Church family, we want to thank you deeply and sincerely for your exceedingly generous and kind gift to us. Thank you for honouring my wife and kids in such a special way, they certainly serve their hearts out and it was a joy to see their faces as they opened their gifts. You are all too kind and very naughty! I had a great Daddy-Daughter date with Evie today reading through her new bible, and Jasper is stoked with his Action Bible, and Judah is obsessed with his tool set and truck! It truly is such a joy to be the pastor of this church!
Wow! What a Sunday! It was such a joy to look back on all that the Lord has done and to celebrate it with you all as a church family! We missed those who couldn’t join us, but you were in our hearts! Here is a link to the awesome video that Abi made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5plP-wf5KCc&feature=youtu.be !
You can re-listen to the message here!
Mak is going to be making a video of the service itself so those who missed it can experience it and so that we can remember it and re-live it!
After much thinking and praying I have decided that I’d love us to run a formal Christianity Explored course alongside our normal method of inviting people to do it one-one. The reality is, we need to try many different ways and means to help reach out!
So the plan is to start with a free Coffee + Dessert Night @ JBrewers to introduce the course and then once people sign up to run the course at the Girls House in Parra over the next 7 weeks.
So…who are you going to invite? Let’s start praying and thinking and going out in boldness! Who knows, it could be flop, and no one may come…or maybe some people will come, and investigate Jesus…and maybe they will become Christians! We won’t know unless we try!
Interested in helping us pull this off? We will need a team of people to be involved running this course, others to bake, others to make coffee. Let me know if you are keen! It will be Tuesday nights next term!
Want to share this graphic with someone? Here is a link to it
After much thinking and praying I have decided that I’d love us to run a formal Christianity Explored course alongside our normal method of inviting people to do it one-one. The reality is, we need to try many different ways and means to help reach out!
So the plan is to start with a free Coffee + Dessert Night @ JBrewers to introduce the course and then once people sign up to run the course at the Girls House in Parra over the next 7 weeks.
So…who are you going to invite? Let’s start praying and thinking and going out in boldness! Who knows, it could be flop, and no one may come…or maybe some people will come, and investigate Jesus…and maybe they will become Christians! We won’t know unless we try!
Interested in helping us pull this off? We will need a team of people to be involved running this course, others to bake, others to make coffee. Let me know if you are keen! It will be Tuesday nights next term!
Hey church! What a year it has been, and what a joy it will be to spend some time celebrating this on Sunday!
A few notes to help you be prepared:
1) Address: 1/106 Grose St, North Parramatta NSW 2151
2) Time: 3pm, same as our new normal time
3) SG Kids: kids will be upstairs, and there will be a few volunteers from Wahroonga who will be helping too
4) Temperature Check: LifeChurch have asked us to do a temperature check as we come in.
5) Guests: You can invite guests :)
6) Seating: Life Church have seating already laid out, but it’s not set up for covid, so they have asked if we can ensure there is at least a one seat + one row gap between ppl of different households. The welcome team will help you with this on the weekend.
Looking forward to seeing you all this Sunday!
On Sunday we studies Matthew 3:1-12 and saw how John the Baptist came to prepare the way of the King and His Kingdom. And we are called to be prepared ourselves, by repenting, and to be preparing others to meet the king. You can listen to it here.
In the sermon on Sunday we finished by reflecting on the reality that we have a John the Baptist like ministry, we too are called to prepare the way for the Lord, but not for his coming, his second coming. On that day when He comes, there will be great fear and dread, as well as, joy and celebration. It all depends on whether we personally, and our friends and families have repented of their sins and begun following Jesus.
To help us with this task of preparing people to meet Jesus, I thought I’d remind us of our mission strategy, C4. Here are some notes I pinched from Pastor Brendan at our Wahroonga church:
1. Connect - If you don’t have any friends that don’t know Christ this is the place to start!
- Knock on your neighbour’s door and say “Hi”
- Join a missional community and make a friend
- Spend a day in prayer and fasting asking God for opportunities
2. Care - The next step is to look for opportunities to display Christ by showing radical love to someone.
- Invite a colleague over for dinner
- Buy groceries for a neighbour in need
- Ask your GC to cook meals for a friend who’s going through a difficult time
3. Communicate - This step is where we take a leap of faith by sharing the good news of Jesus with a friend.
- Run a Christianity Explored course and invite your friends
- Ask your neighbour ‘What their church background is?’
- Pray for an opportunity to share your testimony
4. Call - This step is where we invite someone to receive Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
- Ask your friend what stops them from following Jesus and see if they’re open to working through their objections with you.
- Invite them to join your GC and to try out Christian community
Please know, your pastors are keen to pray for you as you do this, so please email us at prayer@sovgrace.org.au and we will pray for you and your friend, neighbour, colleague or relative. And may some this week, be introduced to Christ, repent and be saved.
On Sunday we will finish our time by singing a new Sovereign Grace Music song: When Christ Our Life Appears off the latest album, The Glorious Christ.
