Tag Archives: 5:17 life - Page 2

Pulse Check – part 2

Posted by on September 22, 2010 Comments Off

Following on from the last Pulse Check (‘Connecting with each other’), we now come to ‘Connecting People with Jesus’. One of the key phrases we used in our Night Vision meetings was Reformission.

Again, below was (is) our aim. How do you think we are going? I’d love to hear your feedback.

Reformission

What is reformission?

“Reformission requires that God’s people understand their mission with razor-sharp clarity. The mission is to be close to Jesus. This transforms our hearts to love what he loves, hate what he hates, and to pursue relationships with lost people in hopes of connecting with them and, subsequently, connecting them with him.”

[Radical Reformission, Mark Driscoll, p40]

Why is reformission necessary in Brisbane / St Lucia / Australia?

Because Australia is no longer ‘Christian’.  Australian non-Christian culture is post-modern, post-Christian, profoundly secular.  ’Mission’ isn’t just taking the Gospel overseas and contextualising its teaching for that culture, but taking the Gospel into our Australian, P-M, P-C, secular culture and contextualising its teaching for THIS culture.
Why is reformission key to our new night church?
Unless WE connect with people, we’ll have no-one to connect with Jesus, and we’ll just be a holy huddle (a group of Christians meeting together purely for themselves).  It would be a big thing to ask of God to just send people to us off the street, without us making efforts to connect with people to connect them with Jesus / his church!
Are we reformissionaries?
If so, what (if anything) keeps us from the second step – connecting people with Jesus and with the church?
Are we already reformissionaries – successfully building authentic relationships with non-Christians God has placed in our lives?
How can we become reformissionaries? Is it hard? Can we do it?
This is something we’ll all need to commit to being, recognising that some are more gifted at relationship-building than others, but we can all practise loving, authentic care for people whether we bring them to church or just look after the people others have brought to church.  Please consider and pray about this in your own lives and encourage and help each other with our conversations about it.  Also consider in your potential roles in 5:17 church how you can express / engage in reformission – eg what you’d say from the front as a service chairperson, a song-leader, a welcomer, as someone who invites newcomers home for dessert on sunday nights…

Who can / do we want to build reformission-relationships with? (What are our mission fields that we want to contextualize our church and ministry for?)
2 primary target groups because they’re logical and relevant:
1. our existing non-Christian (caucasian / non-Asian, Asian, Indian, African etc) contacts
2. the local St Lucia community
Can / should we all agree to target these groups and build relationships (where possible) with these in mind, and leave the actual results to God?  ie He may bring in completely different populations (we may end up being a mono-cultural church) and we need to have ‘ambiguity tolerance’ (flexibility) to go with this – the point being, lowering the walls for as many population groups as possible, but realising inevitably we will reach some better / more than others.
But if we aim to have a BIBLICAL culture most of all, theoretically this will be appealing to any / all types of God’s people (and those predestined to be!) rather than just some = being closed-handed (‘inflexible’) with the subtance: biblical truth (including calling both ‘sinners’ and ‘religious people’ to repentance and holiness) but open-handed / flexible with our form / methods.

What’s news with 5:17?

