Last night the UniChurch Magnification Team came together and we did a whole lot of thinking about what we’d like the Sunday UniChurch ‘Event’ to be. We asked ourselves the question: “By God’s grace, what would we want a believer and a non-believer to think and feel about UniChurch as they get in their car to drive home on Sunday night?”

We came up with lots of great answers, but let me just summarise what we decided we want UniChurch to be in 3 points.

• We want the meeting to be sincerely challenging because of the gospel
  We want humble, sincere people to present the truth of the gospel with pure motives. We don’t want to put on a show pretending that the gospel is amazing and huge and great… We want the meeting to reflect the huge-ness of the gospel in every aspect.
• We want people to feel appropriately comfortable
  We don’t want people to have any reason to feel awkward, or embarrassed, or confused about anything that’s going on in the meeting… No matter what we do in the meeting; Singing, praying, clapping, silence, listening, reading aloud. We want to do it all in such a way that people will feel very comfortable. Even as we tell them the uncomfortable gospel, we want them to feel comfortable.
• We want people to have found the meeting strangely enjoyable
  People will walk into UniChurch with lots of preconceived ideas and anxieties, but at the end of the night, we want them to have actually enjoyed it. We want them to look back at the past 2 hours of their life and - even if they’re not believers - feel it was so worthwhile being there.
  

Lambton & Unichurch - starts August 9

What does it look like to follow Jesus?  Up to this point we’ve learnt a lot about who Jesus is. He is the promised Messiah, he is the great prophet, he is the suffering servant of Isaiah, and he is God among us. We’ve learnt about his mission.  He has come to call sinners to repentance.  He is not interested in the self-righteous person who thinks they have no need for repentance but has compassion on those who know their humble state before God.

But what does it look like to be one of his followers?

Well Luke 9:51 changes everything.

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.

From this point on in the gospel Jesus is marching to his death and it becomes very clear that following Jesus is not for the faint-hearted.

What is FIEC?  Glad you asked!

FIEC stands for the ‘Fellowship of Independant Evangelical Churches’ ( http://www.fiec.org.au/ ) It’s a group of 10 or so churches like us who are keen to preach the gospel and are not part of a regular denomination.  They are churches like Central Coast Evangelical Church and Maitland Evangelical Church.  The pastors and staff of these churches pray for each other, encourage each other and wrestle together with many pressing theological and practical issues.

Hunter Bible Church is not yet formally associated with the group but our senior staff are still going to their annual conference on Aug 10-12.  Last year was the first time we all went and it was really helpful.  Many of the things that are going well this year at church were first suggested and discussed back then.

Although we’re happy to be ‘independant’, FIEC provides an excellent way of peer support and accountability for the staff from outside our church.  Pray for us as we head along and ask us more as you see us around!

Richard

Guys! September 5 2009 will be a great day for your faith and life in Jesus… that is assuming you’re going to be at Hunter Mens Convention.

Christian (and even some non-Christian) men from all over the hunter will be coming together for the day to hear from God’s Word and encourage each other to respond to him with all their lives. Ben Pfahlert is a great Bible teacher who’ll be telling us straight what God says about sex and men.

And, if you sign up online before this Friday (31st July) you’ll get $5 off the price!

So go to http://huntermensconvention.info/ and sign up now. (Wives, you might even want to sign-up your husbands and give him the ticket for the conference as a present… I reckon he’d love that!)

Potatoes are wonderful things. Picture a warm boiled potato, drizzled with cheese, mince, a large dollop of sour cream. Or perhaps you prefer the baked variety; crunchy, crisp, full of herbs, oozing steam.

In terms of attendance, this year has been the largest in Unichurch history. Every Sunday during semester there are between 150 and 170 people on average at Unichurch. God continues to bless us with great numerical and spiritual growth. Yet, there is much to learn from the humble potato. In fact, I think welcoming at Unichurch is like a potato, in two ways.

A half baked potato | God hasn’t finished building his kingdom. Like a half-baked potato (but only in the sense of incompleteness), God is still calling a people to himself from all nations. In the words of Paul “Behold, now is the day of salvation” 2 Cor 6:2, ESV.

There are so many people at Newcastle University who haven’t heard the good news that Jesus has been resurrected as saviour, Lord and Christ. God has blessed Unichurch with so much growth this year. Let’s pray he will continue to do this. Why not think and pray about people you can invite to Unichurch this semester?

Half a baked potato | Cut a potato in half, place the halves face down, side by side and you have the uni year. Around this time each year, uni students turn phone alarms back on, for lectures, assessments, meetings are all about to commence. For welcoming at Unichurch this means we’ve scaled one potato-half and are doing some warm up stretches before we start walking up the half-a-baked-potato that remains.

Great numbers of uni students will soon come, in search of a church or a saviour, bringing with them opportunities for hospitality, friendship and the need to welcome all. Let’s pray God will use us powerfully for his purposes. If Unichurch is your church, why not plan to meet and welcome one new person every Sunday night.

