What is "The Dining Room?"

 One for the diary!

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn and grow in an interactive fun environment.

The ‘Taster’ series will be the last three Sundays of term: 1

 5:30pm - 7:00pm — Sundays  19.3  | 26.3  |  2.4

The Dining Room will return for term:2 with some exciting developments!

Note: Though there is opportunity for praise and reflection this is not a traditional ‘Worship Service. 

It would be helpful if participants committed to attend as many weeks as they can.

Watch this short promo HERE.  

Discipleship Discussion Starter Part: 3

What’s The Challenge?  

One of the common things you tend to hear from those who have studied the western church is: “We haven’t done discipleship well for at least fifty years...”

I remember some time ago talking to a couple whose young adult daughter was a youth leader at their church. The daughter was mentoring a group of 12-year-old girls. She was in an intercessory prayer group. She practised a daily devotional time. She was part of a simple but effective outreach programme at the local high school. As we talked, the mum who was a ‘born and bred’ Christian herself said: “I could never do all that! She knows more than me about faith and all. I wouldn’t know how to read the bible like that or share my faith like that... I’m not actually sure what my testimony would be...”

As I think about these sorts of conversations over many years, it seems to me, that there are too many good church people who are chronologically middle-aged or seniors – but spiritually, it is as if their faith-growth has frozen at the somewhere in middle school and they’ve lived with their with their peers at the level of a youth group for the next fifty years. 

The less well we do discipleship, the more we need professional ministers on whom we are dependent. These become the chaplains who pastorally care for us; who run our ministries for us; and employ youth pastors to socialize our kids for us. The less we practice discipleship, the more we struggle with change; or mission; or conflict; or evangelism. The ‘priesthood’ of all believers becomes the ‘club membership’ of all believers.

Says Mike Breen: “What is the engine of the church? Discipleship. I’ve said it many times: If you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you try to build the church, you will rarely get disciples. If you’re good at making disciples, you’ll get more

leaders than you’ll know what to do with. If you make disciples like Jesus made them, you’ll see people come to faith who didn’t know Him. If you disciple people well, you will always get the missional thing. Always.”

Here’s what Alan Hirsch says: “Evangelism can’t be our focus! We must not stop sharing the good news, but here’s the deal, here’s the wonderful thing, it gets done along the way as you do discipleship. The great commission is just about going to disciple the nations and you know what happens... as you disciple them evangelism takes place, because it’s done in the context of discipleship. Here’s the issue: We have to reframe evangelism within the context of discipleship”

We need to rediscover discipleship, spiritual formation, if we are going to see the church become fruitful.

   Don't miss our Leadership Day coming up soon! We will be hearing stories of discipleship focussed churches and learning core principles from experienced teachers. It will also be an awesome time to get to know each other and share about how we see God leading us. We’d really like you to join us. 

    

    Friday 24 Feb 6:30pm - 9:00pm & Sat Feb 25 8:30am — 2:30pm. 

   - Cost: No charge, we really would like you to join us!

   - We’ll be meeting at Diamond Valley Baptist Church 
   - RSVP to our church office by 24 Feb 2023 Office: 0409 667 008 or office@dvbc.net

Your invitation | DVBC Discipleship Conference | Into the Neighbourhood | 24-25 Feb 2023

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!

Friday 24 Feb 6:30pm - 9:00pm & Sat Feb 25 8:30am — 2:30pm. 

   - Cost: No charge, we really would like you join us!

   - We’ll be meeting at Diamond Valley Baptist Church 

   - RSVP to our church office by 22 Feb 2023

Office: 0409 667 008 or office@dvbc.net

Diamond Valley & The Vine & North Baptist Churches Leaders' Day DISCIPLESHIP FOCUS

I want to invite you to our 2019 Leadership Day! This year our  focus is discipleship.

The idea of discipleship is at the very core of the commission Jesus gave to that first little group of followers: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations….” (Matthew 28:19-20). A disciple is someone who like an apprentice who watches and imitates the teacher so as to adopt their behaviour and practice. Disciples became like their teachers. Disciples do not simply accumulate information about Jesus but show transformation to be more like Jesus.

