although our group has been meeting weekly at Church which has been less impersonal compared to meeting at home, through some troubleshooting, the group has now gotten into a good groove.
It’s also been encouraging to see a high participation rate from everyone as we pray, read the bible, answer questions about the bible passages we read and build friendships over supper.
I’m also very grateful to be co-leading with Melly who has been supportive in helping the group run smoothly.
Kids Church
I’ve not had much experience with Kid’s Church to date other than in running a few Sunday school classes in the past.
Therefore, I wasn’t confident going into initially teaching grades 5 and 6 the bible.
However, with the help of one of the leader’s (Tim), it has actually been quite enjoyable in teaching the bible to children especially when employing interactive ideas such as doing plays and playing games related to the bible passage’s big idea.
I’ve also had the opportunity to write up a couple of kids talks for the morning service which I’ll be undertaking in a few weeks time.
As a result of being involved in Kids Church, I can see why it’s such an important ministry to help families in the church and so I’m really grateful to be part of the team at Surrey who do this very well.
Communications Ministry
The communications ministry which Michelle and I set up is finally up and running with social media as our primary area to be developed.
Social media especially is important as it’s the front door to the church for the outside world along with being a means to encourage those within the church.
So once again it has been encouraging to see all the members of the team being in one accord to make this an effective ministry in making and maturing disciples.
We’ve also gotten our Church Instagram set up with the handle name being surreyhillspresbyterian.
College
College has started with me taking on the subject called Principles of Evangelism.
This has been an exciting subject so far as we’ve been covering the biblical and theological reasons for evangelism. In the next month we’ll be starting to cover the practical ways to evangelise.
Evangelism is something that is close to my heart as it is the means by which the Gospel goes out and so I’m very grateful to be studying this subject.
Also here are some of the things I’ll be doing in the near term, which I’ll be reporting on in my next official update to you by the end of March/start of April.
The kids talks I’ll be involved in during service
Sermon preparation for my three sermons coming up this year
The Food For Thought evangelism course that I’ll be involved in
A quarterly update on my character, competency and conviction development.
And so I end this month’s report in thanks to God.
Psalm 118:1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.
Images below are from: Kids Church (Luke 7:36-50 re-enactment), Growth Group (Room set up), Comms ministry brainstorming session and a screenshot of our instagram page.
