Jimmy’s vision for a small groups church!

Posted by Bill on March 3, 2012

Pastor Jimmy and his wife Christie - Southport Baptist Church

Jimmy & Christie

Jimmy is the youth pastor of Southport Baptist Church here in Queensland, Australia. I first met Jimmy when he signed up for small groups development training, a course I facilitated at Gold Coast Christian Family a few years ago. Jimmy, is a tender-hearted ‘Timothy Type’. He’s an absolute delight to know and partner with. Oh, Lord … how can I adopt Jimmy as a son!

Last week I received the following testimony from Jimmy. Let me tell you: This is the stuff that fuels my passion in life. Jimmy says …

Without a doubt, our Life-group is our favourite time of the week. God is doing great things! We’ve seen our group reach out to our un-churched friends (currently we have 4 un-churched friends as part of our group!). We’ve seen people begin to exercise and develop their gifts through serving in the group, and the we’ve seen a real growth in fellowship and accountability.

It is such a joy at the end of the night to see an un-churched friend take steps forward in their spiritual journey, to see a friend grow in confidence as they serve the group, and have such good friends around you to help you stay strong in the Christian life. And most of all, it is actually so simple, anyone can do it!

God has encouraged me so much through our Life-group. What I really have on my heart is to plant a simple church, starting with three or four groups as the core (just like the three groups that meet at SBC on Tuesday nights). They are functioning how they should – they are ‘reaching in ‘ and ‘reaching out’. This is what excites me the most – It’s my biggest joy!

This is my passion in life: I love evangelising and seeing non-believers join the church; I love seeing shy people develop their leadership potential; I love encouraging people; I love to see Christians growing together, and keeping each other accountable.

Life-groups are so simple. I don’t know why we make church so complicated!

A call to service

Posted by Nick on

This article is from Pastor Elijah Samuel, CCI’s Field Director in Africa

Fredrick (tall on right) with 5 Ethiopian leaders

The rewards of diligence always require more work. This is the case of our dear brother, Fredrik Omoh-John, with Destiny Kids International, and his leaders in Cairo, Egypt. Diligence at the place of calling is paving way for them to stand before Kings and Christian leaders in the land of Egypt. No wonder King Solomon said: “Show me a man who does a good job, and I will show you a man who is better than most and worthy of the company of kings” (Proverbs 22:29).

We cannot agree less with the above Scripture concerning our brother, Fredrik and his team. The following is a testimony from Fredrik. He says …

“Early in the new year (2012) I was called by Salam, one of our Ethiopian sisters, to come and help them prepare their children’s group for their Christmas celebration that was planned for the 7^th of January. I was glad to respond, and I was glad to be there with them on the day of the celebration, helping children with their costumes.

The drama presentation went very well, and parents were happily blessed as they watched their kids perform. Two days after the celebration I got a call from Sister Salam telling me that all the parents had not yet recovered from the blessings of the drama and thereby called requesting specifically to greet me and asked that we keep up our support with their children.

In addition, the pastor of the Ethiopian church asked if I could train five of their leaders for children’s ministry and my answer was, “Okay, as God gives us His grace”. I couldn’t have said anything less than “yes” to this wonderful open door. Our team was so happy for this opportunity to train others. By the grace of God we began training on the 25^th of January. The training program covered four weeks (1:30 hr sessions).

Please, pray that the leaders will ‘buy into’ the vision of leading and developing kids and youth for God’s Kingdom. Our joy and goal is to see the work of God going according to Matthew 9:37 “…The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few”.

Friends, this is just the beginning of God`s mighty movement on the continent of Africa. The Lord has begun His preparations to take the future, beginning from NOW. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s leaders!

Thank you for all your support and encouragement in the Lord’s work in Africa.

Elijah Samuel
Field Director of Africa &
Pastor at Dominion Impact Church in Lagos, Nigeria

Small Groups Momentum growing in Warsaw

Posted by Bill on February 25, 2012

Received from Iza, the Small Groups Director we worked with in Warsaw during our European “Vision of Visions” trip

Bill, the small groups presentation to our church family, last week, was more than amazing!