Myself, I’m going to go eat a potato.

We live in times of economic uncertainty.  We are in a global recession.  Some of us have lost jobs.  Some of us are looking down the barrel of losing jobs. Some of us are doing okay now, but worried about the future. and this national uncertainty has got everyone talking. Over the dinner table. Down at the pub. In the coffee shops. We’re all talking about the price of houses, the cost of fuel. Trying to work out if we should downsize cars to motorbikes. The fact that Cadbury chocolate is so expensive that many have reverted to eating cooking chocolate!  And in these days money consumes us, masters our decision making processes, governs where we live,what jobs we take, where we socialise and go on holidays.

But are we reading the times correctly?  Or have we got a similar problem to the first century Jews of Jesus’ day?

When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? (Luke 12:56)

Jesus says:

1. It’s a time for repentance

1Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. (Luke 13:1-5)

2. A time for reconciliation

Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? 58As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled to him on the way, or he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. 59I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. (Luke 12:57-59)

3. A time for readiness

Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. (Luke 12:35 - 38)

So what is it that distracts us from living lives that reflect the times?  I think what Luke 12 is trying to tell us is that we are distracted by money! Either by having lots of money or not enough money.  One leads to greed and hoarding.  The other leads to greed, worry and envy.  As a result we forget the times we are in.

How can we make sure that money is not a distraction but actually a tool that is able to be used to live consistently with the times we are in - a time for repentance, reconciliation and being ready for the day of Jesus’ return.

Most people at our church have found that excellent Christian books have played a big part in their Christian growth and endurance over the years.  The staff and a number of keen readers would love for everyone to be reading well and reading regularly.    To that end, I’m hoping to establish a regular (not weekly) Christian bookstall at our congregations.  To get this started, we’re planning to sell off a lot of great books we’ve had lying in the office for too long.

So, on July 26 at AM and PM we’ll be having a 20% sale on all HBC books.  Bring some cash, have a browse and buy a book.  If you can help with the stall please let me know!

Happy reading!

PS here’s the list of books for sale:  book-list-for-july-2009-book-sale

and updated… updated-book-list-july-august-2009-book-sale

The more you get to know the Bible the more you realize there is more to learn!  One way for us to grow in our knowledge of the Bible (and hence our knowledge of Jesus) is by doing a Moore College PTC course (Primary Theological Certificate)  http://external.moore.edu.au/ This term, the course ‘New Testament 1′ is available.

In this course, you get 10 weeks to explore the gospel of Mark and tackle questions such as ‘what is the gospel?, ‘who is Jesus of Nazareth?’ and ‘What does he expect from his disciples?’  A written exam at the end (optional) really sharpens your knowledge.

The course runs for 10 weeks- Saturdays 8:30-10am - and begins on August 29.  It’s run by Neil Foster who has loads of experience teaching the Bible and various PTC courses. The cost is $80 per person (less if you are repeating the course), or $120 for a husband and wife sharing a set of notes, and $50 concession for full-time students, unemployed and pensioners.

Register by August 13 by contacting Neil or Michael Griffiths at Lambton AM or by sending me an email at richard@hunterbiblechurch.org.  Please ask us any questions you have too!

Since preparing and giving two talks on manhood and womanhood a number of women have asked me how they can practically encourage their husband to lead.

I reckon this article, recently published in the Briefing is a great start: 10 ways to discourage your husband in ministry

It’s written by Carmelina Reid and is very funny.

Hope it helps!  I’d be interested to hear what you think.

Last week my daughter was invited to a sleepover by a neighborhood friend. This girl is lovely. The parents seem fine. They want their daughter to be happy. She is allowed to do what she wants. She has seen semi-pornographic shows.

But I want to do good to my daughter. In Job 29:16, Job describes himself as a father to the needy; He has protected, provided, cared for and loved the helpless, as we heard last Sunday at church. This is the role of parents - especially fathers. We are responsible to love and protect our children. I can’t expect other children or parents to rightly decide what is good for my kids.

We want our kids to know we trust them; to slowly grow in their confidence to make godly decisions. We will give them guidelines, where they are free to make decisions between these boundary markers. We explain to them how these rules are to keep them safe. This gives our kids the freedom to say no to something because we have said no. The responsibility remains ours.

These are my thoughts about sleepovers.

1. We want to know what adults and teenagers will be there.

2. We must be confident we know these adults well.

3. We need to know what the kids will be doing in general - we don’t need a timetable

4. We need to know what they’ll watch on TV, what games they’ll play…

5. My kids are to behave and observe our rules, unless their friend’s parents have stricter rules. Then they need to obey their friend’s parents, as a sign of respect.

So we’ve decided no sleepovers with neighborhood kids. I know this means my children will be regarded as weird by some of their friends. A younger Christian described my attitude as ‘very strict’. This doesn’t matter. I am responsible to God for my kids.

Now this is an issue where we will wisely reach different conclusions on how this principle works itself out. What thoughts do other parents have on this vexed issue of sleepovers?