Bible reading plans

Thinking about reading through the Bible in a year in 2012? Why not try one of the Bible reading plans at http://www.esv.org/resources/reading-plans-devotions/

I'm going to have a go at the ESV Study Bible plan.

When I was at uni I managed to read through the whole Bible in two years, so I'll see how I go with this plan and will fill you in along the way.

Issue 5 of my newsletter

Here is my latest newsletter:

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Latest happenings...

I have a week and a half of work left until the new year begins. This year has gone by very quickly.

In reflecting on the past year I am thankful to God for this opportunity he has given me to do MTS. As with a lot of things, I've found that there has been no better way to learn about full-time ministry than by being engaged in it full-time. I have learned a lot over this year, have made a few mistakes along the way, but have also feel I have grown immensely, only by God's grace.

Thank you for all your support and prayers for me this year. Here are some things that you can pray for as the year wraps up:

• Pray that God would bring many people to our Christmas celebration meetings and grant them the gifts of faith and repentance
• Pray that God would give me wisdom as I start planning for next year
• Pray that God would give Rob and I wisdom as we plan for the future

WKC 11 review

It has almost been two weeks since WKC so I definitely thought I should do a review post now rather than later.

Overall, Women's Convention was a great weekend away. It was the first time I had gone with a group from St Andy's and we had a great time together. It was truly a very womanly weekend - we started by driving up together and having dinner in a pizza place. Then after that we went to Coles to pick up dessert - Yogo! On arrival to the KCC center, we ate our Yogo and got settled into our rooms. It was freezing! So we ended up driving back to Kmart to buy slippers and boots. Over the course of the whole weekend I think we went to Kmart 3 times to do various shopping. We also went out for deluxe hot chocolates, scoured the antique stores, knitted and crocheted.  Fun times!!!

The topic of the weekend was "A life worth living - eyes on the prize, feet on the ground." Cathie Heard and Jane Tooher gave talks from Philippians. Philippians is such a jam packed book and full of great encouragement and challenges. Cathie and Jane gave 4 great talks - but I felt like I wanted more! I guess it is a bit of a big ask to do a whole series on Philippians in 4 sessions. I was challenged to live for Christ above everything and to be willing to die for Christ now, before children and houses and security come. I was encouraged by the fact that God counts us righteous and his righteousness is the most valuable thing we can have.

Here are some quotes that I found helpful from the talks:
- Humility is thinking of yourself less, not thinking less of yourself.
-"To live is Christ and too die is gain" - dying is gain only if you are living for Christ.

There were a number of differences in the conference from previous years. The one that I thought was best was the use of dramatic readers to read the passages. Four women memorised a chapter of Philippians each and recited it to us. Not only did they remember everything word for word, they also put a lot of effort into reading the text with the right emphasis. The way they read also felt like they were reading a letter to friends.

They also had bite-sized segments and video interviews. There was a video of John Piper talking about what a life worth living is like for him. There was also an interview with 3 women on how they lived godly lives in the face of suffering and hardships. There was also a video testimony of the late Deb Lean which was very encouraging. WKC have said that they would upload the videos to their website so once they have I'll post up the link.

Once again I'll say that I really enjoyed WKC 11. To me, WKC is probably one of the best KCC conferences I've been to as they are always faithful to the word and always put a strong emphasis on preaching the Bible. Next years WKC is called "Fuelled by Desire." I'm interested to know what part of the Bible they will look at. Am looking forward to it and hope you (if you are a woman) can join me.

Should a single woman pray for a husband?

Found this quote from an article on the Center for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood:

Should we even pray for husbands? Is that acceptable? What if we pray and we remain single-what then??

My first answer is that of course God is still good if we pray and remain single. Marriage is a gift for this life alone. If we have received forgiveness for our sins and life eternal, we have already received the biggest and best gift and one that is for all eternity. We didn't miss out on God's very best.

http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/Why-pray-for-a-husband

What an encouragement: we have not missed out on God's very best!

Questioning our Evangelism Practises

I just finished reading Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer. It's a fairly short book made up of one tiny introductory chapter followed by 3 jam packed chapters. It should only take you less than a week to read it.

At the end of chapter 3, Packer poses 5 questions that he encourages us to ask of our own evangelism practises. Here they are:

1) Is this way of presenting Christ calculated to impress on people that the gospel is a word from God?

2) Is this way of presenting Christ calculated to promote, or impede, the work of the word in men’s minds?

3) Is this way of presenting Christ calculated to convey to people the doctrine of the gospel, and not just part of it, but the whole of it?

