Hey everyone,
The last of our series on ‘Relationships' is on Sunday evening 5:30pm Sunday 4th of June 2023 (DVBC), starting with a light meal.
Can you picture Luke sitting at his table, strewn with notes and scrolls, interviewing those who had walked with Jesus?
I want to invite you to the Diamond Valley Baptist Church 2023 Discipleship Conference!
This year our focus is ‘’Into the Neighbourhood.”
We are now serve in a multiverse of cultures and beliefs. To meaningfully proclaim and model the reign of Christ we need to be as creative, flexible & dispersed as the early Christians in Acts.
Now that the age of Christendom has passed into history, the church is no longer chaplain to the culture. Christians are as alien in the post-modern West as mission-workers are in un-evangelized lands overseas:
“…We need to exegete culture in the same way the missionaries have been so good at doing with diverse tribal cultures of previously unreached people.” (Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches, 34).)
Rather than being primarily ‘attractional’ in approach, that is, inviting non-christians into our buildings — we are disciples who are sent out amongst the people in their many social settings. That means being equipped and supported as disciples who can serve in their neighbourhoods and workplaces.
Down through history the Holy Spirit has worked through smaller household-size teams or communities of disciples permeating their neighbourhoods whilst resourced by a supportive mission-centre.
How we can best partner to equip, organise, support and multiply effective teams of disciples to permeate all parts of our culture? That means as well as established church-centres and activities, we need to enable the formation of creative mission experiments and smaller groups such as ‘micro-churches’ or ‘missional communities’ or ‘church-plants.’
As we come out of the Covid hiatus, we want to use this Conference to begin to learn, inspire, pray and partner together about how we can make disciples who can launch bold experiments out into our neighbourhoods. You are most welcome to come and join us!
One of the great questions that comes to us is: “Is there really a God; a Being of some sort beyond the created order who creates and somehow oversees reality?” And if there is such a Being (or beings); what are they like? Can they be known and do they in some way engage with creation?
And if there is no God or gods, how do we best make sense of our experience of the world? How do we navigate life and determine how we should best live our lives? Where do meaning, and values and come from.
Most people (and cultures) construct a ‘world-view’ that acts as a compass or map used to navigate life.
James Sire writes: “So what is a worldview? Essentially this: A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) that we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.”(James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door)
Christians are theists, that is to say they believe not only that there is a moral universe but there is an absolute standard by which all moral judgments are measured, and that is God and God’s character of goodness (holiness, righteousness and love), is the absolute standard.”
The challenge is how finite and tiny creatures such as ourselves can ever know anything much about God or God’s character or purposes. Christians believe that God has taken the initiative and is revealed, not just in creation, but through the Scriptures, and then even more fully in the person of Jesus Christ.
Of course there is a much, much more to be said than just these few simple paragraphs. Philosophers, theologians and writers have filled libraries with thoughtful discussion on these matters.
This series of discussions dives into the Christian and Hebrew scriptures. What do we learn about God as it is revealed in these scripture texts? If they are true - what does that mean for how we live our lives?
Join us 10am Sundays at Diamond Valley Baptist Church in term:1 for our series on (some of) the names of God!
‘Can’t join us in person? No problem! Watch the live-stream on our YouTube channel: HERE
2019 was a long time ago!
So many dreams we believed God was putting on our heart. Some of you may remember this little booklet which summarised our priorities.
We were looking at putting on a new full time associate with a focus on discipleship and families. We were planning an inter-church evangelism conference.
We were beginning conversations with the BUV and their architect about developing the front of the church property both for local mission (e.g low cost housing, community garden) and generating income to support further mission. We were planning to upgrade our internship programme; We were about to launch a number of missional communities. We were considering another Vanuatu missions trip.
We were looking at reframing our Sunday evenings for an outreach focus running Alpha and the Jesus the Game-changer series. We were working with an outreach consultant about relaunching the Outreach HUB, and putting on a community mission worker. We had a team together to encourage social enterprises and were working on an inter-church conference for young Christian entrepreneurs. We were exploring when and how to plant some sort of a centre maybe out in the Woodstock area past Doreen.
Then it all changed!
And then quite suddenly our circumstances changed and Sunday morning 15th of March 2021 was our last regular service, as along with everyone else we went into the first of many lockdowns.
Here we are almost two years later; over a 100 episodes of Diamo Online and 80 online sermons later, and we are still not out of the woods! Yes, things seem to be opening up a little more, but ‘back-to-normal’ is still a fair ways off!
And 2022 onwards?
Like most others, we are still coming to terms with (when) and what this new ‘post-covid world’ will look like. Many people now want to work from home; Online education is far more of a thing; enjoying neighbourhood and living locally is becoming important.
