Trinity Mount Barker

This Sunday we begin a new teaching series, Waiting for God.  Our aim, during the lead up to Christmas, is to explore some of the lead up to the very first Christmas as recorded in the opening pages of Luke’s gospel.  This morning we start with the announcement of the news of the approaching birth of the baby who we know as John the Baptist.

John is a somewhat strange figure in his later life, wearing clothes made of camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey.  The announcement of his birth, given by an angel to his father, is strikingly parallel to the announcement of the news of Jesus’ birth, given by an angel to Mary.  So why is this fairly odd figure so significant that his birth is promised the same way as Jesus’ is?

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Thursday night a small group gathered in the church office to pray for Christian brothers and sisters who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus.  It seemed highly appropriate, praying for these members with us of the body of Christ in the middle of our teaching series on prayer!  Here was a chance to put some of what we’ve been learning from the Scriptures into practice.  It wasn’t only us praying.  Christians around the world joined together in prayer this past week as part of the International Day of Prayer for the persecuted church.

Every day around the world, countless thousands of our Christian brothers and sisters suffer violence, intimidation, loss of employment, imprisonment and death simply because they confess Jesus Christ as Lord.  As I mentioned last Sunday, it’s a sad fact that more Christians have died for their faith in Jesus in the last century than in all the previous centuries of the church combined.

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This Sunday will be an exciting day in the life of our church as we launch our vision for ministry for 2012 and beyond.  This doesn't necessarily mean we’re announcing plans to start anything new and different (although we are!). Rather it means that today is the day when we especially want to pause and give thanks to God for the things that he has done for us in his Son, Jesus, and also for the things that he has done amongst us in the last 12 months.

This time last year, as a church, we decided to take advantage of two new opportunities;  taking Andy Buchan on as a Minister in Training with a focus on youth and renting office space in Mount Barker.  In God’s kindness, through both these steps we’ve seen exactly the kind of fruit that we hoped and prayed for, but probably even beyond what we expected!  Our youth ministry has grown from a combined youth and young adults group to two separate groups with a need to start another group and to find a larger hall to meet in.  Our office has become a great ministry support place and is used for a Bible study or youth group five nights each week. We are really thankful to God for the generosity of his people here at Trinity, which has enabled us to take these steps in ministry together.

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