a mega march
Thanks again for your partnership in the gospel! Praise God for a march which has been filled with lots of different things, and where I’ve continued to be stretched and grown for God’s ministry. Apologies this comes late as I’ve got a lot of things on, but writing this has helped me to slow down and reflect and be thankful! I’ve posted some highlights of things that have happened in March as well as some prayer points below.
I acted in 3 kids spots over the course of the month, here I am trying to remember God (and my lines)
“You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of the garment with which you cover yourself.
We’ve been looking at Deuteronomy at church, and I’m in this passage to prepare for a sermon. There’s lots of laws which seem somewhat odd out of context, such as this one. The significance of the tassels are made clear in Numbers 15, tassels are to be put on each corner of garments which they wear, and the reason is that they are meant to be reminded of God’s commandments when they look at the tassels. God doesn’t require us to wear tassels now, but I was encouraged and challenged to think, am I constantly reminded of God’s word? Do I put on God’s word like the people of Israel did? My prayer is that we would be people who love God and are continually reminded of His good word and law, that we would live out His commandments for His glory.
training hub
Captivate and a few other churches in our presbytery have a new combined training opportunity for staff, students and apprentices called the training hub. The vision is for each of us to be growing in our respective contexts, but supporting one another in co-training, growing each of us in our love for God and sharpening our gospel ministry, and growing a culture where full-time Gospel training in our churches is not something that just happens in the closed context of our local churches, but done together across our denomination. We were able to hear from Michael Nhieu at EPC about running evangelistic courses and reflections from my co-apprentice Clara about doing an apprentice over one morning. I was super encouraged and challenged to keep thinking about what it looks like to be both intentional and personal in formal programs when it comes to mission. My reflection is that I’m often too scared or putting too much emphasis on human relationships when it comes to asking hard questions about responding to the gospel. When people are interested in learning about Jesus, we can really ask them if they believe in the gospel story. And if they do believe in the historic gospel being a real story that happened, then why not give your life to Jesus? Following Jesus is a complicated thing, but if they believe in the real Jesus, then we can do that complicated life thing together as church family.
familiar faces in a familiar (yet different) place
church weekend away
March is our church weekend away! This is our first time as a family of three away from home since we’ve got home from the hospital. It was a bit daunting figuring out what we needed to bring, Emme’s food and meals for all weekend, whether her naps and sleeps would be ok and how to give her a bath. Driving up to lake macquarie was the first hurdle which included a nappy stop and lots of snacks to alleviate crying. Overall it was a very encouraging time spent hanging out with our church family, Emme ate all her meals and slept relatively well overnight! Our talks were on Jesus on his way as he resolutely set out for Jerusalem, and what it means for us to follow him. Knowing that he is the one alone who saves by his grace, means that we can follow him with full assurance, and preach his message with no fear for others to follow him also. I was especially thankful that we have an awesome team at church where 90% of work had been done before the weekend, and I wasn’t required for any formal ministry over the weekend. This means I had heaps of opportunities to chat, reflect, and pray with people. I only had a last minute call to be part of the kid’s spots on Saturday and Sunday!
I'm a hologram telling agents that to save the world they need to take the gospel to everyone! (for some reason the idea of a hologram was hilarious for everyone)
amalgamation
Captivate continues to go through lots of change as we prepare for amalgamation with Ryde Presbyterian church. Lots of work has been going on behind the scenes, and we had our second leader’s planning day where we aligned ourselves in our theological values and principles across teams as we set concrete plans for what would happen when we come together. We have a day zero planned this month where things will come together and we will worship together on a Sunday before the formal amalgamation in June, and all our plans are coming together well! I have been working with our welcoming team, and because they do not have any formal ministry papers on the why, how, and what of welcoming, they have been very receptive to our principles and plans for what welcoming will look like. I’m reminded of how in ministry it’s most important to know the principles behind the ministry, and when our people have a common understanding of why they are serving in that particular ministry, it builds confidence in executing the ministry not merely to get a task done, but serving God joyfully for his glory. We were able to critically think about what is and what isn’t necessary when it comes to welcoming. The other big move has been our church office! We said goodbye to the hub in Eastwood and moved to Ryde, which involved a long day where I got to drive a truck, we moved everything in the office together, and I also lined up for the tip and didn’t get home till 8PM (and then proceeded to go straight to leading our Bible study hah!)
the truck was well stacked with furniture, and well stacked with rubbish to go to the tip too
nexus conference
Nexus is a ministry conference aimed at ministry workers, and this years topic was called “The Pastor - The most important job in the world”. The people who run Nexus are Sydney Anglicans, and most attendees are Sydney Anglicans also, so it was interesting to hear about what they thought it means to be a Pastor. I think I was especially challenged to think about their categories of “authority” and “care”. To be like Jesus, we want to excel in both. Low authority and low care would be a lazy and ineffective pastor. High care would be personally being invested and warm with the people around us, and high authority would be strong in directing and leading people to do things. We have to be careful not to neglect either, and strive to be like Jesus in both. One of the key tasks in doing this is effective preaching to the congregation. Preaching is to be faithful to God and faithful to the word, not to satisfy people but rather to preach to God himself, and this is the key task for the senior minister. I am not entirely sure about the nuances of this in a Sydney Anglican church where the senior minister is the rector, but my reflection for the Presbyterian context is that leading by the word is the task of all of our elders. The preaching is shared and is primarily done by the senior minister, but our local church is served well by a plurality of pastors who can lead the flock by God’s word.