I couldn’t sleep afterwards, of course . I’m still excited, actually – everyone is. It’s hard to describe how I am feeling. I’m still in Heaven (not Coffee Heaven .

Our presentation included: Adam Dulinski speaking about following Jesus, later we had four people share testimonies. Martin spoke about how the pastors and elders supported God’s work at Ephesus. I then spoke about discipleship, saying …

“We want to follow Jesus, knowing His way of walking with His disciples. Twelve people (one small group) spent 3 years with each other, learning to accept and love each other, grow spiritually, and looked for lost people. This is called discipleship. In the small groups of our church, we are learning to do the same. We take on challenges of mutual love and acceptance, spiritual growth, and to lead people to Jesus. Jesus modeled this, so did the apostles. Then Paul and Timothy continued to do this. Through small group, we want discipleship to be a part of our lives and we want this pattern conveyed to future generations. Through discipleship, we want to follow Jesus.”

The Elders and Pastors of our church then prayed for us.

Bill, many people expressed sensing God’s Power and His Holy Spirit. After the presentation, telephone texts and emails were being circulated, expressing joy and happiness for the presentation! We thank the Lord for this ministry!

Bill, thank you for helping us.

Iza

Inauguration of Liberty City Church!

Posted by Bill on

Praise the Lord for the birth of Liberty City Church! Praise the Lord for Wale and Emma, for their courageous step of faith! Last Sunday (19 Feb 2012) in the Leeds-Bradford locality in England, Liberty City Church was born and commissioned into service to the King of Kings. This is exciting stuff!

The following message was received from Wale and Emma:

Dear Bill and Beryl,

Good morning! We’d just like to give you some feedback on our first church service. Firstly, we’re so grateful to God that we’ve crossed the line from dream into reality. Hallelujah! Including ourselves we had a modest turn-up of 14 people, including a family of four, some of Emma’s family and a work colleague of Wale’s. We were excited because just this morning Wale had a revelation of four angels taking their places in the community centre for the church inauguration. Feedback was very positive from everyone who attended; the adults enjoyed the message and the kids enjoyed kids’ church. Unfortunately, there was a technical problem with the recording of the sermon, but this should be rectified for next week. Other than that, everything went very smoothly and we felt God’s peace and presence throughout.

We are very excited about what God is going to do and are trusting Him for great things. Thanks so much for your support and your prayers,

Love,
Wale and Emma

Wale and Emma are standing on water in their faith. Please uphold them with words of encouragement and ongoing prayers. Let’s adopt a spirit of great expectation that the Lord will do amazing things in the life, ministry and mission of Liberty City Church .

Standing strong in the midst of trials

Posted by Bill on

We never need to be paralysed by the difficulties we face in life.

We have the privilege of praying to a loving and understanding Father who knows our circumstances. As well as knowing what we are facing, He is ever present to guides us through each and every difficulty, commanding victory for us in every situation.

When our faith, hope and love are fixed on the Lord, we can face any difficulty or problem that comes our way, and the Lord will give us joy and peace within.

REQUEST: In Psalm 5, David’s reaction to the difficulty he faced was to make a request to the Lord through speechless groaning and crying-out to ‘hear’ him (Psalm 5 v 1-3), and ‘lead’ him (Psalm 5 v 8).
REASON: The reason for David’s request is respect for the holiness of God (Psalm 5 v 4-6), who stands against the wicked, and the wickedness of man (Psalm 5 v 9,10).
RESPONSE: The right response by believers in the midst of trials is ‘rejoicing in faith, love and hope’ (Psalm 5 v 11,12). Joy comes from trusting in the Lord and loving Him. Joy and peace is what results from trusting in the Lord. It’s what God does ‘in’ us – it does not result from circumstances on the outside. To experience joy and peace, never look to your outside circumstances, but look only to the Lord.

Throughout our earthly lives, we must expect difficulty – this is the ‘norm’ for mankind. If we want to stand strong in the midst of trials, we must not run from our trials, but to the Lord … bringing to Him our righteous requests, with the right reason, and with a right response.