God at Work in the Mid North Coast
Over 100 Contacts in Taree
In a recent evangelistic campaign Taree church members, along with Eastward Missionary College, saw over 100 people from the community attend a 21 part series on the ‘Global Agenda’. Eastward students came from their base in Rollands Plains to do two months of door to door visiting leading uptothe series.
Evangelist Mark Roberts gave a dynamic and relevant presentation, covering topics such as “Surviving Globalism” and “Islam, Prophecy and Globalism”.
Due to this endeavour, Taree Church now has over 100 people who are to be visited and given Bible studies; eight of whom have already requested baptism. As exciting as this is for the Church members, they do realise that the demand seems bigger than their supply. Jesus said in Luke 10:2 "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvestfield.”
This is your chance to be a link in the chain to share Jesus by either giving your time to help with the visitations or your gift can help support Bible workers. If you are moved to do either please contact Pastor David Kosmeieron(02)65531641.
16 Baptised at South Kempsey
South Kempsey held an evangelistic series called Discoveries
over five weeks during July and August. There were four meetings each week coordinated by the local pastor, Esava Koro. The guest speaker was Pastor Temowhopastorsatwo-church districtinNorth NewZealand.
The members of the South Kempsey church were actively involved in the program as greeters, singers, presenters andcaterers.
Sixteen happy people have been baptized so far with another 10 preparing for baptism verysoon.
9 Decisions for Baptism at Wauchope
From 18 July to 27 August, Wauchope church ran an evangelistic series called ‘Prophecies ofHopefora Troubled World”.
Up to 30 non-Adventists attended the 22 series of meetings. At the end of the program nine people made a decision for baptism.
One to One is the product of practice, reflection, scripture and God’s leading of a Personal Ministries team which has faithfully laboured to share Jesus with others.
Deprogramming
We’ve always known that relationships were integral to the process of discipleship. We’ve experimented with a lot of different approaches to evangelism and somewhere along the way our focus and energy shifted to programming and events. The hard lesson came in 2007 when a year full of excellent seminars did little to connect people to the church, engendered little support and left us feeling worn out. We realised that the Pastor and Personal Ministries team couldn’t carry the outreach efforts of the church alone. What we were doing wasn’t working and something had to change. As the year drew to a close we gathered to begin evaluating and planning for the following year. I had been impressed with the need to simplify our approach and focus more on inspiring members to engage in meaningful relationships in which their faith could be shared
In my mind Ephesians 4:4-16 had formed itself into a philosophy of evangelism that was being confirmed by the ideas and convictions now being expressed by our team. When my turn came the proposal needed little selling as I humbly shared what the team already felt God was calling us to do.
The Challenge
The hectic lifestyle, priorities and passion of many members is such that they do not support outreach events or invite people to them. New people do come to advertised programs but may not find members there to whom they can connect.
Evangelism is often seen as a special kind of program or event rather than connecting people to Jesus through the whole life and activity of the church. Evangelism is often seen as the transmission of information through programs and events rather than a relational process involving trust, communication & understanding. Evangelism is often seen as the exclusive work of the pastor and a select group within the church rather than the responsibility of each person in the church.
The Inspiration
Ephesians 4:4-16 reminded us that the growth of the church was the work of the whole body and that our responsibility was to equip the members, resulting in maturity, unity (‘oneness’) and growth. The One to One strategy was simple:
Empowered by one Spirit we will:
• Pray for one person once a day
• Talk to them once a week
• Do something social with them once a month
• Invite them to a church event once a quarter
• Bring them to church once a year.
With the goal of:
• Introducing one person to one Lord, into one faith and one baptism.
Sharing this inspiration with the church involved sermons and other communication. We provided members with a prayer card that included the above statement and a place to write the name or names of people they were praying for.
Aligning
We decided to run fewer programs and harness the potential of exist-
ing ministries that were already running successfully and which members were already committed to and passionate about. We worked to examine church activities in light of our mission and the One to One strategy. We identified six ministries that maximised the potential of One to One and examined how they could dovetail with the One to One initiative and what tweaking or refocussing was needed to do that.
Aligning the ministries of our church with this strategy wasn’t easy or completely successful. But our journey isn’t over and One to One remains the cornerstone of our Personal Ministries Strategy for 2009. Community Witness is now established within a context of relationships and personal evangelism that seeks to connect people to the whole life of the church which includes: visitors days/sermon series, worship events and children’s ministries. We’ve also come to value the ‘One to One witness’ so much that members are taking to the doors to meet the community face to face, conducting surveys and personally inviting people to attend programs!
Equipping
Providing members with professionally designed and printed invitations engendered pride and confidence as members invited friends and created a positive expectation about the visitors’ days and seminars amongst our members. We deemphasised the need for training insisting that all members needed to do was be nice and invite others. However a number of tools are available including: “Just Walk Across the Room”, “Six Steps to Talking About Jesus”, Evangelism for the Rest of Us”, and “Becoming a Contagious Christian”.
The Result
The results of this refocussing have been surprising. A positive spirit and enthusiasm for outreach programs has returned. A greater
sense of unity and collaboration in our church has resulted. New people have joined the Personal Ministries team. Attendance on visitor’s days has increased an average of 10%. Of course not everyone has gotten involved, but I have seen the faithfulness of our members and have absolute confidence in their ability to grow and build the church up in love. I’ve let go of my need to do it all. I have grown personally and professionally and discovered that the growth of the church is far less important than I once imagined - that it’s only an incidental biproduct of people coming face to face with Jesus. As we look ahead to 2009, I’m excited by the next stage of the journey because I know that we’re now doing what God wants us to.
Damien Rice has been the Pastor of Maitland Church for almost six years. He has worked in NNSW for 12 years in various pastoral and chaplaincy roles.
To Learn More or Access Resources
Visit: www.adventistchurch.net.au/onetooneand www.maitlandadventist.org.au
E-mail: damienrice@adventist.org.au
Call: MaitlandPersonalMinistriesDepartment(02)49518088
Whatever happened to the Elders?
For many of our local churches the traditional role oftheElder—leadingoutin the Sabbath church service — has been replaced by the worshipcommittee.
Whatever happened to those old guys (sometimes ladies) who would sit beside the preacher and make announcementsandpray?
I’m glad you asked, because I believe with all my heart that the strength, health, productivity and fruitfulness of a church directly reflects thequalityofitsleaders.
What is the role of the Elder in the New Testament church?
1. First Timothy 3:5 says the Elders are to “take care of God’s church.” Elders were sometimes called overseers (1 Peter 5:2) as they took responsibility for leading the church.
2. Able to teach Scripture is the only functional qualification for eldership, all other qualifications involve personal character. (1 Tim 3:2, Titus1:7-9)
3. Partner with others in Prayer. (James 5:14) Elders weretobepeopleofprayer.
4. Pastor or shepherd the church.(Acts20:28)
Remember strong elders, strong church. I long for the day when our local church elders are fulfilling God’s callontheirlivesandfollowing the New Testament modelofeldership.
Pastor
Justin Lawman,
Evangelism Director, North NSWConference
