Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 17 February, 2012
When you come in to the gymnasium this Sunday you'll find a Prayer Focus postcard waiting for you. I think it is fairly self-explanatory! Our hope is that these cards will help all of us make the most of the gospel opportunities that our growing to two Sunday morning gatherings will provide. A new beginning for our church gives new opportunities for new beginnings for the people we care about to become part of our church community and hear about Jesus. Naturally, simply coming along to church doesn’t make somebody a Christian, which is why we want to be praying and asking God to be changing people’s hearts and making himself known to them.
On the front of the card is space to write the names of up to five friends, family, neighbours or colleagues who you can pray for in the lead up to our growing to two on April 29th. These may be people you are already praying for, or you may like to spend some time thinking about whose names you can write there. It doesn’t matter if you can’t come up with five names, you can always start with just one!
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 16 February, 2012
Hi TMBers, to help you as you pray for your friends, family and colleagues who don't know Jesus in the lead up to our growing to two services, we've got new Prayer Focus Cards for you, hot off the printing presses!
You'll be able to pick one up on Sunday and write the names of five friends you're praying for. On the reverse are some suggested things to pray for them as we prepare to grow to 9 AM and 11 AM on Sunday April 29.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 13 January, 2012
On August 8th 2005 The Jesus, All About Life marketing campaign was launched in Adelaide. The message that Jesus really is “all about life” was splashed across roadside billboards, and beamed into homes on TV and radio. It was described as the largest promotional campaign ever undertaken by Christians in Australia and has since been repeated in many Australian cities. The theme of the campaign was based on Jesus’ words in the second half of John 10:10 I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
The campaign was considered a great success. People from all walks of life across our city were engaging in conversations about Jesus and Christians were encouraged to share the hope that they have in Christ. It was great to be able to publicly identify with the ads and with the picture of Jesus that was being presented to Adelaide. It was a privilege to stand with Christians from churches all across the city and say, “Yes, I believe that Jesus is all about life.”
I wonder though, if our lives agree?
Does the way we live suggest we really do believe that Jesus is all about life?
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 2 December, 2011
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.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 14 October, 2011
Last Sunday was a great day! Sharing in Will & Shirley’s wedding was a special treat. Thank you to everyone who helped out with our slightly different Sunday and please keep praying for Will and Shirley as they adjust to married life together.
Last Sunday we also learnt something. We learnt how many people we can comfortably fit in the building – exactly as many as were here! Sure, there was a seat here and a seat there, but we reached the effective capacity of the gym. If one more family had walked in, they wouldn’t have been able to sit together. In fact, as the last few people joined us, the helpers who sit up the back gave up their seats and stood up for the service.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 10 August, 2011
This coming week sees “Jesus Week” unleashed across the university campuses on North Terrace, Adelaide. Jesus Week is a week of heightened evangelism which takes place during Week 4 of second semester each year. ES, the evangelical students group, 
aims to be sharing the good news of Jesus on campus all year, but this week is the focus of the year’s evangelistic efforts.
This year’s Jesus Week theme is “If There is a God …” and the week involves a range of events and activities, from themed jumpers (bright purple this year!) to cold-contact evangelism, hand-out cards, Bible Talks at lunch time daily and a debate with a representative from the university philosophy department.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 7 May, 2011
In a few weeks I'm giving a talk on "Technology, Connectedness and the Christian Life." In preparation, I've been doing some reading on how different people use various aspects of technology to communicate the gospel of Jesus.
On the website of Global Recordings Network, I came across something that I saw first-hand more than 20 years ago and which ever since I've struggled to convince people actually exists!
It's the "Card Talk" cardboard record player, pictured at right.
Back around 1989 we discovered one out the back of our school library. Initially we couldn't work out what this strange piece of folded carboard was and why it had a needle attached to one end, but the fact that there was a vinyl record with the cardboard suggested this was in fact a record player!
Sure enough, we placed the record on the eyelet on the cardboard, folded the end of the carboard so that the needle rested on the record and when we spun the record, we could hear the sound! The vibrations of the needle were amplified by the 'baffle' of cardboard and we could clearly understand the spoken word recording.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 9 March, 2011
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 26th March 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.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 19 January, 2011
“Psssst! Hey you, wanna be part of something big?” It sounds like a line from of one of those 80’s TV cop shows! A man with the collar on his trench coat turned up high, hat pulled low over his eyes, whispering at passers-by from the shadows of a dark alley.
Well, the scene might fit with a bad television mystery, but the invitation comes straight out of the pages of the Bible! In his second letter to the Christians in Corinth in the first Century AD, the Apostle Paul says that God invites us to be part of what he is doing in the world. In fact the language is even stronger than that; Paul says that if we are a Christian, then through the message of the apostles, God has “committed to us the message of reconciliation”.
The good news that transforms lives and hearts has been committed to us! We are Christ’s ambassadors, as Paul goes on to say. When we speak to those around us of the great lengths God has gone to in order to achieve reconciliation, God sees that as if he himself were imploring our friends to respond.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 19 August, 2010
We're experimenting with putting talks on video to make available on the web.
Here's our first test - it's The Hope of Reconciliation, a 15 minute talk based on Colossians 1:15 - 23.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 10 March, 2010
There are a couple of really exciting things happening around Trinity that I'd like to commend to your prayers.
A number of years ago Trinity developed the Why? evangelistic course as a way of introducing people to Jesus as he is presented in the Scriptures. Why? gives participants the opportunity to work towards answers to some of life’s really significant questions; Why Jesus? Why did Jesus die? Why did he rise from the dead? Why trust the Bible? and Why Believe? Over the years, in God’s kindness, many people have come to faith in Christ as the Scriptures are opened and explained at Why?