4) Is this way of presenting Christ calculated to convey to people the application of the gospel, and not just part of it, but the whole of it?

5) Is this way of presenting Christ calculated to convey gospel truth in a manner that is appropriately serious?

If you read the chapter yourself he goes into detail on why asking those questions are important. What do you think of these questions? Are there other questions we should be asking? Are some of these questions not important?

And how do our evangelism practises stand up against these questions? Do they make the cut?

Examples of evangelism practises/courses:

• Two ways to live
• Simply Christianity
• Just Start Talking
• Introducing God
• one-to-one/Bible reading
• doorknocking
• events/talks

Decline in church growth?

Been reading this article and found the following paragraph quite interesting:

In other words, although the outspoken atheists and cultured despisers of Christianity may seem very prominent to us, this may well be because they are over-represented among the media gatekeepers and opinionisers. The population as a whole is not nearly as hostile to Christianity or to churchgoing as we think.

 Thinking about my own experience I can see this to be true. I have been attending a pottery class and one girl in particular is not a Christian but is very happy to ask me about what I do during my week and about church and Christianity.

Have a go. Talk to some people. They may not be as hostile towards Christianity as you might think.

God is Faithful!

Hello All,

Two days ago I gave a talk at Abbotsleigh chapel to the whole school! My talk was on how God is faithful to his promises and he is concerned for his people. I spoke from Exodus 2:23-3:4. I enjoyed preparing the talk as I was being constantly reminded to trust in God's strength and not my own, and also the reminder that God is faithful!

In giving the talk I could also see that God was working through me to present something that was clear and faithful to the word. I have also been sick for the past couple of days and was sick on the day of giving the talk... but by God's grace, I was still able to give the talk and the students were very attentive.

Praise God for his power and strength, love and faithfulness!

Issue 4

Here is the link to my latest newsletter.

Hello Everyone!

I only ever seem to blog here when I'm sick so I thought I should let you know... I'm better now! We can definitely thank God for that.

I thought I should also let my internet savvy followers out there know that I have been doing some work on the St Andrew's website. I've uploaded all the most recent sermons including our 6 week series on worship. Check it out at www.standys.org.au

I am writing my next newsletter now so be on the lookout for that.

Prayer points

Hello Everyone!

At the moment I'm home sick with a bad flu. Could you please pray that God would give me a speedy recovery and good health for the rest of winter as this is already the second flu I've had this cold season.

Caroline

Issue 3

Issue 3

Just click on the link above to read all the exciting things that have been going on.

Update

It has been a while since my last update. Things have been very busy and there are a lot of things to talk about. However you will all be getting a newsletter very soon so I thought I'd just dot point everything that's been going on:

• MTS training has started
• JOLT has started
• Gave a lesson to a year 9 class at Abbotsleigh
• Organising Wahroonga parish newsletter
• Bush School Easter Assembly
• 6:30 and the Vine Weekend Away

JOLT

JOLT (Jesus Over Lunch Time) is the Christian lunch time group at the Bush School. We had our first meeting last Thursday and I was greatly encouraged by it.

Although there were only 6 kids there for the first meeting, there were many kids who popped their heads in to see what was going on. A lot of them said that they would come next week.

At JOLT we introduced ourselves to each other, made up cool nicknames, played some games, read the Bible and prayed. A few of the kids there had never read a passage in the Bible before so I had to teach them about the chapter and verse numbers. I also had to teach them what a Bible study was and how to answer questions. At first they weren't answering questions by looking at the passage but by the end of the session they had gotten the hang of it. What a great opportunity to be able to teach kids how to read the Bible for themselves. I am really excited about opening up the Bible with these kids every week.

For our first Bible study we asked the question "Who is God?" From looking at Acts 17:22-31 we saw that God is bigger and greater than us, however he is not far from us and wants to be our friend. This week we will be asking the question "Who is Man?" We will see that there is no one righteous, not even one. But God has provided a way for us to be in a relationship with him even though we do not meet his standards.

• Praise God that JOLT has been able to start again for this year and that there are many kids who are interested in reading the Bible.
• Pray that I would faithfully teach the Bible to these kids and that they would come to trust in Jesus as their Lord.

Women's Brunch

We had our first 6:30 women's event on Saturday. We had a lovely brunch and also had a great time reading through Ephesians 4 together. 

• We were reminded that the good/worthy life is not about things that we have but about our attitudes and the way we live. 
• We were reminded that as Christians we have been joined with Christ (made in Christ) as well as brought into unity with each other. Because of this we need to maintain the unity (by being humble, gentle, patient and bearing with one another in love) so that we may grow into maturity into Christ. 
• We were also reminded that if one part of the body is not working properly, the whole body wont be able to grow. We prayed for each other that we would continue to live a life worthy of our calling (unity with Christ and each other).

