Our friends at Grace Evangelical church are running a 1 day conference about ministry, with particular reference to women’s roles and opportunities. It’s on Tuesday 13th March from 9:30am. Most of the staff team are planning on going, and if you’d like to come along, the details are here.

Sign up for KMC now…

https://hunterbiblechurch.wufoo.com/forms/hbc-goes-to-katoomba-mens-convention/

Registrations have opened for the unichurch WEEK away… Forge. Early bird discount runs out soon, so register here…

https://hunterbiblechurch.wufoo.eu/forms/the-holy-spirit-at-forge-12/

Over brekky we read an encouraging comment by Charles Spurgeon, that maybe this year will be our last.

Katie and I reflected on our ability to consider our lives on earth more excitedly than eternity with Jesus. In 2011 we got engaged, married & bought a house that we’re about to move in to. I started a new job (twice) and a bible college course. Lots happened, lots of good things. But things that we’ll forget if Jesus comes back.

Jesus has promised that he will come back, sometime that we can’t predict - “Now concerning that day and hour no one knows” (Matthew 24:36). It could be 2012 ironically. It doesn’t matter, because we’ve been told what we should be doing while we wait.

We are to wait together faithfully

Hebrews 10:24-25 says “And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, ²⁵ not staying away from our worship meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other,^(A) and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

When Katie and I get tired, church is often the last thing we want to do on a Sunday before the regular week starts. When we do turn up, trying to look after other people, we’ll drive home saying “that was so good, I can’t believe we thought about not going”. Waiting together for Jesus’ return is both our work and our encouragement while we wait.

We are to wait together faithfully

When Jesus comes back he’ll measure our faithfulness relevant to what we’ve each individually been given. Matthew 25:29 says “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have more than enough. But from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” What these servants have (or do not have) is fruit produced from what Jesus has given them. Individually and uniquely.

Last night one of the PM guys was reminding me about the need for Christians to deliberately and prayerfully have a look at where God has put them, what abilities and resources he’s given them, and to use those circumstances and abilities to produce fruit for God. The consequences for never doing this are terrifying (Matthew 25:14-30) and the reward for doing it is the opposite.

I’m praying this year that God will graciously force me to be fruitful. It may be the year.
Come Lord Jesus, come.

Jan 8 - Suffering I I can’t believe in a God who hasn’t stopped our suffering.

Jan 15 - Hypocrisy I Christians are worse than everyone else.

Jan 22 - Exclusivity I You aren’t the only ones with the truth.

Jan 29 - Evidence I The Bible isn’t evidence.

This Christmas is a great opportunity to gather and reflect on God’s goodness in sending Jesus. Come along to Lambton High School with friends and family to enjoy Carols on Sunday 18th, Christmas Eve on Saturday 24th, and Christmas Day.

It’s been great hearing about how people have been trying to read the Bible more regularly.  The Time with God material is designed to help you in that.

Number 3 is out now on Acts (part 2) and 1 Thessalonians.  You’ll find 40 suggested readings with a few questions and comments to help you understand the passage.  There are also some suggested prayer points to help broaden your prayers!

You’ll find them up the back of church on the info table.  They’re free - so take one, use it and tell us what you think!

Over the weekend the Labor Party national conference moved to allow a conscience vote for their parliamentarians on whether the definition of marriage should be changed to allow people to marry someone of the same sex.  This decision reflects the views of a growing proportion of Australians.

This is a very sensitive and emotive issue.  The newspaper I read over the weekend contained several stories and photographs of gay couples who either had married overseas or wanted to be married here.  It got me thinking about how we should respond as Christians to the push for gay marriage.  Here’s a few thoughts:

Firstly, it’s important we are gentle and respectful here.  Even though it’s likely that any sort of resistance on our part will be very negatively portrayed we shouldn’t become rude in our opposition.   We need to model Christ-like gentleness, humility and love in our speech and discussion.