Posted by on September 14, 2010 1 comment
Every quarter, I am asked (by the Council of CCCB) to provide a short summary of what has been happening at 5:17 church. Below is what Keiyeng and I have just sent in.
With thankfulness to God, our little family at 5:17 church is growing nicely. The cross of Christ is at the centre of all we do, and it is a deep privilege to be part of Christ’s work of both redeeming people to himself, as well as maturing his people in their discipleship of him.
It is a joy to see 5:17ers striving “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-4). This has been seen most vividly through our after-service dinners throughout the winter months – where members of 5:17 volunteer to cook a meal for all the congregation to enjoy fellowship over. These have been a highlight for our growth in fellowship and mutual love and service and provide a great opportunity for us to get to know and thus serve each other more deeply and meaningfully.
We’ve also been growing through indepth studies of the Letter of James and the Book of Jeremiah. These have been both challenging and encouraging.  Earlier this year we had to start a third weekly Community Group (in-home Bible study and fellowship) as our numbers warranted it. Similar to SLE’s approach, CG’s each week study the same passage as the previous Sunday’s sermon has covered.  This has meant we soak ourselves in the Scriptures that much more and has been very rewarding.  Looking (from Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 9-10) at how Jesus instituted the New Covenant, enabling us as God’s people to be faithful to Him as the Israelites weren’t able to be, was especially wonderful!
It’s been an enormous joy and privilege for Steve and 5:17ers to introduce a few friends and international students to the Gospel through doing the ‘Christianity Explained’ course with them.  Praise God for recent new life in Christ!!  Reading through ‘The Big Picture Story Bible’ (a children’s Bible in English) with international students has also proven to be an effective way to introduce ESL speakers to the key storyline of God’s word – redemption in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  (You might like to try this yourself – 5:17 girls have found it takes about 2 hours in one sitting!)
We hope to letterbox-drop a second community letter in the coming few weeks – perhaps after the newest 5:17 member (baby Jacob Max Nation, born to Steve and Keiyeng on August 30) grows and settles down a little! Please continue to pray that the salt and light of God’s saving word would go out from amongst us, and that we’ll grow as the little church through whom God is pleased to do great things for His glory.

World Vision dinner

Posted by on August 24, 2010 Comments Off

We ate well despite eating simply on Sunday night didn’t we?! (who knew rice and veggies could go down so well?!) Hope you’ll agree it was a good thing to do together for the sake of considering how blessed we are, while serving those with much less, in Jesus’ name.

Pakistan Floods Emergency Appeal

Thanks for your generosity; $176 was raised, and combined with excess dinner money accumulated over previous weeks, we’ll be able to give at least $200 to World Vision’s Pakistan floods appeal. If you’d like to read more about what World Vision is doing to help, or donate online if you didn’t manage to on Sunday, here’s the place to go.

Praise God for the many organisations (like World Vision, TEAR, Open Doors, GFA) – especially the many founded by Christians – that make it possible for us to be involved in giving aid to those who most need it.

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Luke 10:36-37

Beauty for Ashes

Posted by on June 23, 2010 1 comment

After we finish our current Sunday Bible talks on the Letter of James, we’re going to head into the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. The series is going to be called “Beauty for Ashes”. Although ‘Beauty for Ashes’ is a quote from Isaiah 61:3, it works as a summary statement for the Book of Jeremiah for the following reasons:

  • Jeremiah tells the story of people forsaking their Maker, Redeemer and First Love, and subsequently turning on each other. Jeremiah tells the story of a world in chaos.
  • Jeremiah shows the effects of sin as it digs the depths of human anguish and pain, rejection, hatred, futility and foolishness.
  • Jeremiah vividly portrays God’s wrath at all sin, and the fires of judgement that leaves devastating effects.
  • But out of ‘the ashes’, Jeremiah shows the beauty that grace brings forth. New life is created, people are re-united – and God makes a new forgiven and renewed people for Himself, who treasure Him and find Him all-satisfying.

Here’s the outline of the sermon series (dates for each sermon will be finalised soon). Reading the passages ahead of time will help you grasp the sermons better!

18/7  - To pluck and to plant (Jeremiah 1:1-12)
25/7  - The Unheeded God (Jeremiah 7:1-29)
01/8  - Fire in the Bones (Jeremiah 20:1-18)
08/8  - The Ingathering (Jeremiah 23:1-8)
15/8  - A Fresh Start (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
22/8  - Seeking great things for yourself (Jeremiah 45:1-5)

“Beauty for Ashes” will be a roller coaster ride, but hopefully it will be a profound ride, as we further grasp the world we live in, its problem/s, the solution, and the God of justice and of grace.

