This Sunday we will be celebrating Father’s Day with a special ‘Donuts with Dads’ treat available to enjoy over a cup of coffee after the service. Sunday will also be the 2nd day of Spring which means we’ll be seeing more wild flowers and blossoms on display in nature. May this Sunday be a day where our hearts are filled with inspiration and thankfulness for our fathers and the beauty of creation around us.
Please remember our ‘church wide training day’ scheduled for Sunday 9th September. It’ll be at most an hour after the morning service – from 11.30am to 12.30pm. As mentioned before, it’s an opportunity for our different ministry groups to get together as teams, to give input how we can improve what we do, as well as the opportunity to provide some training related to our different areas.
This week we will host a prominent speaker – Martyn Iles – at our Sunday service. Martyn is a young, gifted speaker from a conservative Christian background. He is also a preacher who speaks with passion from God’s Word and how it relates to a world that is becoming more and more hostile towards Christianity. Myles started the ‘Human Rights Law Alliance’ (defending Christians who are prosecuted in AUSTRALIA for living out their Christian convictions.) He is also the managing director of the ACL (Australian Christian Lobby.)
The following Sunday I will start a series in the lead up to September 23rd where we will join other churches across Australia to host a Freedom Sunday service. More details to follow in the weeks ahead.
In closing I want to speak a word of thankfulness to our church for helping with the funeral arrangements of Jan (jnr) v d Laan. As many of you know Jan & Joy v d Laan (previous members of our church) received the sad news last week that their son ‘Jan Jnr’ had passed away. They hastily flew back to Perth to make funeral arrangements. In a few short days so many logistics had to be sorted out, but thanks to the support of family and friends – and our Grace Church community – we were able to assist the family in this time of need. Yesterday we had the memorial services for Jan. Though it was a sad occasion, much comfort was given and received as many people gathered to remember his life and to say their good bye’s. May we all continue to prayerfully uplift Jan and Joy in their time of grief.
We have a special guest speaker with us this Sunday. Pastor Dave Groenenboom from Gateway Community Church will be visiting us and preaching. He has recently been appointed to a role at IJM (International Justice Mission) and will be relocating to Sydney later this year. It’ll be a blessing to have him minister at our church before wrapping up his time here in W.A. Alex Thompson, our Youth Coordinator, will be traveling down to Gateway to preach at the church of Pastor Dave – so basically we are doing a pulpit swap. Let’s pray for both of these men as they prepare for Sunday.
Please remember our ‘church wide training day’ scheduled for Sunday 9th September. It’ll be at most an hour after the morning service – from 11.30am to 12.30pm. We are still sorting out where all the different groups will. It seems the best plan would be to finalise the ‘meeting points’ the week of the 9th Sep’ so we can see what the weather is doing. If the forecast that week is for good weather we can use the outdoor places around church as well – so saving on the cost of renting lots of meeting rooms.
Why is this ‘training day’ so important? In our recent NCD survey – the one theme that kept on repeating through the results is that our members indicated they ‘are not being trained/equipped for their task at church.’ While we know that informal training was being done as needed, our leaders also agreed that we need to be more purposeful about training/equipping our teams. This church wide training day is simply a first step in the right direction. In a way we are starting the conversation within our teams to asses how we are doing, what can we improve, and how are we going to improve. It’ll also help us connect with one another and “consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” Hebrew 10:24
This ‘training day’ is not a compulsory event, but I would love for all of us to be a part of this initiative. If you are not yet in any of our “specialised” ministries – then consider coming along to hear what they are doing and asking question, so consider becoming involved. Also – check out the new small group starting with details listed on p4 of the newsletter.
Lastly – we are looking for someone who could help us with ordering printed T-shirts for some of our ministries. If you are good with something like this – please let me know. We need you to champion this project.
