Mid May, 2023 Update
Mid May 2023 update.
To my supporters, 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 as it covers the period from the start of April until the middle of May.
Evangelism (College/Workshop at Camp/Food For Thought/Christianity Explored/Community Day)
I’m at the later end of the Semester for the subject I’m undertaking at RTC called Principles of Evangelism. I’ve been blessed to be taught this by the principal of the college (Phillip Scheepers).
This subject has not only been providing me with biblical principles and theological perspectives, but has provided useful strategies in evangelising to the lost in our secular and post-modern western context.
As most of you know, I’m passionate about evangelism and so I’ve been applying what I have learnt so far in our Church’s Food For Thought series, which has yielded in many good conversations with the non-Christians who attended this. I’m planning to continue applying the same skills in the Christianity Explored series starting in late May which I’m also involved in.
I’m furthermore planning to implement my learnings to teach contextualization in evangelism at the church camp in September and lead a team for walk up evangelism at the Community Day in November.
Snapshot of other areas
Kid’s Talk and Kid’s Church.
I’ve written a couple of talks now for the morning service, have presented one and have been involved in many others.
I’ve written a few studies for the grade 5s and 6s during kid’s church and have learnt many creative ways to keep the children engaged to learn the bible.
Praise God I’m growing in confidence in this area as I’ve not had much experience in this area previously.
Service Leading, Bible Reading, Congregational Prayer
I’m growing in confidence in this ministry and the feedback and encouragement from members of the congregation and the staff team have been invaluable.
Growth Group Leading
Growth Group has been going well with the group now learning from the book of Exodus.
I’m continue to grow in confidence in not only leading studies but also in writing studies with my latest studies in Exodus now completed.
Social Media Ministry
Praise God, the team is now set up well and continuing do an excellent job.
My role has now moved from a team leader to that of an advisor and mentor.
Leadership Workshop/Reach Australia
I am extremely grateful to have been invited to the leadership workshop run for the Session in April and the Reach Australia conference in May.
All of this has helped me to see the importance of building and leading teams well, having strong systems in place and needing a vision to best serve the church well including during times of change.
My highlight was the Reach Australia conference as I got to spend more time getting to know the staff team as well as seeing all the cutting-edge initiatives that churches are undertaking into becoming Healthy, Evangelistic and Multiplying.
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.
Undertaking preaching training with John for the three upcoming sermons that I’ll be preaching this year.
Continuing to be trained well theologically in my subject next semester called “Ministry Formation” at the Presbyterian Theological College.
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 and please continue to keep me in prayer as I continue to serve God in these ways.