Secondly, it is helpful for us to see what sort of debate this is.  Many proponents of gay marriage frame the debate as a question of rights.  They assert that gay people should have the right to get marriage and to deny them this ‘right’ is unjust and wrong.   Any opponent then of gay marriage is portrayed as being an oppressor of human rights - obviously a serious accusation!  However the problem with this way of arguing is that it ignores what marriage actually is.  Marriage is not just a commitment between two people in love - if that was the case then exclusion on the basis of sex would be unfair.  Rather, Marriage is, by definition, a mutual commitment to lifelong fidelity by an adult man and a woman (who are not already married and not related).  Gay people therefore, as the law stands, cannot marry, but neither can children, people who are already married, or people who are closely related etc.  So the reason gay people cannot marry at present is not because of injustice but because that’s what marriage is.

What proponents of gay marriage are really asking for is that our society change the definition of marriage so that it is open to people of the same sex.

Of course in Australia people are entitled to lobby for changes in the law.  Our society, and the Christians within it, must think carefully about whether this is a good idea.

Christians will look to the Bible for what marriage is and will find that it is indeed between a man and woman (and there’s plenty more the Bible says about marriage).  Even though we may be a minority we would prefer our law to correspond to what God says.

Some non-believers will put a high value on tradition and would also much prefer things to stay the same.

Others will not care at all about the Bible or tradition and argue that our society can jolly well make up for ourselves what ‘marriage’ should be!  They would argue that our society would be better off if gay marriage is allowed.

All of us are entitled to our opinion so all this can make for plenty of interesting public debate!

As Christians I think our responsibility is to argue for the continuation of marriage as between a man and woman even though this will not be well received by proponents of gay marriage.  The main reason for this is that we believe God is good in giving us the institution of marriage (between a man and a woman).  He has given it to us ‘for the good ordering of society’ as the Anglican Marriage ceremony puts it.  If our society tries to decide for itself what marriage is we cannot expect its version to improve on what God has given us.  We’ve seen this to some extent already in the way the ‘no fault’ divorce law has affected society.  This law (the Family Law Act), introduced in 1975 made it much easier to divorce your spouse.  Although the definition of marriage remained the same, the ‘lifelong’ aspect of it was greatly weakened.  These days, even though couples vow lifelong commitment, our society doesn’t really expect them to keep that vow.  The result has been a culture where the divorce rate is high and many children are growing up in broken homes or blended families.  I’m not an expert in statistics but I’m pretty sure there’s been no decrease in domestic violence or child abuse (and possibly even an increase).  All this is to say that changing our society’s view of marriage from what the Bible says will not be good for society.

It’s hard to say what impact exactly legalising gay marriage would have in Australia.   At the very least we could expect a growing minority of children growing up without a role model of the same sex and possibly without a knowledge of their biological background.  We could also expect more pressure on adolescents with homosexual feelings (nomatter how fleeting) to identify themselves as gay.  Another outcome could be a growing number of divorced gay men and women, some of them involved in child custody disputes similar to heterosexual divorcees.  Other outcomes are possible and its hard to know for sure.  What we can say with confidence is that a move away from God’s plan for marriage cannot be expected to lead to the ‘good ordering of society’.

Having said all that, it’s likely that non-believers won’t care much for the sort of arguments I’ve made above. In the end it’s quite possible that the non-Christian majority will have their way and marriage will be redefined according to their will.  In this case we must continue to testify to God’s ideal for marriage and be willing to suffer the displeasure of our fellow Australians.

In the meantime, for the sake of our society and our country is it good and right that we write to, meet with and call our elected representatives to argue for marriage to remain between a man and woman.

I deal a fair bit in numbers.  Part of my job as Growth Group overseer at church involves figuring out things like how many people are in groups, how does this compare to six months ago, what’s the average group size, how many groups do we need and so on.  I’m pretty sure the other staff and ministry team leaders are doing the same in their areas.  But now and again I get a faint feeling of guilt - is it wrong to be thinking and planning about numbers?  Am I being somewhat callous and clinical by planning in these areas? Am I ‘building a kingdom’?  After all, a common complaint against churches is that ‘they only care about numbers’.

After reflecting for a while on this question I actually want to argue something fairly provocative.  I want to argue this: a church that cares about numbers is a church that cares about outsiders.

photo credit: National Library NZ on The Commons

Let’s examine this claim.  I would hope most Christians would care about outsiders - that is, non-Christians or Christians who are looking to find a church to be part of.  Jesus exemplified this attitude by the way he ate and drank with people outside the acceptable social and religious culture of Judaism (see for example in Matthew 9:9-13).    We see it also in the way we are to ’shine like stars in the universe as (we) hold out the word of life (Phil 2:15-16) or ‘declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light’ (1 Peter 2:9).  Paul commands his readers to ‘welcome’ people like Epaphroditus (Phil 2:29), Mark (Col 4:10) and Philemon (verse 17).  To put it simply, If a Christian community is shaped by the character of God and the Gospel itself it will care about outsiders and want to welcome them into fellowship with God and with his people.