On the other hand, the data seems to show that many who were ‘going through the motions’ of doing church are finally giving up and may not return. Others still hold to their beliefs, but are not convinced that coming to a typical weekly Sunday service, sitting in pews singing and listening to a sermon cuts it — they yearn for something more relaxed, relational and communal.
There’s uncertainty and anxiety about the future — will the economy bounce back? Will we ever travel overseas again? Will all the Covid ‘tree-changers’ head right back to the big cities? Will migration pick up again one day, or will the budding new estates at the outer edges of Melbourne decline?
Certainly anxiety and mental fatigue are at an all time high. People’s creative edge has been dulled. The way many feel has been described as “languishing.” It’s that lethargic space where one is not technically depressed, but neither is one doing well.
What that means is that we (and many others) are in a season of refuelling and reflection. We are waiting on the Lord and watching to see how our church community and our mission field is changing, rather than just rolling out the old menu and hoping it still works.
As a matter of fact, as we watch the news of new variants, and new covid ‘waves’ we are all still uncertain week-by-week as to whether these bleak times and restrictions will ramp up or ease up.
Waiting and watching and witnessing!
Isaiah 40:31 says: “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Psalm 27:14 says: “… Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
We are in a season of waiting, watching and ensuring that each of us maintains their personal witness!
Our Church Council had a ‘visioning retreat’ back in mid-2021 to begin to prayerfully reflect on our church vision of two years ago. Our purpose and our heartbeat for loving God and others stays unchanged. That’s our compass, but it will take prayer, time and discernment to gauge what the Lord is saying about the many priorities and projects we had pencilled in way back then.
Our mission field is changing. We ourselves have been changed through this time. We need to wait and watch patiently and prayerfully together through this next season to hear the Holy Spirit clearly through the fog of these times.
We have had a church community ‘dreaming’ forum pencilled in the calendar for quite a while. I think we’ve had to quietly postpone it and move it forward about five times because of various restrictions! God willing, early in the new year, when were can ALL meet together, we will be able to share together.
Advent speaks of Hope!
Our hope does not lie in the circles of this sad earth - but in a God who breaks through with strong arms to comfort and rescue.
Advent speaks of the first and second comings of Christ.
We remember the Joy, the Hope, the Love and the Peace that Christmas brings.
And then, as the New Year births in summer glory, comes Epiphany and we remember the Light that can lead us all the way to the Saviour of the world.
For Advent there will be three separate opportunities to gather so as to give as many as possible an opportunity to connect through the four weeks of Advent.
The Advent Christmas series starts Sunday 28 November.
Follow the link at 10am on Sunday to be part of the Diamo On-line Service: https://dvbc.online.church
To view any of our past DVBC Videos on Youtube, click on this link: https://bit.ly/2YjdDAh
Check the weekly Enews-letter and the Diamond Valley Baptist Church Face-book page for updates.
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PLEASE NOTE CONDITIONS OF EACH EVENT
Greetings DVBC friends,
These last couple of months have been so difficult haven’t they, as we’ve grappled with the various Covid Health directives.
For many, the industry and location vaccine mandates have been such a deeply challenging matter to work through as have conversations with mates who might think differently.
The caps on different sorts of gatherings and the conditions of entry, especially for larger events, have made it challenging for all of us to be able to easily meet together.
As we go through this time, never forget that our unity and our victory is guaranteed, in spite of what we feel is going on around us.
When Paul writes to the Ephesian Christians, they were undergoing severe persecution. They were often the poor and the powerless, living in a wealthy and powerfully pagan city. And Nero was on the throne in Rome. These were very very hard times.
“Lighthouse tall and grand, standing on that cold headland. Shine your light across the sea; for a wayward sailor girl like me. Lighthouse man, guide this sailor back to land. Steer my ship on through the storm; back to water safe and calm.”
The Psalmist says: “ Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path…”
Jesus said of himself: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Over these last many months, we’ve sailed some troubled seas, haven’t we? Often we’ve lost sight of shore. Often we’ve feared foundering on the rocky coast. What have been the scriptures; the bible passages that have been your Lighthouses — that have brightly lit the way through the darkness, that have guided your small ship through the storms?
In this weekly Sunday series, a number from our church community share, reflecting on a Scripture that have been significant for them.
After each weekly reflection, you are encouraged you to then go and re-read that scripture, and discuss the passage in your Connect groups or at home.
(1) How would you paraphrase the passage?
(2) What does it teach you about God?
(3) What do you learn about how we should live and act? (4) What practical difference will it make to you this week?
From midnight Thursday 27th of May, the State of Victoria will be in COVID Lockdown. That has implications for our activities as a church community.