Jesus’ Church

Posted by on June 17, 2010 1 comment

Over the past few years, as many of you might know, I’ve often struggled being a sole pastor. I’ve often felt that I need a senior pastor to serve under – so that they can make the big decisions and me just follow in tow. But recently (yes, I’m a bit slow), Keiyeng has helped me to see that I shouldn’t need a new senior pastor to work under, cause I have the best already = Jesus.

Jesus is the senior pastor / the chief Shepherd / the Good Shepherd of 5:17 church (1 Peter 5:4; John 10:11). Jesus is the head of the church worldwide, including 5:17 church. He bought the church with His own blood (Acts 20:28), and He sets the agenda for who we are and what we do:

  1. To love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and to love our neighbours as ourselves (Matt 22:37-39); and
  2. To make disciples (of Jesus) in all nations (Matt 28:18-20).

How do we do this?

  1. We listen to His voice and follow Him (John 10:4). This is why the Bible study, Bible reading and sermon are the heart of our Community Groups and Sunday services. All of Scripture speaks of Jesus (Luke 24:27, 44-47) – the Old Testament points to Jesus, the New Testament describes His person and work and shows us how to live in light of His life, death, resurrection, ascension and Second Coming. 5:17 gathers to hear from Jesus and to know how to know Him better and follow Him more wholeheartedly.
  2. We go to Jesus for pastoral care – to cast all our anxieties on Him, and to approach His throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and help in times of need (1 Peter 5:7; Hebrews 4:14-16)
  3. We pray in His name – because there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (John 14:13; 1 Timothy 2:5)
  4. We serve each other as His hands and feet – the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27).

In the end, my confidence as a pastor and our confidence as a church is the promise that nothing can separate us from God’s love, and He will build His church and the gates of hell won’t prevail against it (Romans 8:38-39; Matt 16:18).

And that has made all the difference to my mentality. Hope it gives you confidence to keep moving forward too!

(I know I haven’t exhausted all the things Jesus is for us and calls us to do: feel free to add more in the comments!)

Praying for 5:17 church

Posted by on May 18, 2010 1 comment

Praying for 5:17 church

If you are ever struggling to think of something to pray for 5:17 church, here’s a great 8-second prayer that we would love you to bring to God our Father:

“Lord, cause your Word to run and be glorified in the ministries of 5:17 and the missions we support. Amen!”

You can find the source of this prayer here, reflecting on 2 Thessalonians 3:1

Gospel OUT!

Posted by on May 14, 2010 Comments Off

This Sunday, we’ll be starting a new sermon series called “Gospel OUT! Living out the gospel: sermons from the letter of James.” The purpose for this series is as follows: for the last two months or so, we’ve been looking at nine of the key Christian doctrines (“The Contenders” sermon series): the deity of Jesus, total depravity, justification by faith alone, regeneration, substitutionary atonement, the authority of Scripture etc. This was what one could call “Gospel IN” – what is the gospel, what do Bible-believing Christians believe, why we should believe it, and what we should fight and die for (and what we shouldn’t).

Following Gospel IN, the next big questions is: what does it mean to live these great truths out? That’s what Gospel OUT is all about. Following is the week by week programming of Gospel OUT. It’d be great if you could read the Bible passages before they are preached, so you get more out of the sermons.

16/5 Introducing ‘Gospel OUT’: where faith and culture meet (James 1:1)

23/5 Gospel OUT: Pursuing wholeness through trials (James 1:2-18)

30/5 Gospel OUT: Walking the Word part 1 (James 1:19-25)

6/6 Gospel OUT: Walking the Word part 2 (James 1:26-2:26)

13/6 Gospel OUT: Words and Wisdom (James 3:1-4:3, 11-12)

20/6 Gospel OUT: Taking sides (James 4:1-10)

27/6 Gospel OUT: Grasping time and eternity (James 4:13-5:11)

4/7 Gospel OUT: Final Words (James 5:12-20)

Walking the Talk – getting busy doing good!

