We had an amazing night on August 8th inviting people to come and hear about our vision and dreams for this church plant. You can watch the Facebook live feed of the presentation by clicking here!
Our Lead Pastor, Riley Spring, has now officially joined the Parramatta SRE Board! This is made up of local pastors who are passionate about seeing the gospel going forward in our local High Schools! We are now invested prayerfully and financially in supporting the gospel work of the SRE worker, Charlie Shepherdson! A couple of weeks ago we had our first supporters night to begin our prayer and financial fundraising. If you would like to join and give financially you can here: https://oursre.org.au/fundraising-team.php?id=12010
1) Thank you all for your prayers, we are moving closer to finalizing our location! We will be posting new information soon so stay tuned.
2) We will be hosting a public "Information Night" in early August so that you can find out about how to get involved in joining this exciting new adventure!
3) We have officially taken on a Ministry Intern! And established a 'Core Team' to help Riley Spring lead the church! More details to come!
4) We have changed our website address to: www.sgparra.org.au so that it is a bit cleaner and easier to share! Go there and check it out if you haven't been yet :)
It has been an incredibly joyful start to our meetings as a Launch Team. The team is bonding as a group around Jesus, bearing each others burdens, discipling one another, and enjoying our Saviour together.
We have been gathering weekly on Thursday nights to grow relationally and theologically as a team. We first want to be a family, brothers and sisters who passionately know and follow Jesus, before we go out and invite others to join us. Each Thursday we have spent time singing together, praying for one another, learning from the Bible, eating, and celebrating. We have also begun monthly prayer nights on Tuesdays. These nights are crucial because we want this church to be birthed in prayer not by our efforts. It is a joy to gather, to petition God and to hear from Him. We have also been gathering for whole family meals with all the kids, in the Parramatta area.
As the Lead Pastor, I couldn’t be more grateful to God and thankful for these courageous disciples who are heading out to pioneer this church! Praise God!
Financially, God has provided in abundance. Our local church, www.sovgrace.org.au, is sending us out with a very very generous grant so that we can start on solid footing! We hope one day to send out another church plant, and to put in their hands a similarly generous amount!
In terms of location, we are still in the search phase. Please pray that God would open the doors to a venue that will help us to preach and proclaim the gospel in Parramatta.
Going forward, we are hopeful and confident that God will use our feeble efforts to make disciples and glorify His name! May He be the hero, may His Name and Fame abound!
Riley
It all begins! We had our first Launch Team Meeting last night. We gathered, ate, drank, prayed, and enjoyed being a new family unit together! Please be praying for this team as we seek to proclaim the gospel and make disciples in Parramatta! We will now be meeting every Thursday night until we launch.
On Sunday night, Riley was given the opportunity to present the vision and plan of Sovereign Grace Church Parramatta to Sovereign Grace Church, Sydney at their annual Envision Night! It was a joyful and memorable occasion as we take a step forward in planting this church! It was such a great sight to see the 28 members of the congregation who are joining the Plant Team to stand and be identified officially by the church! And then on Wednesday night, the church gathered for a prayer and praise night, where we prayed in particular for Parramatta and laid hands on the team! May God bless us as we move forward!
Sovereign Grace Parramatta is joyfully part of a global family of churches, Sovereign Grace Churches. We are involved in many countries around the world, training, equipping, and planting. If you'd like to hear more about the pioneering work of Sovereign Grace Churches around the world then please sign up for our monthly e-newsletter below:
https://mailchi.mp/44bad787442f/emergingnations
It is with great joy that we get to announce that we currently have 27 members from our church who are joining the Parramatta Launch Team! This launch team will have the daunting and exciting task of taking up the call to make disciples in Parramatta. Please be praying for these men, women, and their families as they embark on the journey together!
In this sermon, Riley unpacks the story of how Levi (or Matthew) began to follow Jesus. We see that Jesus’ mission was not what was expected! Jesus says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” It is only those who realize how sick with sin they are that get their souls healed.
You can listen to it here:
http://www.sovgrace.org.au/media/day-i-met-jesus-dec-2017/day-i-met-jesus-levi
In this sermon, Riley preaches on the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville in the U.S. Riley explains how we must humble our selves before God so that we can receive His mercy.
You can listen to the message here:
