On Wednesday 23rd March, we will have no Life Group’s so that all our church can attend this important seminar hosted by SG Wahroonga with guest speaker Andy Farmer from Covenant Fellowship Church (a SG Church in the US).

The topic is one that affects us all wether personally or with people we know and love: ‘Dealing with the Realities of Mental Illness’. Please put it in the calendar (it should already be there if you have the church cal!), get your baby sitter, and come ready to learn and ask questions.

Lunch after church will be at the Spring’s House, bring $5 per adult for chicken and chips. We’ll have some garlic dip, pickles, and drinks. Looking forward to it!

Your LG leaders will let you know all the details!

A final reminder that this Sunday is our GFF collection Sunday! Please take the time to think through and pray how you’d like to joyfully and generously give this year!

Here are the areas we are planning to support:

BUILDING LOCALLY

VENUE FUND

As we seek to be a faithful gospel presence in our city it is on our heart to be a local church with a local home. We want to have a ‘place’ in our city that we can use as a facility to facilitate works of ministry. And to that end we are seeking to go above and beyond our current venue costs to find our own 24/7 location that can be used for Sunday gatherings, lunches, training, mission, offices, community events etc. 

FUTURE LEADERS

It is one of our great hopes and needs as a young church plant to invest in, raise up, and train future leaders within our church, and even to be looking out to how we can be sending men out for future church plants. In order to do this, we need to be setting aside finances to cover wages, education, fellowship experiences (like SG Pastors Conference) so that we raise up the next generation of not just ‘leaders’, but Sovereign Grace Leaders that share our vision and values. A portion of this fund will be used to fund Richard Song’s Pastoral Internship as well as provide opportunities as needs arise in the future. 

CARING REGIONALLY

INTERNATIONAL CARE MINISTRIES (ICM) 

The Philippines is the 12th most populated country in the world with a total population of 108 million. 23 million people in the Philippines (21%) live in poverty on less than $1.22 (US) per day. Approximately 8 million Filipinos (9%) live in ultra poverty on less that $0.50 (US) a day. These are the people that ICM helps, those who do not have enough food to feed their families, adequate shelter and can’t afford medicine for their sick children. 

It has been an absolute pleasure to partner with ICM over the last few years. Through our giving over the years well over 6250 people, in 25 different communities, have been able to get fed and cared for through the Transform Program, and over 80 local pastors, educated and cared for through the Thrive Program. God willing we’d really like to partner with ICM again in 2021, with an ongoing heart to care for the poor and needy in our part of the world. 

HELPING GLOBALLY

SGC GLOBAL MISSIONS 

Sovereign Grace Churches are our family of Churches. A family who partner together to advance the gospel in Jesus Christ, seeking to fulfil our mission by planting and strengthening churches, training pastors, producing gospel- centered resources, and engaging in missions throughout the world. We’re presently enjoying playing our part in gospel work in over 32 different countries. It’s a big world out there and we’re definitely thrilled to play our part! And yet in all truth we have more gospel opportunities than we have the ability to fund. That’s why we want to once again give to global mission in our family of churches. We exist in Australia because of the generous giving of others, and in global mission, we now have the ongoing opportunity to play our part in the story of others, to the glory of God.

OPEN DOORS

Since 1955, Open Doors has been a gospel-advancing ministry, helping the Church remain in some of the most difficult places on the planet to be a Christian. Open Doors continues to achieve this through discipleship, emergency relief and community development in over 

70 countries. Open Doors believes persecution exists wherever the gospel is shared, but as a ministry they do not exist to end persecution or even prevent it from growing. They exist to give people the strength to stand in the face of persecution and shine as brightly as they can for Jesus. 

Your LG leaders will let you know all the details!

FAILING FORWARD IN EVANGELISM

The first month of “Who’s Your One?” is behind us. It’s a good time to stop and ask: how can I fail forward at evangelism? We’re going to make mistakes. Perhaps, you made some in 2022 already. We’ll speak when we should listen and listen when we should speak. We’ll forget to pray. We’ll get too busy and never meet with the person we intended to share the gospel with. We’ll lose courage and decide not to share the gospel because we’re afraid of their response. We’ll offer Christ to people who say, “No thanks.”

Charles Spurgeon, who described himself as “addicted” to leading people to Christ, had this to say about responding to evangelism failures:

“I may be speaking to a few who have not succeeded; if so, I would recommend them to look steadily over their motive, their spirit, their work, and their prayer, and then begin again. Perhaps they may get to work more wisely, more believingly, more humbly, and more in the power of the Holy Spirit. They must act as farmers do who, after a poor harvest, plow again in hope. They ought not to be dispirited, but they ought to be aroused. We should be anxious to find out the reason of failure, if there be any, and we should be ready to learn from all our fellow-laborers; but we must steadfastly set our faces, if by any means we may save some, resolving that whatever happens we will leave no stone unturned to effect the salvation of those around us.”

What should we do when we fail at evangelism? Consider how we could improve next time. Remember that God uses imperfect messengers to convey His perfect message. And try again expecting God to bring in His harvest.

NEXT STEPS

1. Decide who your “one” is for March and prepare to share about them with your Lifegroup. If you failed to share the gospel with your “one” from February, feel free to pick them and try again this month!

2. Think through ways you’ve failed in evangelism and what you can do to improve next time. Prepare to share your thoughts with your Lifegroup.

3. Review the ‘Two ways To Live’ booklet (Two Ways To Live) OR re-listen to the clip viewed during Lifegroups last week on ‘how can we make sure that we have a good idea of what to say when sharing the gospel?’ (apassionforlife.org.uk/fw4-view)

May God bless our efforts this month to share the gospel with those who are lost and need to be found!

-Richie-

Join us this Friday Night to pray.

Nothing fancy. Nothing professional.

Just humble, dependent, and hungry prayer.

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”

Eph 6.18-20

Please take 5 minutes to read Jared Mellinger’s latest article in the SGC Journal, ‘Build Something Durable: The Value of Thinking Institutionally”. Although that title may not sound very intriguing, I would like us as a church here in Parramatta to know more of the family of churches we belong to and to understand how we operate as a denomination. Here in Australia, we are pioneering a new denomination, not just a network of a few churches and so we need to think how do we build well so that it will last!

Friends, Easter is less than 40 days away! Easter is such an incredibly important time in the church calendar as it is a whole weekend devoted to thinking through the most important event in human history, the betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

It is common for Aussies to take this as a weekend off. But as Christians, may I encourage you to decide to make this a weekend ON! A weekend, where the Government and our workplaces allows us to have Friday through Monday for worship! What a gift that is, so let us steward the gift wisely!

As a church we will have three key events over Easter:

1. Thursday: The Golgotha Experience (evening) - a live performance of an album by ‘Poor Bishop Hooper’ listen to it here: https://www.golgothamusic.com/welcome

2. Friday: Good Friday Service (evening)

3. Sunday: Resurrection Sunday Service w. Baptisms (morning)

Easter is my favourite time of the year. Let’s make best use of the time for the days are evil by preparing our hearts and our calendars to worship Jesus and invite others to worship him!

Today we got the keys to Iron St and already we’ve been busy cleaning it up and getting it ready for our Music Night tonight. There are going to be so many different jobs to help make this space ours. A short list already:

• gardening

• cleaning

• high pressure cleaning of the pavement/walls

• some fix-it jobs

• technical (projectors, internet etc)

• painting

• organising

• decorating

• creatives

If you have time, skills, a willing attitude, please contact Richard (richard@sgparra.org.au) to volunteer to help. Stay tuned for a working bee.