This week we have the privilege of having Eric Turbedsky with us for our Men’s Conference. On Sunday, he will be serving our Wahroonga church and so if you’d like to meet Eric and sit under his teaching you can visit Wahroonga for either their 10am or 5pm service, head to www.sovgrace.org.au for location and more details.
Also, we wil have Andrew Leung from Wahroonga preaching for us this Sunday!
We are hoping to have Ladies Coffee Mornings back on this term and we are looking for some volunteers to host one of these mornings. These are a great opportunity to have some unhurried fellowship with other ladies from church during the week.
If you are keen to host a coffee morning this term, please contact Rebs Song at admin@sgparra.org.au.
Have you been using your prayer guide?
The hope and aim of putting this together was that we’d grow even more into a praying church. One of the best ways to practically love people in our church is…to pray for them!! Even though it feels impractical, prayer is like a divine radio walkie talkie to heaven, where you can call down blessings and supplies for your friends and family.
This guide was designed to be used every month so even though it says ‘September’ on the front that was just the printing date! Just follow the day number with your calendar and pray through the people and the items until we update it in 6 months time.
Colossians 4:2
Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
October 31 is Reformation Day, commemorating the day Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/luther-ninety-five-theses-what-you-may-not-know-why-they-matter-today/?amp=1) on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg Germany. This sparked a ripple effect which caused the Protestant Reformation.
We owe our understanding of the Gospel, the grace of God, and the fact we can read the Bible in our own languages, and so much more to what was (re)discovered during this period. Many of these Reformers were beaten, imprisoned, and put to death for their actions of serving the Church.
For the next 30 days Desiring God Has a short (5-8 min) podcast or email that tells the story of the Reformation day by day. It’s called “Here We Stand”. I urge you to follow this so that you can know our history and appreciate all that God has done for us over the past 500 years. It is fascinating, inspiring, and faith building!
Email:
https://www.desiringgod.org/here-we-stand
Apple Pod:
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/here-we-stand/id1288434187
Spotify Pod:
Our next Women’s Breakfast is coming up THIS SATURDAY! It will be on the topic of Untangling Emotions.
Our dear friend and sister Rachel Pettett will be giving a talk on what God’s word has to say about our emotions and how to find Jesus in the mess of our emotions.
We hope you can join us for this time of fellowship, food and teaching!
When: 8:30-10:30am, THIS Saturday 5th October
Location: 27 Iron St, North Parramatta
Cost: $5pp (+$3 if you’d like a barista coffee from the local cafe - let Rebs know your order by this Friday)
RSVP: Rebs at admin@sgparra.org.au (by Sunday 29 Sept)
Daylight Saving Time will be starting this Sunday! Here’s your friendly reminder to set your clocks forward one hour on Saturday night and to budget in for the hour lost this Sunday.
Looking forward to worshiping with you!
There will be no groups during the school break (this week and next), but this may be a great opportunity to spend that time catching up with your group members, or even those outside of your group!
We hope and pray that you are enjoying a restful break!
As we seek to grow in our mission I thought i’d put together a bunch of my thoughts into one place. Here’s good stuff I have stolen or gleaned or developed in the past month as I have thought lots about mission.
I present to you my mission cheat sheet.
Let’s be thinking: how can I bring Jesus to my friends OR bring my friends to Jesus!
Here’s a taster:
1) Don’t overlook the need to prepare the way. If Jesus needed John the Baptist to come first and clear the ground and prepare the way for Jesus, then we too need to do that in our day and age. If we just run up to someone in our workplace and blurt out “I have found the Messiah”, we shouldn’t be surprised if they book us an appointment with the workplace counsellor…most often the way needs to prepared, the ground cleared, relationships formed, and this all takes time.
2) Be mindful of plausibility structures. These are “accepted beliefs, convictions, and understandings that either green-light truth claims as plausible or red-light them as implausible.” (Sam Chan). E.g. For most people the believability of the gospel is similar to us saying we were abducted by an alien last night whilst watching Television. Almost everything in our culture red lights Christianity at the moment. So we need to be aware of the communal, experiential, and intellectual factors that can either aid or dissuade against belief.
3) Conversations have three layers. Most conversations work in three concentric circles from: interest > values > worldview. The outer layer = interests: footy, food, cafes, movies, books, music, holiday places. The middle layer = values: what’s good or bad, better or worse, wise or unwise; your views on raising children, political issues, how to manage the environment, same-sex relationships. The innermost layer = worldviews: the core beliefs of our life, our views on God, what happens after death, spirituality, identity and personhood. Etc. These three layers also move from safe > vulnerable, public > private, open > closed. Given our toxic cancel culture, its no wonder people only want to stay in the safe ‘interests’ zone! But for most Christians, we are very used to talking about our worldview beliefs openly and publicly. Most people, who aren’t high schoolers or uni students, are formed in their beliefs, and very rarely talk about it or want to…we need to be mindful of this and work safely and sensitively from the outside to the inside, earning trust, and loving them along the way not trying to push or pry, otherwise, we will be seen as unsafe and untrustworthy. Look for hints they want to go deeper, ask permission to take the conversation there, ask questions or ask them to keep going “tell me more”. Don’t do what I do too often, try and have a deep worldview conversation with someone whilst waiting in line for a sausage sandwich at the soccer club. It often takes a long time in our day and age to get their and see someone change their worldview, of course, we know the Spirit can act instantaneously and may he do so more and more!
G2G will be on this Friday 27 September, 6-8PM! It will be held at 27 Iron Street, North Parramatta.
No parent participation is required this month.
We will be continuing our Alpha Youth series - going into week 2! Please be praying for the youth of SG Parra and any friends who come along - that God would work powerfully as the Gospel is presented to them.
Our next Women’s Breakfast is coming up THIS SATURDAY! It will be on the topic of Untangling Emotions.
Our dear friend and sister Rachel Pettett will be giving a talk on what God’s word has to say about our emotions and how to find Jesus in the mess of our emotions.
We hope you can join us for this time of fellowship, food and teaching!
When: 8:30-10:30am, THIS Saturday 5th October
Location: 27 Iron St, North Parramatta
Cost: $5pp (+$3 if you’d like a barista coffee from the local cafe - let Rebs know your order by this Friday)
RSVP: Rebs at admin@sgparra.org.au (by Sunday 29 Sept)