Moore Mission, Day 1

This morning the St George North mission kicked off with 3 services in 3 different buildings in Bexley, Bexley North and Carlton. St George North Anglican Church is a multi site church, with a total of 4 services over 4 different sites in and around Bexley.

This morning our mission team was split between these 3 different services with 3 people from the team preaching. Tonight we will all combine for a 7pm service in a bank in Kogarah.

If you are the kind if person that likes to pray, we would love it if you would pray for the beginning of our mission here in St George North. Pray for the churches we will be working with over the next week, and that this mission will only be the beginnings of a wider and longer lasting mission here in St George.

Badda Disability Centre

I really love my little sister. 20 months ago, she packed up her life and moved to Dhaka, Bangladesh to be a missionary to the Bangladeshi people and to teach primary school kids. She is a real inspiration to me personally, both as a woman and a Christian.

She works at Grace International School, and also teaches music on top of that.

Living in Bangladesh is really hard for a westerner, and even harder for a Christian. Bangladesh is primarily a Muslim country. And the differences in these beliefs have their challenges.

My sister is a volunteer in something called Badda Disability Centre. She helps in giving clothing and food to homeless children in Dhaka. It is a really a great thing that she is involved in. You should check out all the great work they do.

Week 5 is over.

I thought it was about time to write something about how college is going.

One thing about college that has genuinely surprised me has been how busy the place is. I’ve been at college for 7 weeks now, and is feels like it has been about 2. I mostly have classes in the morning, which I can manage with a good coffee. But along with other various meetings and groups, the day ends up rounding out with some revision, some readings and then an assignment or two. Along with church responsibilities and other things, by week seems to be over just when it is beginning.

Another aspect of college that has surprised me has been the friendliness of the staff here at college. The experience is like nothing I have ever experienced at an educational institution before. This week I was encouraged by their genuine care for their students. I’ve had many random conversations with faculty where this care has been demonstrated.

Along with this care, college has still be quite challenging. Mostly because I have not studied formally in 5 years.

So far college has been brilliant, I have learnt heaps and I’m looking forward to what the next 4 years will bring.

Moore Mission 2011

This last couple of weeks have been exciting. But first a short story.

A couple of years ago Kirsty and I stopped leading on Kiama Beach Mission. Kirsty led on it for two years, and I led for eight. Finishing up mission was both a sad and happy time. Sad to be finishing up in a ministry we had loved, with people we loved and sad at the prospect of not being able to keep in touch with the churches in Kiama. But also happy because we were getting married, and felt that the leadership had passed on to new people with fresh ideas. KBM was in safe hands.

Why would I share this story? Next week Moore College mission for 2011 begins. It has been great being able to be part of plans for a new mission. Even if there will be considerably less beach involved. The whole college is splitting up for the week to tell people from all over Sydney about Jesus. With a few other groups heading to places like Hong Kong and Port Macquarie. Personally I will be heading to St George North, around Carlton, which is near Sydney airport.

If you want too read about what is happening during the week. Ill be contributing to a combined blog over the course of the week. My posts will be the ones with less text and more fun stuff like photos, and possibly a video or two.

But if you are reading this, then I want to invite you to be part of our Moore Mission street team. We need people to spread the word that Moore College is having a mission. There are 4 basic things that you can do.

1) if you have a blog – get the word out! let people know about mooremission.wordpress.com

2) if you’re on twitter – tweet about us. if you have mission related tweets, use the hashtag #MooreMission

3) if you’re on facebook – share the love.

4) if you have family, friends, churches that would be interested in following Moore Mission 2011 – let ‘em know!

Infomercials are bad, Infographics are good.

Im not at all a fan of infomercials. I am however, a massive fan of infographics.

Recently I had the great opportunity to go away for a weekend with a group of Guys from our church. The reason we went away was to go along to Men’s Katoomba Convention. MKC is run by KCC. It was a really great weekend.

The weekend was titled “Men Facing Temptation”. One of the things that was highlighted during the weekend, was how pornography is something that seems to be constantly invading the minds and marriages of many Christian men.

Recently I came across this infographic which highlights the prevalence of pornography, particularly in America, but it also has some interesting points that can be applied outside of America.

Raising Healthy Kids

Recently I wrote about a website I had developed for our new church, St Ives Family Church. One of the features that we really needed was a place for people from the school community of St Ives North Primary School to see what we are about, and who we are.

Another function we needed was a place that people could easily register for events that we are holding.

This month we are holding one of these events, we have called it “Raising Healthy Kids“. We are getting Professor Kim Oates to come and speak about how we can raise healthy kids. It is going to be great evening. Kim had tons of experience with working with kids, you can see the flier here.

If you have Kids, then it would be a really great night to come along to. It only costs 5 bucks.

Newtown in Photo Pt.2

Following on from my photo post the other day, I thought I would post some other photos I’ve taken recently on my daily trips into Newtown and back. I really am starting to love Newtown. There is so much cool stuff there to take photos of. I’m constantly reminded about the great music culture that exists there, there are posters for music gigs literally everywhere you look.

I hope you enjoy these pictures.

Meet Derek and Beth

One large focus of my subjects at college is the question “How can I use what I am learning to reach communities with the story of the Gospel”, meaning that just having knowledge about the gospel is useless unless it is also matched with some kind of action in sharing it with others.

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce to you some friends of ours. Their names are Derek and Beth. I’ve been friends with Derek for a few years, we served together as leaders of a men’s Bible Study a couple of years ago.

At the end of last year Derek and Beth moved from the comfortable north shore of Sydney, to Santiago, Chile. They are doing the Chile equivalent of MTS, with a focus to UNI students in Santiago, working in a church plant and some work with kids that live in an orphanage.

Anyway, they have a blog running. If you would like to know more about what they are doing, click the image below.

TIM STEVENS