Here is the elders report for 2008 as presented at the AGM on Wednesday 25th March 2009.

Elders Report 2008

Over the past few years the WAVE Summer Festival has included Carols, Christmas Services, the WAVE Kids Club and a Jazz Concert. Over the next few years we want to continue to build on the existing structures that make up the Summer Festival. We want to see people within HBC to be thinking about and also seeing through ideas that will enable us as a church to serve and love the community over the Christmas period.

Some ideas that have already been posed:

• Shopping Trolley Drive at the local shops to gather goods for Anglicare or the Salvation Army or some other well organised charity we can trust.

• New Years Eve Party relief centre: New Years Eve is not always a happy time for people. Some have suggested it would be a good idea to offer our services to people in the city who need something to eat and somewhere to rest, or someone to talk to, or just need to sober up before going home.

• Art/Photography Workshops: We have some very talented artists and photographers in our church and this would be a great service to our community to put on workshops for teenagers who are at a loose end over the summer holidays.

• Concerts

• Christmas Eve Service

• Holiday Grievers Service: the Christmas Holidays are often a difficult time for people who have lost loved ones. We want to acknowledge that as Christians and offer people a chance to grieve and talk about lost ones as well as speak about the hope we can have in Jesus.

In other words, the WAVE Summer Festival Could include anything. Just depends on whether you have the energy to make an idea work for the sake of God’s kingdom.

This easter we’re kicking off our “Essential Jesus” sermon series at Easter. Sam Hilton will be speaking on Jesus’ death at a special ALL-IN Easter Friday service. Then on easter Sunday, at all three of our regular meetings, Sam will be speaking on Jesus’ resurrection.

All these events will be great for people who’ve maybe never considered Jesus and who he is.

I have to admit, being the “Magnification Pastor” does sound a bit weird. You could be mistaken for thinking I just go around to people’s stereos and turn up the volume. Its not that, but it might be a good metaphor.

Its partly my responsibility to make sure Hunter Bible Church is “turning up” its love, honour and passion for God in Christ as much as it can.

In other words we want everyone–especially us at Hunter Bible Church–to have a deeply rooted love for their creator, sustainer and saviour, Jesus Christ. We want people to not simply understand things about God and his Son, but to intimately know God in Christ. We want people’s relationship with God through Christ to be as real as possible, this side of heaven.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Eph 3:16-19

As far as I can see, that’s going to work itself out in a few ways. First, we want people to have a living personal relationship with their heavenly Father through Christ that appropriately reflects their forgiven, redeemed and glorified status. That is, we want Christians to regularly and joyfully approach throne of grace in prayer. Second, we want our Sunday gatherings to be regular and joyful events where our heavenly Father speaks from his Word the Bible, and we together respond with repentance, prayer and praise.

That means that one of the significant areas of our church that the Magnification team oversees is our Sunday public meetings. Together with the Magnification team, we make our Sunday services ‘happen’. Everything from setting up the building, co-ordinating the meeting, playing the music, making sure the band and preacher can be heard well, and packing it up at the end… its all done for the purpose of getting Christians together and helping them respond to their Lord with love, honour, faith and obedience.

How good was church camp this year?! It was great to hang out with people from different congregations and consider what it means that Jesus walked with us, and how we walk with Jesus. Even for those who could only come for part of the weekend, it was great fun and very encouraging.

During the Saturday afternoon session at Church camp, Greg took us through a few of the recent changes at Hunter Bible Church, and gave us some insight into where things might be going (listen to it here).

During the session, there was an opportunity to ask questions and concerns which was very fruitful. Time ran out, but I’m sure there were more questions people had to ask. If you have a question arising from Greg’s discussion of where HBC is going, please email us at unichurch.newcastle@gmail.com, and we’ll blog an answer for you.

From the 29^th March – 5^th April SMBC (Sydney Missionary & Bible College) are sending 17 student (you can meet them by clicking here) to work alongside us at Hunter Bible Church and also with AFES Newcastle Christian Students to reach Newcastle with the gospel.

It is a great blessing to have these men and women in our city for a whole week proclaiming Jesus. With 17 keen and able people on the streets of Newcastle with the message of Jesus on their lips we are praying that many people will begin a journey towards knowing Jesus or even accepting Jesus as King and saviour during the week.

Please be praying for the team, HBC & AFES Staff, and for one another leading up to mission. Pray that together we might have opportunities to effectively communicate Jesus in Newcastle.

