www.rousehillchurch.com - a fellowship of Christians for the Hills District

Apr 2007
www.rousehillchurch.com - a fellowship of Christians for the Hills District | May 2007 | Mar 2007

Lydia Jane Kwok

25 April 2007 Filed in: Team Update
Di gave birth to our baby girl Monday night. Di arrived at the hospital at 9pm and delivered the baby 30 minutes later! Lydia is healthy, her parents are well, and the boys are excited. We praise God for His faithfulness.                  - Ben

DSC05802

Learning Mercy From Samson

25 April 2007 Filed in: Team Update
Recently I had the opportunity to read a paper on the life of Samson. It struck me that he did little, if anything, right according to God's laws; and yet God still used him to destroy the Philistines. I am thankful that we serve a merciful God who doesn't just give second chances, but third, fourth, and as many as we need!

Elisabeth

Email Subscription Available

19 April 2007 Filed in: Church Planting
Save time and have our updates delivered to you--join our email subscription!

To receive email updates, click here and provide an email address. You will receive a verification email, then click its link to activate subscription. Be aware that your spam filter might block our email, so please check this if you do not receive our updates. We will not share your email address to third parties.

As an alternative, use our RSS subscription. RSS is a very efficient way to browse news and information websites. Click here for more information.

Children: What Happened To Jesus?

16 April 2007 Filed in: Team Update
Each week I have the privilege of teaching Scripture in three different primary schools. The first term of this year was spent learning about Jesus' life and death for us. The children were all very attentive and asked great questions. One of my classes, a Year 4 group, said they want to know what happened to Jesus after He rose from the dead. So we're going to be starting term two by looking at Jesus' last days on earth, the ascension, and His second coming.

Elisabeth

So When Are You Going To Start?

13 April 2007 Filed in: Church Planting
This is our most-frequently-asked question, which refers to starting public worship services. Worship services are certainly a vital part of the church. Yet we believe there are other vital preparations in starting a new church. These include:
1. Planning - starting a church involves much more than providing worship services! For example: what is our vision for ministry in the Hills District? What are our ministry priorities? How shall we implement our plans? Rather than assume we know these answers, we've taken time to walk through them as a team. We continue to do so.
2. Relationships - we have a great ministry team with a range of abilities. Since the first meeting in January, God is reinforcing team unity and cohesion. At the same time, we are praying for others to join us in this special preparation phase, while we gather more contacts in the community.
3. Training - Lord willing, we plan to have key church ministries in place by August. Those ministries require initial skilling, which we need to coordinate.

A 2003 survey of US church planters showed a recurring response: it takes time to start a new church! The process of planning, building relationships, and preparation is long and detailed. Here is our proposed basic timeframe for starting the church from 2007-2008. (click image to download)

2007-2008 Proposed Plan

As we prepare, we acknowledge that God ultimately builds His church according to His time.

If you have expressed interest in providing help (i.e. with outreach, children's ministries, worship music, or finances), we appreciate your support! Please continue to pray and we will be in touch with you soon.

If you are interested in attending worship services in August, you are welcome! But if possible, we'd like to get acquainted first. Joining a new church is a significant commitment and we want to be "on the same page" in regard to vision, values and practices. We continue to meet weekly over a meal or a cuppa, where you'd be welcome.

So...when are you going to contact us?

Ben

Preliminary Doctrinal Statement Available

05 April 2007 Filed in: Church Planting
We have drafted a Doctrinal Statement (PDF file) which expresses our beliefs in a basic, systematic way. The Statement will be re-submitted in fuller detail by the charter date of the church plant. If you have questions or comments, you are welcome to contact us.

Ben

Children's Ministry Training

04 April 2007 Filed in: Team Update
This past Saturday I had the opportunity to present three workshops at a children's ministry training course hosted by AWANA. It was a great day and attendees ranged from AWANA workers and Scripture teachers to Sunday School Teachers and young people who are interested in becoming teachers. I really enjoyed getting to meet so many and exchanging ideas and plans with other teachers from around the Sydney region.

Elisabeth