15 days of class. 1 essay. 3 exams. That’s it. I will be finished my Bachelor Theology at Moore College by mid-November. Yieeewwww! I really do like College: the people; the stuff I’m learning; the city; and knowing Jesus better. But I’m eagerly looking forward to starting life again. Bring it. For blog readers I don’t hang out with much in real time offline, I thought it would be good to let you know what we’ll be doing in 2011.
Thinking, praying, talking and working through the options for post-college ministry has been a time-consuming and strenuous activity! While we’ve been dreaming and scheming the whole way through college, most of the first half of this year was spent thinking through in concrete terms what 2011 would look like.
Searching for what to do and where to do it literally took me to the other side of the world!! I went on a top-secret trip in May to talk through youth ministry opportunities in… Canada!!!! It really was an encouraging and challenging time to think through if we were willing to count the cost of discipleship and really follow Jesus.
Well, we’re not going to Canada.
There were a number of really good youth ministry opportunities in Sydney. Each of which I was quite excited about!! But you can’t do everything and so after lots of thinking, praying and conversing I decided to accept the role of Youth Pastor at St Faith’s Narrabeen. It’s a good fit for us as a family and an exciting mission field.
We’ve already moved to Narrabeen and started going to church on Sundays. It is a fantastic church and we have been lovingly welcomed by a very generous group of Jesus’ peeps. I’m very much looking forward to working with the great staff team and can’t wait to start full-time in January.
The St Faith’s Youth Community is a strong group of teenagers committed to following Jesus. But there are so many teenagers on the Northern Beaches who don’t love Jesus. So I’m looking forward to encouraging young punks and their leaders in seeing their friends become Jesus’ disciples too.
There are lots of people in our age and stage of life. We’ve already had great opportunities to connect with a number – both church-goers and non-churched.
If you’re a pray-er, we’d value your prayers as we continue to make the transition into this next stage of life and ministry.
The above photo is our first family photo back in August in our new front yard!
ps Sydney FC‘s winless streak has made it easy to remain loyal to the Mariners…
