No matter who you are, there is an opportunity to be challenged and encouraged at a conference in May!
Adelaide Men’s Convention will be held next Saturday, May 12, at Concordia College, Highgate. David Williams will be speaking from the Psalms on the theme of “Soul Man.” David is Director of Development, Training and Strategy with the Church Missionary Society and is was formerly a pastor in the UK and a missionary in Kenya.
Recent Adelaide Men’s Conventions have been times of stimulating and challenging Bible teaching as well as opportunities to meet with men of all ages from all across Adelaide and even further afield. This year’s conference promises to be no exception.
This week I spent some time in Melbourne taking part in a church planting conference. The Geneva Push is an Australia-wide network seeking to see, under God, hundreds of churches evangelised into existence across the country and the National In The Chute conference brings together church leaders and members from all different parts of the country to hear the Bible taught and to learn from each others’ ideas and experiences.
My role in the conference was to speak about our experiences in church planting, what we’ve learned and what we’ve seen God do amongst us in the 21 months since Trinity Mount Barker began. I got to answer lots of great questions about our church and explain the ways we do different things. It was great to see so many churches and Christian people trying to work out how to take the gospel of Jesus forward in their regions.
Mark your diaries now! CV Conference will be running on the October Long Weekend 2012. Clayton Fopp will be speaking from 1 Peter and Warwick de Jersey from St Matthias, Centennial Park in Sydney will be speaking on Titus.
This week I attended the Oxygen Conference in Sydney, along with other members of the Trinity staff team and 2500 others! Oxygen is a conference for pastors and Christian leaders and included keynote talks from John Piper, the well-known author and pastor, and John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford.
I thought I would share with you a few personal highlights that I hope and pray will shape my approach to life and ministry:
For the last 10 years or so, every October Long Weekend, I’ve headed down to Victor Harbor to be part of CV Conference. CV Conference is part of a strategy to see faithful and passionate Christian leaders raised up for the growth of God’s church in Adelaide, Australia and around the world. Since we believe that God raises up leaders for his church, CV aims to provide space and opportunities for everyday Christians to consider whether they should be serving God in full-time or part time vocational gospel ministry in Australia or overseas.
One of the things I love about being at CV Conference is the chance to work as a “Coach” helping people assess their gifts, aptitude and personality in order to help them discern the best ways that they can serve God and his church. Over the years I’ve come to the realisation that one of the reasons that many people who could be serving the church in full-time or part-time leadership aren’t doing it, is simply because we haven’t been intentional about helping people think it through.
In July this year Trinity will be presenting the inaugural Revelation Music and Ministry Conference. The goal of the conference is not primarily to improve the skills of musicians in church, although there will be workshops aimed at developing particular skills. Rather our goal in running the event is to help Christians; musicians, pastors and members of churches grow in their understanding of the role of music within the Christian community and particularly the important part that music plays in our Sunday gatherings.
We are very pleased to have Rev Dr David Peterson giving the keynote talks at the conference. David is an internationally respected theologian, teacher and author, having written and taught extensively on Christian worship and liturgy. David is the author of the seminal work on Christian Worship, Engaging with God.
In two weeks time we have the opportunity to benefit from a terrific training resource, the Equip training weekend. Equip runs from Friday evening, 25th March and Saturday 26thMarch at Concordia College, Highgate. The aim of equip is to train Christians both in skills and also in understanding and thinking about the Christian faith.
In recent weeks we have been highlighting three of the Equip subjects as being particularly beneficial or interesting; Church, Baptism & The Lord’s Supper with Peter Adam, principal of Ridley College, Melbourne, aims to help us see ourselves more as God sees us, not just as individuals, but as members of God’s people, Christ’s church. Peter is one of Australia’s leading Bible teachers and theologians and over the weekend, will take participants through what the Bible says about baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Jesus Christ promised to build his church (Matthew 16:18) and we know that God gives leaders to his church, “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up” (Ephesians 4:12).
