Check out the latest news from Kingsley and Veronica Box in Slovenia. Hear about how the philosophy lectures, which we prayed for, went. And how we can be praying for them at the moment. Click here to read their update.

And read the latest email from Ross and Lyndal Webbhere. There’s some important things to be praying for, among the language group in PNG where Ross and Lyndal worked as translators for years, with a particular local cult. There’s also some praise points there too!

Teaching your kids about Jesus at Christmas can be as hard as getting them to read their birthday card before they open the present- the important gets overwhelmed by the exciting!

I reckon you need to start early in your children’s lives and build into your family various traditions that will get the message through year after year.  One of these could be making an advent calendar (which our family is trying this year).  Each day we’re going to open a box which will have some Christmas type stickers, the occasional treat, and a bible verse.

This year, with the kids being young, we’re only doing 14 boxes.  Here’s the verses I’ve chosen if you’d like to try them yourself- or you could choose your own!

Try to make Christmas a great time where Jesus not materialism rules your home!

Verses

We had a great night last night meeting together with the Monday night growth groups and hearing more from Mike & Katie Taylor, about the work they’ll be doing in Tanzania, as well as some of the issues they’re going to face. We even played a game (that wasn’t daggy!) that gave us a taste of what it can be like to live in a different culture. It was such a good chance to get to know them more, so we can better pray for and support them, and for them to get to know us, as one of their sending churches. And it was great to have a chance to think more about God’s mission in the world, and our role in that!

So if you weren’t there last night, why don’t you come along either tonight or Thursday night? 7.30pm-9.30pm at Hamilton Baptist Church. If you have kids who need to be in bed, maybe one of you could come tonight, and the other on Thursday??

This year our Growth Group leaders have done some fantastic ministry.  They spend time each week studying the Bible, preparing the study, thinking about evangelism and practically caring for people.  If you’re in a Growth Group, did you know that your leaders, as well as teach you the Bible, pray for you regularly by name?

This year we’d like to say thank you to our Group leaders as a church.  I’ll be organising a big thankyou party on Wednesday Dec 16 at 8pm (venue TBA).  During this time I’d like to treat our leaders to great dessert, coffee and music.   I’d also like to encourage them again from the Bible, thank them for their ministry, and have some fun as well!

If you’d like to help me with:  music, food, coffee, waitering, decorations, set up or anything please let me know.  This could be your way of saying thank you to your Group leaders!

Send me an email - richard@hunterbiblechurch.org

I recently witnessed a great illustration of how God’s sovereignty works together with the idea that we get rewards in heaven.

We were kicking a ball around the backyard with the boys, and our youngest daughter - Evie, who was *just* starting to walk, came over to the ball. She couldn’t kick it herself, so we literally picked her up and swung her so that her feet connected with the ball. The ball rolled forward. At that moment, Julie and the kids all shouted “Great kick Evie! Yay!”. And Evie beamed with joy.

Isn’t that exactly it? After saving us, God lovingly moves us to do good works, and then showers those good works with eternal rewards.

Eph 2:10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

I wonder if the real struggle we have when thinking about issues like heavenly rewards and sovereignty is that we don’t like to think of ourselves as helpless babies - even when compared to God.

Recently during Kids Club we ran a training evening for parents. It was such a helpful time as we thought about the internet: it’s benefits and dangers. There was only a small turn out on the day but I thought the information was so beneficial that it was important to pass on what we heard…

Can I recommend that you listen to the talk, no matter what age your child is(!!!!). I think it is really easy to listen to and enormously helpful.

The points below are from the handout we were given.

THREE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES

1. Your kids know more about the Internet and technology than you do.
2. The Internet is morally neutral: it can be used for great good, but also great harm.
3. You have a responsibility to be the parent.

TOP TIPS

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate.
2. Work hard at understanding the online world
3. Protect your computer
4. Computer in public (e.g. lounge room not bedroom)
5. Agree on a rules for Internet use
6. Shoulder Surf - discourage secret keeping
7. Remind to be cautious
8. Learn the features of new devices
9. Talk to teachers and Christian leaders about the latest useful websites for children
10. Model how the internet can be used for good.

My prayer is that you will find this helpful for your family and that it will enable you to responsibly lead and guide them in their use of the internet.

