Last week at church Greg Lee announced that Andrew Horsfield from our 10am congregation has been offered and has accepted the position of children’s minister for HBC, working 3 days a week. (Ben Broadfoot will continue with the youth work.)

This is both exciting, and a challenge. Exciting because there is so much need and Andrew is ready to launch into it all, but also a challenge, because although we have budgeted for this position for this year, our financial giving is currently running behind budget.

For those who don’t know much about Andrew you can listen to Greg’s interview with Andrew last Sunday, followed by Greg’s challenge to us about our financial situation.

Regarding our current LIFE Dinners campaign, 21 wasn’t a number we ingeniously took from the Bible (as opposed, for instance, to Rick Warren’s 40 Days of Purpose) but it is a number that represents three weeks of days! We thought that three weeks would be a great period for our church to have a serious swing at inviting non-Christian friends into our homes for a meal - which we’re attempting to do between August 14 and September 3.

21 Prayers on our Westinghouse

Doing a rough count of the numbers at our church, we thought that 21 dinners would be a reasonable and reachable starting point for the number of dinners we could together host over three weeks. We have over 30 Growth Groups in church - and we’re praying that most groups will be able to think about hosting a dinner together.

The number 21 also cropped up as the number of days after semester 2 started at the university, and before our 21 dinners start (July 24-August 13). Because we know prayer is crucial in our reliance on God to do His work, last week at the grand opening of semester two at unichurch, Souper Sunday, we launched 21 Prayers for the 21 days leading up to LIFE Dinners.

It’s been exciting to see LIFE Dinners calendars on the fridges of Hunter Bible Church. It’s exciting to know that we are asking God to determine our plans! We’re so excited to see what God will do through these dinners. 7 days of prayer in, it looks like we’re about halfway to our goal of 21 dinners - praise God! And please keep praying!

Pray that 21 will become a significant number at Hunter Bible Church.

This image just got updated on the Google Maps Street View system…

It was taken on the last day of the Wave Mission week 2010. A few people saw the Google Street View car go past, and we’ve been wondering ever since if it took a photo of us at the school! See it here.

As you can see, Wave is such a great way to invite the community in and share our Lord and our lives with them. Why not take the week off in Jan’12 and be part of the team to make it happen?

HBC mission partners, Rob and Jen Alley joined us at RENEW on Souper Sunday to share personal insights into their life and ministry with Australian Indigenous Ministries and to gee up unichurch for our upcoming tour to the outback.

Rob and Jen made a special effort to be with us at unichurch, traveling from Sydney for one night only. Though some unichurchers were preoccupied in the soup-cycle (thank you, your sacrifice was acceptable in our stomachs) 15 or-so were able to join us for what was a wonderful start to the quality 5-hour marathon that was Souper Sunday.

I spoke with Rob during the week to arrange what we might do at RENEW on the night. He was pretty relaxed, preferring a laid-back ‘natural’ style of gathering. Interview questions practised, he said, are not really questions at all.

Each week at RENEW we kick-off by looking at the Bible. We want to know the God we’re speaking to, so we can speak appropriately and say the right kinds of things! It’s usually easier to chat to someone you know.

Rob led us through John 4:27-38 and Matthew 9:35-38, focusing us on a point that has really been encouraging to him and Jen through challenging times. God’s good harvesting work is screaming in front of us to be done. We must remember the job as a whole and trust God in our patch with our small part.

It can be discouraging in your patch when you’re investing in seeds and burying them in the ground, when someone else is bringing home boxes of weetbix.

For some missionaries in central Australia, only a handful of people have come to trust in Jesus over 20 hard years of planting.

Rob and Jen run mission awareness tours. They’re passionate about opening people’s eyes to the harvest field - in our own nation - and encouraging workers who are already slaving out in the blazing sun. They pick tourists up on a bus, drive to remote communities and show them the field. It’s an amazing two weeks of tight fellowship, real encouragement, rugged adventure, indescribable creation, solid time in Scripture, getting uncomfortable, feeling tired, eating unknown items, spotting kangaroos… experiencing God’s enormity and responding in prayer: “Your Kingdom Come”.

Then they get back in the bus and go home.

It’s hard for Rob and Jen to see the fruit of their ministry - most of it is in the lives of the people getting off the bus. A couple of their tours planned for this year have been cancelled because numbers haven’t been there. Unfortunately, it’s much harder to encourage people before they get on the bus.