CV Conference is a ministry that under God, seeks to help people consider if they might be equipped by God to serve his people in full-time or part-time vocational gospel ministry. CV runs on the October Long Weekend each year and, since its inception, has helped numerous individuals, couples and families consider the best way that they can serve God and his people, either in Australia or overseas.
This week I attended the National Conference of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC), in Sydney. FIEC exists to encourage and support the planting of Christ-centred Bible-teaching churches across Australia and to support the gospel ministry that occurs within these churches.
The time at the conference was really encouraging. We were able to hear how God is at work through churches large and small around the country and we also heard plans for a number of new churches that, under God, will commence in the next twelve months or so.
I also came away from the conference determined to think more deliberately and theologically about “church”. I was struck during my time away how much church matters to God. It’s easy for us just to think of church as a group of which we’re a member, or something that we come and take part in, but church is much more than that. “Church” means gathering. The church is a gathering of God’s people which represents and foreshadows the gathering of God’s people in heaven. Ten times in the New Testament, the church is called the Church of God. Even individual churches can be said to be God’s church (1 Corinthians 11:16, 1 Thessalonians 2:14, etc). Jesus calls the church “my church” (Matthew 16:18), and in what is the most explicit reference to the atonement in the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul identifies the church as “the church of God, which he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). Clearly God has a very high view of the church!
Still haven't made up your mind about coming to CV Conference 2009?
If you're interested in church planting, there's an extra incentive (maybe)! James Harricks and I are running an elective on Church Planting on the Saturday afternoon!
It will be everything the 2 of us know about church planting. After that 5 minutes, we'll be thinking about why get involved in a church plant, who should be thinking about church planting, and what might be some helpful next steps if you're considering that God might be leading you into either leading or being a part of a church plant.
Many years ago, I was a skinny young kid in Boys Brigade in Darwin. I was a member of the "Sensational 7th NT, Sanderson" as our wonderful leader, the late Paul Gillam used to call us. In those days, which seem like a lifetime ago, we learned to recite The Object of Boys Brigade "The advancement of Christ's Kingdom among Boys, and the promotion of habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-Respect, and all that tends towards a true Christian Manliness."
On reading the Adelaide Men's Convention website in preparation to register for AMC 09 I discovered the stated goals of AMC. These are some great goals for a conference to have, and as it happens, I thought they are really just like a grown-up version of the Object of Boys Bridage!
Men growing strong in their commitment to the Lord Jesus. Men giving God-honouring leadership in marriage, family, church, work and community. Encouraging vital men’s ministry in the local church. Men winning men to Christ.
CV conference provides a rare opportunity to take three days time-out, away from daily responsibilities and distractions, to think and pray through your ministry plans for the future.
The aim is raise up faithful, passionate Christian leaders for the growth of God’s church in Adelaide and around the world. The conference program combines a variety of Bible talks, small group discussions, elective seminars and personal mentoring with a ‘coach’ during the weekend.
Adelaide Men’s Convention
This week I spent some time in Melbourne taking part in a church planting conference. The Geneva Push is an Australia-wide network seeking to see, under God, hundreds of churches evangelised into existence across the country and the National In The Chute conference brings together church leaders and members from all different parts of the country to hear the Bible taught and to learn from each others’ ideas and experiences.
Rather our goal in running the event is to help Christians; musicians, pastors and members of churches grow in their understanding of the role of music within the Christian community and particularly the important part that music plays in our Sunday gatherings.
Still haven't made up your mind about coming to CV Conference 2009?
Many years ago, I was a skinny young kid in Boys Brigade in Darwin. I was a member of the "Sensational 7th NT, Sanderson" as our wonderful leader, the late Paul Gillam used to call us. In those days, which seem like a lifetime ago, we learned to recite The Object of Boys Brigade "The advancement of Christ's Kingdom among Boys, and the promotion of habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-Respect, and all that tends towards a true Christian Manliness."