Last Sunday saw the first of the five week Why? series run in Strathalbyn. Over 40 people came to be challenged on the question, “Why Jesus?” This Sunday (14th March) Why? continues with the question “Why did Jesus die?” and we hope that those who were challenged last week will come again and that God will being new people along. Please pray with us, that the message of Christ will ring out over the coming weeks, culminating with “Why Believe?” on Easter Day. Ask that God will bring people along to hear his message of reconciliation and forgiveness and that those people leading and taking part will commend the gospel well. Please pray also that we will be an encouragement to the other churches in Strathalbyn, particularly the Church of Christ, who are working with us in presenting Why?
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 3 February, 2010
The right perspective makes all the difference, doesn’t it?
It was at the Australian Open Tennis back in 2001 that Andre Agassi famously said of Yevgeny Kafelnikov, “he should take his prize money when he's done here and go buy some perspective.”
I studied a Health Sciences degree at Adelaide University, what seems like a long time ago, now! But I clearly remember what must have been one of my very first classes in the laboratory; we were supposed to be looking at various bacteria under the microscope. I laid everything out on the slide as I thought I was supposed to, squeezing on a bit of this dye and some of that chemical. I then stared down the microscope to see … just a purple blob up very close!
Fortunately the future of medical research in Australia didn’t depend on me! The professor came over, “Clayton, this is how you do it. If you lay it out like this, if you look at it this way, it will all become clear!” All of a sudden the view down the eyepiece is one of amazing colour and abundant life. It was there all along, I hadn’t seen it because I hadn’t been looking at it the right way.
With the right perspective, what I had thought was a boring procedure keeping me from my Friday afternoon, suddenly became a privilege.
“Evangelism” and “privilege” are two words that often don’t go together in our vocabulary.
We might find it difficult to speak about the good news of Christ.
We might be worried about what people will think of us.
Yet the Apostle Paul, one of the messengers of the early church, says that God has entrusted to us his ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18). The process by which people come to know the God who made them, loves them and sent his Son to die for them, is God’s work and he invites us to partner with him in that work.
Perhaps having this perspective might help us shift evangelism from the “chore” column to the “privilege” column. It’s all how you look at it!
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 27 January, 2010
One of the hats that I wear is that of Vice President of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in SA. It’s a real privilege to be involved in the training and sending out of men and women like Nigel & Rose Klein (Trinity Mount Barker's first link missionaries) for God’s mission in the world. When I first became involved in CMS I discovered that the society had its own prayer; the CMS Prayer. This was somewhat of a novelty for me, that an organisation would have its own prayer, but I’ve since come to appreciate it and use it in various situations, including those Sunday services when we commission people for overseas missionary service.
The opening words of the CMS Prayer are based on 1 Timothy 2:4 and read, “God, whose will it is that everyone should be saved…”
Thinking and praying this week about new ministries, evangelistic opportunities and our desire for many people to hear the good news of Jesus, I was mulling over the answers to this question: How does someone come to a saving knowledge of God?
There are many component answers; Through hearing, through questioning, through being told, through study and the pursuit of the truth. But the short answer is this: Through being confronted by God - through seeing God face to face in the person of Jesus Christ. Of course we don’t see Jesus Christ personally like his disciples did, but we have their eye-witness testimony. The historical document that is our New Testament preserves their experiences for us 2 millennia later. As the 18th Century preacher Jonathan Edwards observed, “a person can’t have spiritual light without the Word.”
And so when the word of God, with its centre at the cross of Christ, is proclaimed, quietly spoken, offered in answer to a friend’s question or lived out and explained, God in his mercy illuminates minds and hearts so that people can know with certainty that in the face of Christ they see the glory of God eternal.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 27 January, 2010
One of the hats that I wear is that of Vice President of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in SA. It’s a real privilege to be involved in the training and sending out of men and women like Nigel & Rose Klein (Trinity Mount Barker's first link missionaries) for God’s mission in the world. When I first became involved in CMS I discovered that the society had its own prayer; the CMS Prayer. This was somewhat of a novelty for me, that an organisation would have its own prayer, but I’ve since come to appreciate it and use it in various situations, including those Sunday services when we commission people for overseas missionary service.
The opening words of the CMS Prayer are based on 1 Timothy 2:4 and read, “God, whose will it is that everyone should be saved…”
Thinking and praying this week about new ministries, evangelistic opportunities and our desire for many people to hear the good news of Jesus, I was mulling over the answers to this question: How does someone come to a saving knowledge of God?
There are many component answers; Through hearing, through questioning, through being told, through study and the pursuit of the truth. But the short answer is this: Through being confronted by God - through seeing God face to face in the person of Jesus Christ. Of course we don’t see Jesus Christ personally like his disciples did, but we have their eye-witness testimony. The historical document that is our New Testament preserves their experiences for us 2 millennia later. As the 18th Century preacher Jonathan Edwards observed, “a person can’t have spiritual light without the Word.”
And so when the word of God, with its centre at the cross of Christ, is proclaimed, quietly spoken, offered in answer to a friend’s question or lived out and explained, God in his mercy illuminates minds and hearts so that people can know with certainty that in the face of Christ they see the glory of God eternal.
Posted by: Clayton Fopp
on 25 January, 2010
So the launch of this new church is getting closer!
Appropriately, it's good for us who are planning to be part of Trinity Mount Barker, not only to prepare things like invitations (designed, not yet printed), PA equipment (delivered) and coffee percolators (ordered) but also that we prepare ourselves.
Since we're convinced that the best thing about church planting is that it creates lots of opportunities for evangelism, let's take some time to reflect on some different aspects of that. In subsequent posts I'll look at some of the "how" and "what," but for the moment let's turn our attention to “The People of Evangelism.”