At RENEW we prayed for them. What an encouragement that Rob would choose to share these verses at a time like this. They are considering their future - what God might like them to do in the coming years. We were all really challenged with our job in the field too - seeing that the work is there to be done.

HBC is going on a tour of our Indigenous harvest-field from September 23-October 3 with Rob and Jen. What an opportunity! Spots are filling up, and we’re praying that the trip will be a sell-out so that hearts are stirred for the glory of God in Australia. If you’re interested, email kelly@hunterbiblechurch.org

If sharing Jesus with our local community is the most important thing we can do with our time, energy, money and resources, how can we do that as a church? WAVE Kids Club each January is all about seeing Jesus transform the city of Newcastle. We boldly preach Jesus to more than 300 kids and more than 60 adults for a week. To make this happen we need team leaders who are godly and care about the Jesus being preached well to people of all ages.

These are the areas where team leaders are needed:

• Sprinkles (up to 1 year old)
• Tic Tacs (2-3 years old)
• Skittles (4 years to Kinder)
• M&M’s (years 1-2)
• Khaos (years 3-5)
• Rock (years 6-8)
• Solid (years 9-12+)
• Regos / Logistics / Other support

Time is running out – our first training day is on Saturday, July 30 so make sure you apply here ASAP!

Email Sam Hilton for more info (sam@hunterbiblechurch.org).

It’s not hard to see from the Bible that Christians should care for the needy. Jesus healed the sick, preached the good news to the poor, and told us how we treat ‘the least of these’ is equivalent to how we regard Jesus. If we’re called to be like Jesus, then we should be acting in love to those in need in our community.

Just a quick post to let you know where we are up to with the Life Dinners

• We trained a bunch of speakers on Monday Night.  It was a great night and Greg took us through some great material about what type of talk would be suitable, how to conduct yourself on the night, how to answer tough question (manner and content).
• On 10th August we are having a hosts training night at the church office (7.30pm-9.30pm). So if you or your growth group are planning to run a ‘Life Dinner’ then you need to send someone along to the Hosts Training Night.  At the Hosts Training night you will get a ‘Life Dinner Box’ with everything you need to run one of these events.
• To register your interest in running such an event email: life@hunterbiblechurch.org

Members of unichurch meet each week at 6pm on a Sunday for RENEW Prayer. I often describe RENEW as happening before church, but I’m reminded that RENEW is church. It’s so central to what the church, God’s people, do. We pray because we are fellow-workers with God in the world! We pray that God will use us, his people, to change the hearts of Novocastrians (and all peoples of the world) by his word.

One of the marvelous joys of meeting for RENEW is hearing the stories of how God answers these prayers. Each week we hear of friends, family, housemates and strangers who are engaging with the gospel through our relationships with them. If you need to be reminded of the benefits of prayer, come to RENEW and praise God for his work.

One such place we can see this work being done is the family of Dene and Rachel Hughes.

A couple of weeks ago at RENEW we caught up with our friends and their boys, Eliott and Simeon, via Skype. What a story! Up ’til last year these guys were working among us in Newcastle at the uni with the FOCUS International Christian Student group. The family were quite enjoying their time here: aware of the work they could see God doing, and really appreciating life in Newcastle. A time of noticeable growth and blessing is reason to thank God, but never to necessarily settle. God had different plans for the Hughes. Now 2011 for them is a year of training and preparing to move to Japan! They’ll be involved with Christian student work over there from 2012.

Many personal friends of the family came to RENEW that night, it was a pleasure to experience shared joy in catching up. In typical Hughes fashion, their 6 months of training in Melbourne has included lessons learned from the Bible, growth in the family, enjoyment from their surroundings (bike rides, coffee, markets) and some interesting variations on the English language from Simeon’s developing tongue.

Dene and Rachel shared some points that we can raise with God:

• Rachel’s computer died and they’ve been planning on doing lots of digital stuff over the next six months. Pray they can replace it and/or get by ok.
• Pray for somewhere to live in Brisbane or somewhere to house-stay
• They’d love to get some quality time with their family in Brisbane before they leave
• Deputation - that the boys would be settled while they’re moving around

• The country is in shock and there’s been intense suffering and despair
  • Dene has heard of lots of opportunities for conversations in Japan
  • Pray that the Christians there might have lots of opportunities to tell people about the hope they have in Jesus

Another wonderful story to share is with the Harrisons - also leaving our gathering here in Newcastle! One of them will be joining us at unichurch’s RENEW Prayer session this week, their last weekend with us before leaving for Melbourne. Be there, GP Theatre at 6pm.