However, a real test of a church’s care for outsiders is its willingness to care about numbers.  A church that wants to know how many new people visited church or are in the area or have heard the gospel cares about who those people are and how we can actually care for them.  A desire to see individuals saved and welcomed will drive a church to pray for, plan and work towards saving and welcoming lots of individuals i.e. numbers.  In contrast, a church that claims to not worry about numbers may as well say it doesn’t worry about those individuals who are in need of God’s salvation and Christian fellowship.

This relationship between ‘numbers’ and the value of individuals is seen in the Bible itself.  This can be seen pretty clearly in the book of Numbers, for example, where numbers matter because they are made up of individuals like Beriah, Naaman or Zelophehad’s daughters.  In the New Testament numbers are also mentioned without embarrassment.  In Acts 2:41 3000 were added to the Christian community.  In Acts 2:47 ‘the Lord add to their number daily those who were being saved’ (see also 5:14, 6:1 and 6:7).  We actually get to meet some of these individuals like Stephen, Philip and others.  As Paul suffered in Corinth, the Lord told him to stay because he had many people in that city (Acts 18:11).  These ‘many people’ are not abstract ‘numbers’ - they are the individuals who were the first readers of 1 and 2 Corinthians!

Now of course this emphasis on numbers doesn’t mean that a failure to grow in numbers is a sign of ministry unfaithfulness or God’s displeasure.  Elijah had to learn this as he wrestled with his own ‘ministry failure’ (1 Kings 19).  But if we do see the number of new Christians or new people at church fall we should be looking for reasons why and praying to God about it.  Not because of ‘numbers’ as an isolated concept but because we do care about outsiders and want them to join us.

Moreover, our care for outsiders will actually be tested by growing numbers.  It’s easy to care for only a few new Christians or church members - especially if they are culturally similar to us.  We can even consider ourselves welcoming.  But when there are lots of people, and some of them are different to us, our care for outsiders is really tested.  It’s hard to call, visit, talk to and love lots and lots of new and different people.  It would be easier to simply put a cap on the numbers and close the doors!  But our love of people commits us to caring about numbers.  And so we do pray for, plan and work towards growing numbers.

So that’s why I think a church that cares about numbers is a church that cares about outsiders.  And so I press on with my ‘numbers planning’ and am not ashamed to be a pastor that cares about numbers.

On three Monday nights in November, 37 members of HBC (mostly UC but also PM) met to think through their next move in life. Each of them are in the process of pulling stumps at university and planning to start something new.

For some, the change has come through the completion of a degree. For others it’s being united with a spouse who’s moving to another town. For others still, a decision that uni just isn’t the right thing at the moment.

The coming transition can be a time that brings a range of feelings: excitement, worry, conviction, uncertainty, confusion, hope. It’s certainly a time for reflection. University years are a privilege - years that often shape the rest of our lives. Years of new friendships, available time, independence and learning - usually cultivating some big thoughts about life, the universe and God. For this, we must firstly be thankful.

The Grad Nights were time to consider together some of the changes that the future might hold - guided by the Scriptures. Greg opened the Bible to help work through three big topics: money, work and ministry. It was clear that the life of a Christian will stand out in the world.

Real-life alumnus, jack-of-various-trades and AM-church-attender, Mark Jefferys, came along as a guest to share personal insights on life from the other side of uni. Each night, Mark humbly opened up his life, marriage, family, work, relationships and bank-account to help get everyone thinking; never claiming perfection, but demonstrating Christ’s work in him.

Some time was spent discussing scenarios in groups and praying for each other.

Now that you know there are (at least) 37 people in our church who are moving on from uni in 2012, it’d be great for you to pray for them as well. Pray that their character would be growing to match Jesus - that this would lead to wise and godly decisions that would help them stand firm in Christ and continue to present their lives to him.