Posted by on March 26, 2010 3 comments

A few events coming up…

Event #1 – Teen Challenge’s “Live Free Walk”

Saturday 17th April 2010

Registration: Early Bird registration now extended to 28 March. Early Bird Registration (includes a t-shirt) closes 28 March 2010 -

Registration after the 28 March 2010 (excludes t-shirt) – $20

It’d be good to get a t-shirt, but we’ve only got until this Sunday to register. So, let’s get in quickly. If you do register, make sure you post a comment on this post so everyone knows who is walking.

Purpose of the ‘Live Free Walk’: To make a statement – “we want to see our young women living free of alcohol and drug dependence”. To raise funds for the Teen Challenge Young Women’s Residential Treatment Centre based in Toowoomba, Queensland.
Fundraising: It is expected that each walker will actively fundraise by seeking sponsorship from their family, friends and business associates. The goal for each walker is to raise $100 in sponsorship from 10 sponsors at $10 per sponsor. Very achievable!!! Booklets to record sponsorship will be available in the sponsorship kit which will be mailed upon registration.

To register, click here.

Event #2 – Homeless Connect


Here’s a short video on what this day looks like:

Homeless Connect

To volunteer for the next Homeless Connect, May 11, 2010, view the role descriptions below and fill in the application form.

Role Descriptions

Homeless Connect Application May 10

We’ll be announcing these events at church over the coming weeks. Expect me (Steve) to come and approach you personally about them. More details to come on the blogs too.

For more information on Homeless Connect and to register your interest in future events please email homeless@volqld.org.au or call 3002 7600

CG Schedule

Posted by on March 4, 2010 Comments Off

Our 3 Community Groups (CG-South, CG-Indooroopilly, CG-St Lucia) are following this schedule for the course of this Contenders sermon series.

As 5:17′s leaders have decided, we want to make sure we’re getting a ‘balanced diet’ in our CGs – of Bible study (the staple), special prayer nights, socials to grow in depth and breadth of relationship with each other, and serving nights – to make sure we exist not merely for ourselves as a church/CGs, but to serve others with both the words and actions of God’s saving Gospel. If there’s anything you think we should be covering but aren’t, let us know!

For week starting:

  • Jan 31 – Intro / Social
  • Feb 07 – Jude review
  • Feb 14 – BS: Contenders 1
  • Feb 21 – BS: Contenders 2
  • Feb 28 – Prayer (Centrals switched Feb 21 and 28 around)
  • Mar 07 – BS: Contenders 4
  • Mar 14 – BS: Contenders 5
  • Mar 21 – Social
  • Mar 28 – BS: Contenders 7
  • Apr 04 – Service
  • Apr 11 – BS: Contenders 8
  • Apr 18 – BS: Contenders 9

Jesus is Lord over 5:17 church!

Posted by on February 10, 2010 3 comments

I love seeing the gracious gifts of God used to bless His church. To help us celebrate the 1st birthday of 5:17 church, Eilen made us a cake. It was a very tasty cake. But even more important than its taste was its declaration – Jesus is Lord over 5:17 church!

Sometimes when we look at 5:17 church, we might be tempted to see us as small and insignificant. From a numerical perspective, this could be valid. But let’s not forget who we are. This is who we are: Jesus bought us at the cost of His own precious blood (Acts 20:28). We are the group of (broken yet redeemed) people through whom God is declaring His manifold wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places (Ephesians 3:10). We are the bride of Christ, cleansed by the washing of water with the Word (Ephesians 5:22), being prepared for the time when we will meet our bridegroom (our great love – Jesus) face to face (Revelation 21:2). And we aren’t alone. We are a local outcrop of the vast universal church. The universal church includes not just all Christians alive today, but all Christians past and present. Many have gone before us and are with Jesus in paradise (Luke 23:43).

The church is bigger than you think! Let’s remember that! And Jesus is Lord over it all. This is why we celebrated 5:17′s anniversary.

To the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen (Jude 25)