Highlights from the AGM
On March 24 we held our Annual General Meeting. Here is a summary of the Senior Minister’s Speech and the election results.
Making Church Happen
Any one of us can go out to our favourite restaurant and eat a delicious meal any day of the week. And when you do that, you will see just a small portion of all that has gone into making that meal happen - there is way more that goes on in a restaurant than you see.
For example, someone had to build the building, start the restaurant, decide on the menu, buy and prepare the food, manage the set up and tables, arrange the time people arrive, cook the food, plate it up and deliver it to the table. And that’s to say nothing of the cleaning and washing afterwards!
While compliments might go to the chef and a tip to the waiter, there are dozens of people who work behind the scenes to make a restaurant happen. And it is the same in church. Every week there are dozens of people working behind the scenes to make church happen. To edify the saints. To strengthen the faithful and to reach the world.
Someone has to open the building, keep the AV system running, choose music, put together runsheets, prepare readings and prayers, clean, tidy, set up chairs, prepare for welcoming, follow up the newcomers and the list could go on.
At a restaurant, you can just eat the meal and leave.
At a church, you can just come to the gathering and leave.
But friends, we want so much more for you than that.
Unlike the restaurant that wants to give you a great moment through a great meal, we want you to have a great life focussed on giving glory to God through a great ongoing relationship with God in the context of your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
All this is part of why we encourage people to get into a growth group and serving team - so you can have regular Christian encouragement and community with other believers. All this is part of why we do nametags and rolls - not because we want to check up on people but because we want to check in when we don’t see you or notice things are not great. We want to walk with you daily in prayer and fellowship as a community - we want to do this all together - so you may continue to grow.
Our prayer is that every member of our church would grow as a wholehearted disciple of Jesus, and be wholeheartedly devoted to him. In fact helping you do this is what we do all the time. We pray this would be a reality for you because this is what Jesus wants for his people.
God wants the church to magnify him; for each individual to be delighting in him. God wants the church to be filled with members who express and enjoy relationship, community, care and love for each other. God wants the church to grow in maturity. God wants the church to be a place where Christians minister to one another. Finally, God wants the church to be on mission to the world - to seek the lost.
This is the epitome of a wholehearted disciple - one who is shaping their whole life around the word and work of God, around the person and work of Jesus. And my constant prayer for the people of our church is that we might all be wholehearted disciples just like this.
And it is a great privilege to lead the team who with a myriad of others think about you every week in order that you might grow and be built up.
What comes next, I don’t know but we are in God’s hands and what is happening here is bigger than what happens in a restaurant. Please pray we might serve one another mightily in 2024.
Election Results
Wardens: Ross Bowden, William Hood, James Clifton
Parish Council: Sarah Abraham, Susan Beattie, Peter Chitty, Lee Ee, Ros Hinchliffe, Michael Hung, Lachlan Mitchell, Rani Warren-Gash
Nominators: Lee Carter, Janet Currer, Peter Mayrick, Robert Tong, Charlie Wye
Synod Representatives (3 year term elected in 2023): Anna Richardson, Mark Streeter