This is a snapshot of their week:

Sunday - 29th April

Preaching at Lambton 10am, City 5pm, and Unichurch

Helping out our Sprout leaders

Kids Talk at Church

Monday - 30th April

Hang out with HBC / NCS Staff team

Walk-up evangelism on campus

FOCUS (Fellowship of Overseas Christian University Students) dinner and bible-study.

Tuesday - 31st March

Team day off

FOCUS (Fellowship of Overseas Christian University Students) dinner and bible-study.

Wednesday - 1st April

Primary and infants Scripture classes @ New Lambton Public

High School Scripture @ Lambton High School

Scripture Assembly @ the Junction Primary School

Newcastle Christian Students Bible Talk

FOCUS Coffee stall on campus

Thursday - 2nd April

Easter Assembly @ Jesmond Primary, K-6

Kids Club @ New Lambton Community Centre

Women’s Bible Study Event

ISCF: Lambton High

NCS (Allied Health Faculty) Evangelistic Coffee Night

FOCUS Coffee stall on campus

Friday - 3rd April

Merewether Heights Public School Scripture Assembly

Youth Group Leaders Training Night

FOCUS public meeting

Saturday - 4th April

Men’s Breakfast at the beach

Sunday - 5th April

Preaching at Lambton 10am, City 5pm, and Unichurch

Helping out our Sprout leaders

Kids Talk at Church

This handbook outlines much of what we’d like to see happen through Growth Groups at Hunter Bible Chruch. 

hbc-growth-group-handbook-2009-internet-version

What is the WAVE Summer Festival?

WAVE Summer Festival’ is the umbrella name for all the events and programs that will take place from December 2009 through to Jan 2010. In the past we have thought of WAVE as the one week kids club that we hold at Lambton High School in January. But from 2009 on we want to think about ‘WAVE Summer Festival’ as a season of programmes and events put on by Hunter Bible Church.

Summer is the season of festivals. There is no shortage of festivals over the Australian summer season - Music and Arts festivals, Cultural festivals, Food and Wine festivals, to name a few. So, why one more festival? Especially when Newcastle already has the Live Sites, Cinema Under the Stars, Darby Street Festival, Beaumont Street Festival, Olive Tree Markets, Warners Bay Jazz in the Park!!

We’re hoping this festival will be unique in two ways. Our hope is that the programmes and events run under the umbrella of ‘WAVE Summer Festival’ will not only provide entertainment & social arenas but will also give us as a church a chance to simply serve the community we live in and provide us with opportunities to preach Jesus in the city of Newcastle.

We’d love to see you get on board in 2009… more on how later…

Recently Prue and I travelled to Myanmar (AKA Burma) under the banner of Hope Myanmar Partnership with 4 other people - Ray and Alice Palmer (from HBC City), Hannah McKerro (Armidale) and Brooke Davidson (Surfside Evangelical Church).  We had an encouraging time away as we sought to get a feel for the gospel work going on in Myanmar and served at the various ministries we were able to see.

A few reflections on our time in Myanmar:

• Hope Myanmar Partnership is an organisation that is worth supporting. Check out their website for info about all the different ministries the organisation supports.  It was awesome to meet first hand the Myanmar family (Lincoln & Leah) who lead the ministry in Myanmar.  They have a great heart for the gospel to affect and change the lives of people in their nation and great integrity as they go about their work.Additionally, Myanmar is a country that is very closed to foreigners.  Even as a tourist your movements are recorded by the authorities.  As a result the Myanmar locals are the best people to reach the locals.  HMP is committed to supporting pastors and training indigenous pastors for the work of the gospel thorughout Myanmar.

• The theoretical social gospel versus word ministry debate that takes place in Australia is a fruitless argument in their context. It makes no sense to them to be one or the other.  They have to be both, preaching the gospel and affecting the community around them with gospel works, like education, helping the poor and needy, looking after the orphans etc.  Without these works the good news of Jesus falls on deaf ears.
  

  Cyrus (a lecturer at Restoration Bible Institute) and his wife outside their small home.

• Young men and women are committed to the gospel and seeing it bear fruit all over Myanmar from an early age. RBI (Restoration Bible Institute) is full of students in their late teens and early twenties.   They live on 2 meals a day, they sleep in small dormitory style accommodation (some of them behind a curtain at the back of the lecture hall) and most of them are looking to move to remote parts of their country to minister to and evangelise villages and towns where persecution and hardship is a common part of daily life. This devotion at a young age amazes me as I return to Australia.  I think we could learn a lot from the Myanmar Christians we met.  In Australia we are so often apathetic in our service of Jesus and unwilling to shoulder responsibility.

More thoughts later…