I was sitting at the church AGM the other night, munching on my Subway (roast beef with ranch sauce, not bad, I’m usually a pizza-sub), when I felt a growing sense of excitement about our 30,000-vision: that God would save 30,000 people for Jesus in Newcastle, for a start. It’s being spoken of a lot, and I reckon people are starting to jump on board with it, like it’s something we can practically work towards.

Greg spoke about the nature of a gospel. Implicit in the word is a sense of outward propulsion. Such good news can’t help but spread. A gospel message can’t possibly be insular. Greg reckons we are grasping this for the first time as a church and it is changing our direction.

Later, Dave Moore discussed some numbers projecting our church growth, under Christ, in thinking about our need for a church building. At the going rate, it looks like we could be up over a thousand pretty soon.

I started to think: “Wouldn’t it be great to be with Hunter Bible Church in a few years time when this goal is really taking shape, when we have seen thousands in Newcastle come to know Jesus because of God’s work through us.”

Such an exciting thought. Something to be on-board with huh?!

But why not now?

Why is it not as exciting to be part of this mission today as it will be in three years time? I stopped, I was making a mistake.

The step up now towards 1,000 people is just as important as the step from 1,000 to 2,000 or from 29,000 to 30,000. It’s at this current step that we prepare and build the resources that will enable us to take the next steps, and so on. They’re steps in sequence, not random jumps!

I forget that every moment is a part of God’s plan. The endpoint of all our goals should always be our hope in Christ’s return when every one of his people is rescued, since we know that the time we have is meant for more to be saved.

This is why it is so important that our goal includes the words for a start. I notice that our senior staff have been making sure they emphasize this.

Every day is part of God’s plan and is crucial in reaching the Day of the Lord. The people accepting Jesus gift now will be the ones preaching about it in the future.

The difference between then and now is a number saved; this can only possibly change how we work. It’s true that we can be excited about how we can work differently to reach even more people when we are larger, but it makes no difference to the attitude or goal of our work. We should be fully honoring God at both points – either way we should be found acting faithfully with what we have, and getting stuck in to our little bit.

It’s so hard not to be proud, wanting a grand number so we can feel big and important.

If it’s a grand number we want to reach for our own sake we will never be pleased, because the number can always be greater – there will always be an apparently more exciting time ahead – it’s the great trap of the material world! But, if it’s a grand number we want to reach for Christ’s sake, we will always be pleased, for the joy we have doing His work and seeing His grace save many! As long as we are faithful, we will never stop, and God will keep saving!

We often sing: Now is the moment, the day of salvation, this is the hour to be serving our King! If you’re waiting for the time to jump on board with our goal of changing Newcastle, now is the moment.

The HBC elders meet again last night! After looking at 1Thes 2:8-10 and praying together, we had a good night getting through a lot of things - many to do with the upcoming AGM and the possiblity of getting a church building.

We agreed that at the AGM we’d propose that we change the name of the official church association from “Newcastle Unichurch” to “Hunter Bible Church”. We’re also going to propose some minor constitutional changes to keep things in line with the size of our church. More details will come about this soon!

We also decided that the AGM night would be a good opportunity to talk about a building and give members the opportunity to ask questions about the building process and where we’re up to. So, we’re going to get the AGM business started at 7pm and finished as quickly as possible. Then at about 7:45pm we’ll have a kinda’ “open forum” about all things to do with buildings and HBC.

To top it all off, we also decided that Hunter Bible Church should officially take on HMP (Hope Myanmar Partnership) as a mission partner! We’re convinced they are a great organisation and making this official this just confirms that.

Please remember to pray for our elders, and for our church as we think about things like constitutions and buildings.