Ministry Announcement
I wanted to share with you an announcement that our pastor Joel James recently made at our church regarding our future ministry. I thought I might just quote what he said word for word so you’ll get the sense that this is something the church where we are at now, GFC Pretoria is sending us out to do – not just something we thought of doing on our own.
Now, he says some nice things in the middle of the announcement that I actually would like to figure out how to take out, but I don’t know how to do that without making the rest of what he says confusing and I guess too, I don’t want to take the time.
So, that’s why I left it in there. Besides if any of the nice stuff is true, it’s God’s grace and He likes it when we give Him thanks.
“For some months the elders have been talking about the opportunity-and eventhe need-for us as a church to do another church plant. It’s somethingthat’s in our blood as a church. It’s something that should be in the blood of any NT church, just as it was part of the essential fabric of the church of Antioch.
What we’ve seen as elders is two things. First, we’ve noticed that God has given us a wonderful group of people who are regularly coming to our church from the area of Sunnyside. That’s some distance to travel, and as you know transportation is often an issue. But we understand why they come. While there are good churches scattered all around the city of Pretoria, strong Bible-teaching churches aren’t thick upon the ground in the Sunnyside area. The second thing we’ve noticed is that one of our pastors has an incredible and unique gift in the area of outreach and church planting. And, of course, that’s Josh Mack. I’ve never met anyone who has the ability Josh has to minister across cultural lines to all the various cultures of South Africa. You’ve seen it; I’ve seen it; the elders have seen it.
With those two things in front of us, we’ve had to ask ourselves, if we have a Paul or Barnabas in our midst, do we need to think seriously about allowing Josh’s gifts to shine in a church plant in the Sunnyside area? I’ve said many times through the years that a church never needs to fear sending out their best to plant another church. If Antioch sent out Paul and Barnabas, then we can do the same, and God will fill the gap it leaves. God loves when churches like ours take that kind of step of faith, just like the Antioch church did.
Therefore, over the last four months the elders have been talking about making the sacrifice of sending out Josh to plant a church somewhere in or near Sunnyside. And we’ve come to the conclusion that will be the best thing for kingdom, and will use Josh’s unique gifts in the most effective way possible for the body of Christ. My perspective is that men who can do what Josh can do probably shouldn’t do anything else.
Now, this is a major decision in the life of our church, and the elders want to have a time for you to ask questions and to offer input as we move ahead with this plan. Josh has spent several months evaluating the opportunities in the Sunnyside area, and it seems to be just the place where his passions for ministry can burn brightly for Christ. And at our encouragement, he has been working on assembling a team that can assist him in the work. We wouldn’t want him to go it alone. Obviously I don’t have time at the end of the service to go into the details of all this. However, what we have done is set aside Bible Hour today as a time when we can lay out the plan the elders have formulated so that you can own and contribute to that plan as we move ahead in the next few months.
As you would expect, there will be a number of months of preparation before we can launch this project in full “go” mode. But there will be abundant opportunity for you to participate at different levels. Some can help directly, some through prayer, some with financial support, and so on. During Bible Hour, Josh is going to lay out the details of all of that, and then we’ll have a time where you can ask questions, give input, and just plain get excited about this opportunity.
Good churches usually have two responses to sending out a key person or people for a church planting opportunity like this. The first is, “We can’t do that! We can’t send out Paul or Barnabas!” But after that first, instinctual response, the second response is, “We can’t hog the resources God has given us. We must do this!” And I’m sure that’s probably exactly the tension you’re feeling right now: “We can’t do this! … No, we must do this.” If we’re going to imitate the best church in the Bible, we must do this. And by our sacrifice, God will bless the preaching of the gospel in another place. What a privilege to be used that way for the glory of Christ!”
This is me again, now.
Would you please pray for us. We feel our inadequacy deeply. But we don’t want to start doubting God’s adequacy to do what we can’t.
Also, specifically would you pray that God would provide the resources for us to move downtown. Where we stay now is free. And that’s how we are to survive with twelve people in our family here. But it is too far removed from where we are going to minister. Distance wise and then also location. We live uptown if you know what I am saying, and we want to move downtown. But to move down, we are going to have pay up.
We have found what we consider the perfect place. It is 2 miles from where thousands of refugees are living. It is huge, so we will be able to begin the church plant there. It has eight bedrooms – of which we would like to use three to house several refugees and orphans for in family discipleship training. (An African kind of L’Abri without the smart guy and the knickers.) Also it has a three car garage which we would like to renovate into a training center. And listen, we would only have to put down about 520,000 rand. We thought it would be a little less initially, but still that is about 50-60 thousand dollars for a pretty amazing place. And then we wouldn’t have to pay anything per month – only taxes. It seems impossible, I know but I figure everything I really want to do in ministry is impossible apart from God, so I might as well continue to hope in God to do what I can’t and commit myself to giving Him the praise whatever He decides.
