End of Mar, 2023 Update

End of March update

To my supporters, firstly thank you for your continued support in so many ways for partnering with me for the sake of advancing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray this update will be of great encouragement to you.

Conviction

• I continue to be convicted of doing the Lord’s work in serving our brothers and sisters with joy at St Stephen’s.

• Since starting the apprenticeship, my conviction to enter full time pastoral ministry in a church has also grown. The reasons are as follows:

o   I’ve seen the power of the gospel at work sovereignly and supernaturally in the conversion of one our church members.

o   I’ve seen much fruit through the one-on-one discipleships I’ve currently been having with a number of godly men from our church.

o   I’ve been greatly encouraged by spending time with many in our congregation through catchups, times of prayer and reading the bible and enjoying this lifestyle as part of ministry.

o   Reading, understanding, writing and teaching the Word of God in an exegetically way has incredibly enjoyable.

o   God has been gracious in providing me with financial support through brothers and sisters at church to continue this role.

o   Both Loraine and I have been encouraged in living the ministry lifestyle.

Competency

• Service Leading, Bible Reading, Congregational Prayer, Kid’s Talk

o   I still get nervous up on stage because of the weight of the desire to please God and to be an encouragement to the congregation.

o   Despite the nervousness, I’m growing in confidence and the feedback and encouragement from members of the congregation and the staff team have been invaluable.

• Leading Growth Group

o   I’ve been getting positive feedback from some of the growth group members in how I have been leading them and teaching them with my knowledge of the bible.

o   There is still a long way for me to go to feel competent, but this has been a good start.

o   Working with my co-leader has also been great, as we have complementary strengths as co-leaders.

• Writing Service Leading scripts, Bible Studies and Kid’s Talks

o   I’ve been learning quite a lot in how to write bible studies, service leading and kid’s talks. John, Ian and Oli have been incredibly helpful and encouraging in helping me to become more competent in this area.

o   I also quite enjoy writing and scripting as it’s been helping me bring the biblical content that I’ve been reflecting on, into a more practical way to help out the congregation.

• Kid’s Church

o   I’ve done 3 sessions so far in Kid’s church with the grade 5s and 6s.

o   I went into this area of ministry being quite anxious as I haven’t had much experience with children. In fact the last time I taught children the bible (briefly) in a previous church in was with commentaries and lexicons!

o   Therefore, being able to learn how to teach the Bible to children through games and other activities has been both eye opening and enjoyable.

• Social Media Ministry

o   It’s been exciting to have started up a new venture with the social media team for the sake of being an online front door to attract newcomers (both non-believers and believers) to our church.

o   Although I’m passionate about this area, I don’t necessarily have the expertise in it, and so it has been a good challenge in leading people who know a lot more about an area than me and how to keep them motivated.

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

• Developing the service booklet for St Stephen’s to get more of our congregation to serve our church. This will include incorporating learnings from the Reach Australia Conference that the staff team will be going to in May.

• Undertaking preaching training with John for the three upcoming sermons that I’ll be preaching this year. One will be from the evangelistic series in July, one will be a ‘free sermon’ during the church camp weekend in September and the other will on Hebrews in October.

• Continuing to be trained well theologically in my current subject “Principles of Evangelism” this semester and in “Ministry Formation” next semester.

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

 Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Images below are from: St Stephen’s Instagram Page, Kids Talk and after service dinner hang out.