Here are some photos of the brunch:

 Multiple types of tea mmmm

 Having discussions in smaller groups

Having fun :)

Issue 2

Here is the link for issue 2 of my newsletter:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B1RXda2qcJbUMzgxNDE2MDktOWU1YS00MGU2LWI5OGQtOTU5ZTA1ODhkNDI4&hl=en&authkey=CIq6q5QC

a quick update

This week has been my first full week. I went to Abbotsleigh on Wednesday morning and also started Scripture classes this morning at the Bush School (However JOLT - the lunchtime group - hasn't started yet).

So now I am getting a better understanding of what my weeks will look like which is good. So far so good.

This Saturday I'll be going to the Abbotsleigh Crusader's weekend away. This will be a great opportunity for me to get to know the Christian girls better. I've already seen them on two opportunities at school and I feel that they are opening up to me more. Pray for Tim Clemens who will be giving talks on the topic of faith. Also pray that this will be a beneficial time for me as I meet girls and encourage them in their Christian lives.

Excursion!

Yesterday, Philip, Scott and I went to the lanch conference of the Priscilla and Aquila centre. It was a great day out and a great conference. The Priscilla and Aquila centre is “A centre for the encouragement of the ministries of women in partnership with men.” 

In the past there have (apparently) been many groups formed which have a more negative spin on teaching how men and women should work together, often putting things negatively such as "women are NOT allowed to preach" whereas this centre aims to encourage positively ways in which women CAN work with men.


We started the day with a 3 hour look at Genesis 1-3 by Peter Jensen, being reminded that men and women are both made in the image of God are therefore in essence the same being. However there is a difference in responsibility between the male and female as seen in how sin came into the world and the consequent punishments.


We also had electives. The two electives I went to were:
Working with men (run by Kara Gilbert and Tracey Gowing)
-recognising that men are men, so we shouldn't try and make them act female
-honouring the role of men as leaders and teachers with greater responsibility
-not seeking value or affirmation from your senior ministers but rather from God alone


Working with women (run by Phil Wheeler, Joshua Ng, Rick Smith and Paul Dale)
-a panel of 4 men discussing why they chose to have women on their team
-the benefits of having women on staff: mission, opportunities, pastoral care, etc
-the difficulties with having female staff: often transient working with women because of different their different life stages (single, married, children, etc)


I was really encouraged to see so many men there who were making the effort to think through how to work in partnership with women. It was also really encouraging to be at the launch of this conference which I am sure will do great things. It will be worthwhile for you to browse through their website to find out more.


Prayer note: I seem to have caught what I call the "crazy weather cold." My immune system has been finding it hard to cope with the unbearable heat-wave followed by the massive cool change. Please pray that I would have a speedy recovery and that it would not affect my work.

it's hot!

It is really hot! Which can make it hard to concentrate during the day. I have a slight tendency to be lazy and do nothing. So you could pray that either I would

• have better luck concentrating during the day
• be motivated to do more work in the evenings when it is cooler.

My First Newsletter!

Issue 1

Thank you to all those who came to my supporters afternoon tea on Saturday. It was very encouraging to see you all there.

If you would like to give financially to help support me during the next two years, you may now do so as the accounts have been organised. The information in the newsletter is wrong. The correct information is as follows:

BSB: 704-998
Account no.: 100 009 869

Week 2?

I went to the doctor at the end of last week with a violent cough. The doctor suspected that it might be whooping cough, took a blood test and gave me the required antibiotics.

This was a bit of a damper on my second week on the job as it meant that I had to stay away from people. I had to keep away from church and the office for a whole week to make sure that I didn't infect anyone. The coughing at night also got me feeling quite tired during the day. I unfortunately had to cancel a few meetings with women which was sad as I was really looking forward to it.

Thankfully, the antibiotics have worked and I haven't been coughing at night anymore. I am also past the contagious stage so I can hang out with people again.

Thank you to all those people who prayed for me. I know a number of people from church had been praying that I would get better quickly and I am feeling heaps better now.

I have started!

I started this week in the office. Check out my funky new desk:

So far I have been trying to get all my admin and planning for the year done. I think after being a teacher for two years, admin is something I'm getting better and better at. Philip tells me that it is important to be good at admin in ministry.

It's been really nice working in an office of male and female Christians. Yesterday we had a 5 minute chat on what it means that God is righteous. It was really exciting to have an informal chat about theology. Nothing like my old job.