A letter from Andrew Heard and Al Stewart…

There is much happening at the moment in the world of church planting. It is exciting stuff! In all of this a number of people have asked for clarification regarding the new church planting network called Geneva. People have wondered what it will be doing and what it might offer.

Geneva will be run by a board of Australian church planters which will include Al Stewart, Andrew Heard and Mikey Lynch. Its purpose will be to help reformed/evangelical networks and denominations recruit, assess, train, coach and mentor church planters for placement back into their various networks and denominations. The passion of Geneva is to establish not just culturally relevant growing church plants but ones that are grounded deeply in reformed theology and so able to be kept from simple pragmatism and fads. This core value is critical for establishing churches that are best able to pass on a vibrant gospel to future generations.

Geneva will have its first conference in Dec 7-9. It will be for anyone who has just started a church or is interested in planting a church in the next three years. That conference will include our first assessment process. This will provide a wonderful place to determine now whether planting is the best path for candidates. Assessment will be via written submission and an interview process with experienced planters and ministers.

Planters who are assessed to have the gifts and aptitudes for planting grounded and growing church plants will then be invited to join an ongoing coaching/training and mentoring program. As well as specialist input from our most experienced Australian planters and Bible teachers there will also be input from some of the best overseas planters and thinkers such as Mark Driscoll.

Additionally, and perhaps most significantly, each Geneva planter will be linked up with an established planter already a few years down the path of planting with the intention that these planters become personal mentors and coaches to walk with Geneva planters through the early years of planting.

Already the church planters of FIEC network have given Geneva their ringing endorsement and are now intending to use Geneva as their assessment and coaching structure. This ensures others connecting with Geneva will have a wealth of Australian expertise to draw on.

Further details will be coming but any queries can be addressed to Al Stewart.

Andrew Heard and Al Stewart

The senior staff of Hunter Bible Church had the privilege of spending time away with staff workers from other like minded churches at the FIEC (Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches) Conference.  We got to hear talks from Phillip Jensen, had Mark Driscoll beamed in from his study in Seattle, thought about how GENEVA church planting organisation might fit in with FIEC (stay tuned for more details), and heard from a variety of churches across the country about what God has been doing.

All of this bolstered Andrew Heard’s (CCEC) insistence that what FIEC is on about is building a network of “grounded” and “growing” churches.

1. Grounded: in order for church planting organisations and for churches to have longevity in thier work they need to be grounded theologically.  This means a few things:

• theological education is essential for church planters.  In our context, I think it means those who head up the 5 areas of ministry need to be theologically robust.
• as a church we are committed to making disciples who grow to maturity in Christ.  It is not just enough to grow numerically as a church.  Our goal ought to be the same as Paul’s - to present all people perfect in Christ (Col 1:28).

³We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— ⁵the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel⁶that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth. ⁷You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our^[c] behalf, ⁸and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

⁹For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. ¹⁰And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. ¹³For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Coast Evangelical Church in Forster is the most recent church plant from the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches.  Here’s an update on what’s been going on.  Keep praying for Jesus to be glorified in Forster.

YouTube page:  

Over the last couple of years we have had a number of people go from us to do short term missionary trips that vary in destination, purpose and duration.  Some have gone to be part of gospel work in a far corner of the world, some have gone as teachers, others doing medical work, others a 2 week bus trip to indigenous communities of Australia.   The common thread is that all have seen God at work in people of different cultures, and have been deeply changed and affected by God through their experience.

On Wednesday 12th August, we having a night where you can come and hear what some of our crew have been up to in Vanuatu (Pete & Liz Witt), Bolivia (Eyrn-May Wicks), and Kenya (Tim Shaw, Jen Watt) and hear about how God is at work.

When:  7pm, 12th August

Place: Compassion, Warabrook

Cost:  gold coin donation