Have lunch with Yohanus Masono

The Mission Resource Team is pleased to announce a special lunch time gathering for ministers (and other interested church leaders) with Yohanus Masono.

Yohanus is the Director of Asia Pacific Christian Mission International (APCMI), a mission group that has planted 184 churches in Muslim villages over the past 30 years. And it’s exciting to hear how, in many cases, 30-50% of the village are now Christian and manage to live peacefully with their Muslim neighbors. They have a Bible College that trains church planters in Bandung and won’t graduate the students until they have planted a church! Under Yohanus’ leadership APCMI has recently established a formal relationship with Australian Churches of Christ through Global Mission Partners.

Accompanied by Dr Andrew Menzies from Stirling College, Yohanus Marsono will be sharing something of the exciting story of Churches of Christ in Indonesia over an informal long-lunch at the State Office at 12.30 pm on Thursday 9th February 2012.

RSVP for catering purposes is essential by close of business on Tuesday 7th February
(call: 8269 7873 or email reception@churchesofchrist-sa.org.au)

Prepare the saints

Ephesians 4 is a key passage that I have been coming back to again and again throughout this year. I find it speaks profoundly into my vocation and mission as an employed minister of religion.

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Trends and Culture

For those of you who enjoy research and studies here are 2 that might be of interest to you at the start of a new year:

• McCrindle Research has published a report on faith, religious views and attitudes to Jesus in Australian society. It’s a very recent report so it makes for some interesting statistics: via olive tree media.
• Sam Rainer has publishe 10 unexpected trends in the North American church over the next years. As with most American studies, there are some things that apply equally to the Australian church, and some that are culturally unique to the USA: via Church Executive.

The Faith Effect

http://www.worldvision.com.au/OurWork/ChristianEngagement/Resources/TheFaithEffect.aspx

A five-week interactive study from World Vision designed to facilitate Christian social engagement: you may recognise a familiar face or two.

The Future of Theological Education

A cinematic video on the tectonic changes we are experiencing in our churches, and what it might mean to “equip the saints for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

Re-Imagining Theological Education | 3DM from 3DM on Vimeo.

Ministry Internships

One of the goals of the MRT is to develop the leadership capacity of our churches. A great way to do that is through ministry internships. Think of an internship as an apprenticeship – a great way to try your hand at vocational ministry, to develop your gifts and skills, while being supported by a peer group and a mentor. Most people who begin an internship discern a call to ministry, go on to study at bible college and enter into full time ministry.
More information about internships will be going out to the churches over the coming months, in the mean time you may like to consider:

• Is there a young (or not so young) person in your church in whom you perceive ministry potential? Have you considered talking to them about an internship?
• Do you have a role within your church that may be a good area of responsibility for an intern?
• Do you have finances that you may be able to invest in raising up a new generation of leaders?

Ministry Internships will begin in early March 2012. An approximate cost to employ an intern is $136 a week (based on a 1 day a week ministry role).
For more information contact Gavin Jones at the State office on 8269 7873.

Q ideas

In the mould of TED, Q ideas produces short talks and articles about faith, church and culture. It comes from an american context, but they gather a diverse group of interesting speakers on some interesting topics so it is worth having a browse.
Here are a couple that piqued my interest:

• Being Countercultural
• Concerning the Church: Death to Innovation
• Who is my Neighbor?

Reflections from Hampstead

I am pleased to see you follow up some more on the excellent paper on Church Health & Vitality. We learnt a lot from that paper and enjoyed discussing it amongst our leadership. (Also appreciated the material that went out in September, entitled, We are a people where every member ministers).

As a result of this paper we have at Hampstead considered our need to work on Discipleship and have made some head way with that.

A conversation starter from the Mission Resource Team

When the Mission Resource Team (MRT) asked churches what they believed contributed most to church health and vitality, five indicators emerged; Spirituality, Leadership, Purpose, Outreach and Relationships. These have become the areas of focus for the MRT when working with churches to promote greater health and vitality and we have been encouraging Regional Groups to gather and engage in dialogue about ways to build on these areas in the lives of their churches.

In order to further stimulate such conversations, the Mission Resource Team is pleased to offer this discussion guide on Spirituality which we hope will be the first of a series addressing the five indicators of church health and vitality mentioned above.

We commend it to you for your use, either as a discussion guide in your Regional Group, or in other group discussion settings as you think appropriate.

We welcome your feedback on this paper, how helpful you found it, and whether you would find further similar resources helpful.

Mark Butler (on behalf of the Mission Resource Team)

sustain:if:able kiwi

I just popped in to Steve Taylor’s blog: http://www.emergentkiwi.org.nz/
It’s well worth a look if you are interested in thinking about mission shaped church. This article in particular grabbed my eye – but have a browse – there are a lot of thought provoking posts:

• can mission be embedded into the worship DNA? a proposal