There was a nervous atmosphere in the church office on the afternoon of September 23. Throughout the working world, Friday afternoon is generally a time of the week when office frivolity is at its highest and mood its warmest, leading into the week’s end. HBC’s office is usually no exception with its renowned Friday Dance Party - but this Friday was different.

A group of 13 members of Hunter Bible Church, a couple of ring-ins and a rugged tour guide were all gathering to depart on an adventure that we expected, without knowing exactly how, would change our lives. Rightly unaware, on the dawn of this ‘AIM Mission Awareness Tour’.

The stats were impressive: 17 people, 1 minibus, 7500km to be driven through 4 states of Australia, 90 hours of travel, 11 locations to stop and pitch 6 tents over 15 nights.

Heading through the Mayf on our way out of town...

The goals were also impressive: to see the work of Australian Indigenous Ministries in six separate places across the country, to experience what life is like for the workers there, to encourage the people we met and to be encouraged, and to grow in God’s word - all of these as a team unified by Christ.

How would we cope with the lengthy confinement on the bus? Would relationships prosper or wither? How would we respond to regular nights of 6 or less hours of sleep? What shock would we face experiencing new cultures within Australia? Would the bus hold together? How could we encourage the missionaries without creating too much disturbance in their setting? How far would our phone reception extend? Would we be able to climb the rock?

Different from my memories of bus journeys for school camps past, the cool kids weren’t on the back seat (I was toward the front) and there wasn’t the missing kid who had slept through his alarm. The departing travellers were quite happy to openly plant farewell kisses and hugs on those who were seeing them off, even waving from the bus.

We were off.

Meet Pray Love - It’s a prayer night for YOU!

Meet: We’ll be relaxing together while sharing good food. We will also be learning more about the work happening with FOCUS in Newcastle from Rod Nohra!

Pray: In His mercy, God has been using HBC to spread the good news of Jesus to many people of different nationalities and tongues. We’ll be praying that God continues to bring people to Jesus through us. We will also be praying for our Get Ya Mish On friends (Veronica and Kingsley Box, Slovenia and Rachel and Dene Hughes, Japan).

Love: We will take the opportunity to love-on our missionaries who are serving overseas and cross-culturally in Australia! We will be writing postcards and sending messages.

Where: HBC Church Office, 50 Hudson St HAMILTON

When: Wednesday 12th October 2011, 7:30pm-9:00pm

Who: Come one, come all - you are very welcome!

Hunter ReachOut is a day-long conference happening on Saturday 29^th October 2011

“Jesus is the reason for mission. It’s his person and character, and the nature of the salvation he brings, that helps give focus and shape to mission as we seek to represent him in this world.” Come along to the conference to hear more what mission looks like and how we declare Jesus!

It’s a conference with a difference with not only Bible talks and seminars, but also heaps of time to chat with 23 different mission representatives about their work of spreading the Gospel of Jesus throughout the world! It’s sure to be a great day.

Date: Saturday 29^th October 2011

Time: 9am - 5:30pm (can attend for parts of the conference)

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

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.

Unichurch is moving!!

For the next four Sundays (starting on June 12), Unichurch will not be in the CT theatre. Instead, Unichurch will be meeting in the main GP lecture theatre (GP 1.1) at Newcastle Uni.

GP 1.1 is very close to the CT theatre, and people from Unichurch will be at the Maths Bus Stop and outside the CT theatre to point you in the right direction. You won’t get lost

Only the location of church is changing. Unichurch cafe will still be starting at 6:30, the main meeting at 7, and supper kicking on afterwards till 10.

This is a great week to come back to church!

If you haven’t been able to make it to church much this semester, this is a great week to come along.

We have been going through the book of Romans and seen that basically, before God we are all stuffed. As Paul says, “There is no one righteous, not even one.”

But now comes the amazing good news of God’s mercy. We are going to see God’s rescue plan for people who are stuffed! This is a great week to come back to church and bring a friend!!

See you Sunday

What are your plans for the Sept/Oct school holidays this year? Sitting at home watching reruns of Gilmore Girls?? Doing some renovations?? Or working?? Well why not do something fun? Come on the Bus Trip with a difference… From Sept 23 to Oct 8, we’ll be taking a bus load of HBCers out to visit AIM missionaries working in indigenous communities in central Australia. But places are limited!

If you’re keen, you can email Kelly for more info at kelly@hunterbiblechurch.org. Or you can download both the ‘expectations’ file and the ‘application form’. Please hand application forms to Kelly Landrigan, or email them to her at the above address, or post them attention Kelly to the church office: 50 Hudson St Hamilton.

Meet Pray Love - It’s a prayer night.

Meet: We’ll be relaxing together while sharing some sweet and savoury delights. We will also be learning more about why we pray to God for cross-cultural mission to our world of 6.91 billion people!

Pray: In His mercy, God has been using HBC to spread the good news of Jesus to many people of different nationalities and tongues. We’ll be praying that God continues to bring people to Jesus through us.

Love: We will take the opportunity to love-on our missionaries who are serving overseas and cross-culturally in Australia! Perhaps we could write some messages/letters/postcards? Any ideas? Let me know what we could do!

Where: HBC Church Office, 50 Hudson St HAMILTON

When: 27th April 2011, 7:30pm-9:00pm (put it in your diary!)

Who: Come one, come all - you are very welcome!

Photographs used with permission from C Jill Reed and shimelle. See: http://search.creativecommons.org/?q=cupcake# and http://search.creativecommons.org/?q=pray#

To become a mentor for a local teenager come the the RUSH Training Day.

Date: Saturday 2nd April

Time: 3pm - 9pm (Dinner included)

Place: 28 Fraser Pde Charlestown (C3 Vicotry Church)

Cost: Free

RSVP: pipbudden@hunterbiblechurch.org

For more information on mentoring with the RUSH program please refer to previous blog