The lyrics help us to anticipate the day when Jesus will return and the Kingdom will come in all its glory! May this song help you to get ready and excited for that day! Here are the lyrics:
When Christ our life appears, our hope will be complete
Our longings finally rest as we fall at His feet
When Jesus comes to reign, restoring everything
Our tears will turn to tides of praises to our King
We’re longing for that day when we’ll see
Christ, our Savior
We’ll behold the glory of our King forever
Christ, our Savior
Faith will turn to sight when Christ our life appears
When Christ our life appears, the curse will be undone
All wickedness will end as mercy overcomes
The Savior will renew what sin had torn apart
His light will drive the shadows from our weary hearts
We’re longing for that day when we’ll see
Christ, our Savior
We’ll behold the glory of our King forever
Christ, our Savior
Faith will turn to sight when Christ our life appears
When Christ our life appears, these trials that weighed us down
Will fade and fall away as He receives our crowns
And death will disappear, its rule and reign destroyed
Beneath the weight of glory and eternal joy
We’re longing for that day when we’ll see
Christ, our Savior
We’ll behold the glory of our King forever
Christ, our Savior
Faith will turn to sight when Christ our life appears
Turn your eyes to the heavens
Our King will return for His own
Every knee will bow, every tongue will shout,
‘All glory to Jesus alone!’
I am so excited to share with you this post From Jeff Purswell, Dean of the Sovereign Grace Pastors College and Director of Theology.! I cannot wait for these guys and their families to experience this PC year! Please pray for them!
Last week we kicked off the 22nd academic year of the Sovereign Grace Pastors College. As you might imagine, we’ve spent a great deal of time making program adjustments and contingency plans in the face of the remarkable season in which we find ourselves. Yet, none of that dampened the joy and anticipation we experienced last week. We are marveling yet again at the quality of students and their families sent to us by our churches. Thank you for investing in these families, and for entrusting them to us for the next 10 months. They are truly an expression of God’s goodness to Sovereign Grace and a tremendous encouragement to us as we consider our future as a family of churches.
This year, we have 10 students, ranging in age from 23-41. They hail from 6 different churches in 3 states, with one international student from Juarez, Mexico. Some come from full-time ministry, some from the marketplace, and some from academic settings. But they have all arrived obviously eager to maximize the opportunities this year will afford for learning and growth.
Let me introduce you to the class of 2021.
Back row: Ethan Montesinos – Louisville, KY • Reid Williamson – Louisville, KY • Josh Varnedoe – Knoxville, TN • Kevin Busch – Middletown, PA • Nick Kidwell – Glen Mills, PA
Front row: Taylor Hollingsworth – Athens, TN • Andrew Maples – Louisville, KY • Austin Jones – Louisville, KY • Jake Cronin – Knoxville, TN • Edgar Flores – Juarez, MX
All of our labors and good intentions profit nothing without the Lord’s hand of blessing. Would you please join us as we pray for our students and their families? We’re asking that:
A hunger for God and his word would be kindled and burn bright and continuous throughout the year
Marriages and families would be strengthened and find new life and joy and godliness
Minds would expand and grasp truth and its contours and relationships and implications
A passion and faith for God’s purposes in the local church would be galvanized
Gifts for ministry would be discovered and sharpened and empowered
Dimensions of God’s calling would be discerned and vision for ministry clarified and inflamed
Teachers would be strengthened and sharpened and graced to teach their courses like never before
In everything, every context and in every way, Christ would be magnified in every mind, heart, and life associated with the Pastors College
Thank you for your support.
Dear Church,
I am pleased to write to you that because of your generosity in giving we have been able to recently go above and beyond to bless and support a number of ministries locally and around the world! We are aware that for many it is a tough time financially and I believe we are called to share our plenty with those in need!
We have given funds to:
1) International Care Ministries Transform Project in the Philippines. In this program they partner with local churches to distribute aid, teach on hygiene and values education. The fils has been hit hard by COVID and so we wouldn’t to further support ICM this year. (we gave to them during our Go Forward Fund in March)
2) YoungLife Parramatta - this is a local youth outreach program that aims to make connections with the local youth and be the bridge to local churches. A few members have been volunteering there and its a joy to se the work they do. Watch a video from them here.
3) Campus Bible Ministry (CBM) Parramatta - This is a local campus ministry run at the University of Western Sydney. The worker, Sonny Singh, is an assistant minister at Dundas - Telopea Anglican and has heart to reach the many and varied peoples who go to UWS.
4) Sovereign Grace Churches - We were generously supported financially by our family of churches and we want to do all that we can to be a part of blessing them and helping other churches to be planted, we already give 5% of our offerings to SG but we wanted to make a special offering to thank them for all they do!
5) Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville Building Fund - This church is very near and dear to us! It is where CJ Mahaney, Jeff Purswell, and Bob Kauflin are all pastors at, it is where our family were members of for a year, and it is the church which hosts the Pastors College. They have recently set up a building fund so that they can have a lasting presence in their city and so we wanted to send them a gift to be a part of their vision! Click the link to watch their video.