The Geneva Push is a new initiative that seeks to empower and mobilise new ministry among the many diverse cultures here in Australia in the way that will benefit them in the long term.  They are having their first ever conference on Dec 7-9.  Al Stewart asks us to pray for them…

G’day Hunter Bible Church,

Just a short email to say all the people going to our first national church planter’s conference, In The Chute, would really value your prayers as we count down to December 7-9. Would you add the following to your prayers, and encourage others to do the same?

• Pray that God will use The Geneva Push to be part of raising up a generation of evangelists and church planters who will take the gospel to Australia and see hundreds of churches planted. There’ll be four teams assessing people for church planting throughout the conference.
• Pray that we’ll be wise in assessing people and understanding how God has gifted each one, and how they can best serve Him.
• Pray for the practical side of building this church planting network with the growing number of assessment candidates and supporters to keep track of.

Cheers,

Al Stewart
Director
The Geneva Push

I’m not good at thinking about buildings. We only ever bought a house because a good mate gave us the deposit, negotiated with the owner, organised the mortgage and then came and built the new steps. I never would have gotten up the steps, let alone the rest!

I’m the same with a church building. With 600 people now and hopefully hundreds (even thousands!) more to join us, i know we’ll eventually need a building. But i find the whole idea daunting.

How do we get started? How much money do we need? How will we raise the money? What sort of site? Who would design it? Do we start with a small property, build equity and then sell it? What is equity anyway?

These are all questions that i find frankly terrifying! That’s why i thank God for “building people”. God’s people are a body made up of different parts with different gifts. And while i drown in these sorts of questions, others love them! We have people who love thinking about buildings and capital and projects. They’re not daunted by big numbers and blue prints. They’re relaxed speaking to real estate agents and banks. They’re not threatened in the least! Isn’t it great that God’s people are diverse? Thank God for “Building People”.

People sometimes ask…

“Why pray that God will give Jesus 30000 people in Newcastle? Why put a figure on it? Why not just pray that God will give Jesus lots and lots of people?”

In one sense that question is exactly right. After all God will give to Jesus as many people as he wants to. The number in our head isn’t nearly as important as the number in God’s plan. But there are three reasons for praying for 30000 people.

Firstly, it seems that once you reach 10% of a community your relationship with that community changes. You’re no longer just another anonymous sub- group. You become a threat. With 30000 Christians in Newcastle our evangelism will move to a new phase. Christianity will be a public hot topic, not just a “private matter”. So 30000 people isn’t our end goal. Its just our first goal!

The second reason for asking God to give Jesus 30000 people is to stop us from becoming complacent. Its easy to look around church and feel like the job is done because there are already lots of people. But what is 600 people in the face of 300000 lost souls? Praying big prayers will help us to see the big need!

The other reason for asking God to give Jesus 30000 people is because each of those 30000 is a real person! We count people because people count. Talking about numbers can feel impersonal. But in fact the opposite is true. Asking God to give Jesus 30000 helps us to value every single one of those people. Dare to pray that God will give Jesus 30000 people in Newcastle! And if it turns out that our prayer is too small… well praise God that he is more generous than we are. And didn’t we always know he was?

I was feeling a bit disheartened about reading the Bible to my kids the other day.

See we’ve been reading through some type of Bible with our kids every night since they were about 3 years old. And I started to wonder if they were really ‘getting it’, you know? We’ve done all these stories again and again and again… “there’s the rescuer through the red sea again”, “there’s Daniel in the lion’s den again”. The trouble is, my kids very rarely seem to think about it - and how it affects them and how they think about God. I try to initiate discussion, but its late, they’re tired, someone wants more milk…

But upon reflection, I shouldn’t be disheartened. I realised that as my kids hear all these stories again and again and again, what they are really seeing and hearing is God’s character on display. That’s what the Bible teaches us doesn’t it? Its one huge account of ‘what God does’ which shows us ‘what God’s like’.

In other words, every night I re-read an account of God’s works to my kids, my kids are getting to know their God! They are getting to know his character and style and pattern, so that as they grow up and do start to ‘think more’ they will have a ready and firm foundation on which to say ‘I know God will save me, that God will take me back again and again, because that’s what God’s like!! I know that’s God’s character!”

So I’m going to keep reading those same old stories to my kids, and not be disheartened, because every night, they’re getting to know their God better.