5:17 church: our story
Hopefully you’ve seen from our homepage and the FAQ page what we’re on about as a church. But here’s a bit about where we’ve come from.
5:17 church is like an outpost or franchise of the Chinese Christian Church Brisbane’s (CCCB) St Lucia English-speaking congregation.
To continue with the franchise metaphor, in 2008 we decided we wanted to find a new way to market or package our product. The product is the good news about Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and rule, and the new package is a new night church. We believe wholeheartedly in the product and there’s nothing we want to or should change about it (especially since it’s been around for more than 2000 years!). And it’s because we believe in it so much that we wanted to find new ways to bring it to new people.
CCCB has been bringing the product to Chinese people in Brisbane for over 30 years and it’s true that St Lucia has its fair share of Chinese residents. But St Lucia and the surrounding suburbs are also full of people from many other nationalities – not least Aussies – and we wanted to see if we could adopt a marketing approach that would cater for them too. Hence, a completely new name and new time slot which we hope will appeal to all kinds of people.
5:17 church launched on Sunday, February 8 2009 with a mix of aussies and asians – different people unified by a common belief in a common Saviour. If you’d like to find out more about him or us, you could read more here or just come along any Sunday night.
Steve Nation: our Pastor’s story
I remember first hearing about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and what that means for me, when I was about 13 years old. I was sitting in a Scripture Class in year 7 in Sydney, when the Scripture teacher placed a caricatured tract depicting hell in front of me. It scared me into asking God for forgiveness of my sin. I knew that I was a sinner in need of forgiveness, but I didn’t know what to do next. What does it mean to live as a Christian?
Soon after responding to the gospel, I came under the influence of Liberal Christians who didn’t hold to the Bible as God’s Word, nor did they teach me how to live my life in direct response to Jesus’ death on the cross. I was quite confused about what it meant to be a Christian. I knew Jesus was fundamentally important for my life, but my life was a mess – and the guilt and shame I felt over some of my actions overwhelmed me.
During my late University years, one of my close school friends challenged me to live my life consistently with the faith in Jesus that I still professed. God’s Spirit was at work as I realised she was right. The next night saw me begin my years growing at a church that upheld God’s Word and its role in teaching Christians to live lives worthy of Christ. I was constantly blown away by the grace of God and the sheer joy of knowing Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. Through the Bible teaching, modeling, and friendship of church members, I was encouraged to consider training to become a pastor.
Following graduation from uni and various odd jobs, I began three full and life-changing years at Sydney Missionary and Bible College, completing a Bachelor of Theology in 2004. I went to College thinking I’d learn about Jesus. More than this, God taught me what it means for me to live like Jesus.
During my Bible College years, I met and married my beautiful wife Keiyeng, a fellow student who was a physio from Brisbane. After a year serving as the Assistant Minister at Cornerstone Presbyterian Community Church in Sydney, I moved with Keiyeng up to the warmer pastures of Brisbane where I began pastoring CCCB St Lucia’s English-speaking congregation (2006-08).
Now, beginning in Feb ‘09, I’m excited to be part of this new venture that is 5:17 church. Serving 5:17 combines a lot of my loves – getting to know God better, hanging out with Keiyeng, spending time with friends, getting to know different people, playing with Munchee our guinea pig (I’m not sure how this serves 5:17 but she makes me happy, and that’s good for 5:17ers), watching and playing sport (go 5:17 sports Saturdays!), and reading books that help me know God better.
That’s me in a nutshell. But there’s much more to 5:17 church than me, so I hope you’ll come and check it out.