see if you can spot me, and a somewhat recognisable person next to me
captivate youth
We finished our term in 2 Timothy! I am thankful to God for sustaining me through this. In chapter 3, Paul says that all who live for Jesus will be persecuted. Following the week where I spoke on this passage, we had our church weekend away then our evangelistic social where the youth invited many friends to our event called “with us”—it was an in person among us game. I was really encouraged by some of the youth boys who invited friends and had rejections, sometimes even insults directed to them, but in this they reflected that this was not an unexpected part of the Christian walk, and they would continue to persevere in talking to their friends about Jesus despite this.
an emergency meeting where the surviving people are trying to find the impostor
reflections
- - I turned 30 recently! My reflections are that life is all about living for Jesus, which is both an easy truth but also a hard one. It’s easy to live for Jesus because it brings real life, and makes decisions in life more simple. But it’s also hard because living for Jesus means going against what makes sense in this world.
- - Before this apprenticeship, I was already pretty convinced that the Presbyterian church in Sydney has something pretty good going on for them, and the structures they have put in place make sense of the Biblical picture of eldership. As a full time apprentice at a Presbyterian church, I am super encouraged to see how this structure is a fruitful endeavour which is faithful to God’s plan for his church, and effective in preaching the gospel.
- - It’s hard to work on the important but not urgent, things like this prayer letter have fallen to the side when I get busy and there’s lots of things to do. I have a system where I’ve scheduled my priorities, but I’ve probably said yes to too many things. Ministry very quickly fills up as much time as you let it, and will give you more than enough to do.
- - Ministry is as simple as just being faithful to God’s word, but it is also difficult. When ministry is faithful to God’s word, then it means we spend a lot of time seeking God’s wisdom, his truth, and how it should be lived out in different contexts. But doing this hard work is fruitful for ministry, especially when it comes to having people serve on those teams for the right reasons. It seems that without this work, people might make their own principles and methods for how they think the ministry should be done, but when the team has a shared understanding and ownership of the principles and responsibilities, then they know who they are serving, why, and they take ownership of the how.
- - Being parents is full of joys which outweigh the hardships. Becoming a Father has grown me in appreciating and really understanding how much God loves us even more than we can ever fully understand. Emme is full of joy, and we love her so much. Sometimes she responds to us as we smile at her, but sometimes she seems ambivalent. We tell her how much we love her, but our prayer is that she would come to know God’s love which far surpasses our love, or any other love she could know.
prayer points
- - I have been sick for what feels like weeks now, it has seemingly been a low grade cold, but I often wake up feeling not so great and am more easily tired by the end of the day. Pray that I’d get better soon, and that I’d continue to rely on God in this time. Some days it feels like I just need to smash out work and get the stuff done, but I need to continue to trust in God first
- - I am preaching from Deuteronomy 19:1-22:12 in the last week of April. I am feeling a little behind on preparation because Deuteronomy is a hard book to preach from. Pray for God’s wisdom to preach faithfully and in a way that grows his people for his glory!
- - Over the course of Easter I’ve had a few conversation with people, pray for several people I shared the gospel with at the West Ryde Easter fair—unfortunately even though these people were invited to our Easter Sunday service, I didn’t see any of them come. Pray though for a couple, A&A, who have recently moved to the area, they went to the Catholic church in North Ryde on Easter Sunday, but left because it was too busy, then ended up joining us at Easter at the park. They returned this last Sunday and I’ve been able to connect with them, pray that they’d hear and respond to the gospel!
- - Pray for time in preparing for youth term 3, once term 2 starts it’s a bit of a packed schedule so we’re starting early in preparing for our series in Biblical theology. Pray that the youth would respond well, and we’d be intentional in helping them read the Bible in a way that convicts them of their sin and fills their hearts to love Jesus more, and that teaching them Biblical theology would not merely be an intellectual exercise.
- - Day zero of Captivate-Ryde Amalgamation is happening in April! Pray for our church families to be ready to love and serve in different ways, and ready to worship God together!
- - Pray that in my training I’d continue to grow in loving and caring for people in a more personal capacity. It’s easy to let this be a slow burn when I’m busy in other aspects of life, but I want to continue to minister to people personally.
🙏 Thank you again for your partnership in the gospel! Shoot through a message when you've prayed (even if it's just a "hey!") and let me know how I can be praying for you also!
Emme is oblivious to the rain, even when it rains on her