One of the common things you tend to hear from those who have studied the western church is: “We haven’t done discipleship that well for many years...”

I remember some years ago talking to a wonderful couple whose young adult daughter was a youth leader at their church. The daughter was mentoring a group of 12-year-old girls. She was in an intercessory prayer group. She practiced a daily devotional time. She was part of a simple but effective outreach programme at the local high school. As we talked, the mum who was a ‘born and bred’ Christian herself said: “I could never do all that! She knows more than me about faith and all. I wouldn’t know how to read the bible like that or share my faith like that... I’m not actually sure what my testimony would be…”.

Mike Breen says something profound: “What is the engine of the church? Discipleship. I’ve said it many times: If you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you try to build the church, you will rarely get disciples. If you’re good at making disciples, you’ll get more leaders than you’ll know what to do with. If you make disciples like Jesus made them, you’ll see people come to faith who didn’t know Him. If you disciple people well, you will always get the missional thing. Always.”

Here’s what Alan Hirsch says: “Evangelism can’t be our focus! We must not stop sharing the good news, but here’s the deal, here’s the wonderful thing, it gets done along the way as you do discipleship….”

We need to invest in discipleship if we are going to be  effective and fruitful in reaching our culture.

A thriving discipleship culture is central to the health and mission of each of our three churches. We will be hearing stories of discipleship focussed churches and learning core principles from experienced teachers. It will also be an awesome time to get to know each other and share about how we see God leading us. We’d really like you to join us. 

Friday 8 Feb 6:30pm - 9:00pm & Sat Feb 9 8:30am — 4:00pm. 

   - Cost: No charge, we really would like our leaders to join us!

   - We’ll be meeting at Diamond Valley Baptist Church

   - RSVP to your church office by 01 Feb 2019

Grace and Peace,

Martin Boutros

   

NB: DVBC leaders contact Rosemary 9435 9377 or office@dvbc.net  

Greetings,

You may have seen the colourful COACHING4GROWTH flyers around the church recently.

I’d like to invite you personally to invest in those six evenings and come and join for what hopefully will be a life-changing time of training.

So, what is coaching?

Author Dr. Gary Collins describe Christian life coaching as the “art and practice of enabling individuals and groups to move from where they are to where they want to be.”

For followers of Jesus, it means understanding that the Holy Spirit is calling each of us to keep growing fully into our new life in Christ. It means understanding clearly what is happening in our life at present, and then discerning how God wants to lead us onwards; and then how to step forward in obedience.

A coach sits with us, listens carefully and asks good questions to help us clarify what we are hearing, and what we need to do, and how to faithfully stay the course.

Coaching is not counselling. Counselling focuses on the past and how to recover from its effects so we can function well in the present. Coaching looks forward and helps us find a path for overcoming obstacles and achieving dreams.

Coaching is not mentoring. A Christian mentor encourages growth by sharing the lessons and stories that God has given him or her. A Christian coach helps us learn from our own stories and experiences.

(Of course, in a close discipling relationship, there will be overlap in these areas, and experts differ amongst themselves in how they use these terms).

The coach encourages us and holds us accountable, helps us plan and cheers us on to become who God created us to be. The coach holds us up in prayer and is the keeper of our dreams.

Why a ‘coaching’ course? 

We want to help grow disciples of Jesus who live out God’s purposes for them and are effective as ‘salt and light’ in their world. Adding good coaching skills to your tool-box is important, whether you are a small-group leader, a parent, a youth leader, or choose to  coach to another individual.

Also, If you would like to BE coached, it’s helpful to understand these skills. Ideally, as you yourself are being coached, so you could be coaching someone else, maybe younger in the faith than yourself. 

How do I register?

Coaching4Growth Term: 4 DVBC

One-on-one coaching of disciples is a most effective tool for growing thriving followers of Jesus. Whether an older person discipling a young person, or a more experienced Christian investing in a new believer, or even a wise confidante providing structure and accountability for a peer who is working though a specific issue, personal discipleship encourages growth. 

This six-week Diamond Valley Baptist Church (DVBC) introductory course will provide a very simple framework and hands-on skills to get you started. We will be practicing what we learn. Attendees from DVBC will be encouraged to prayerfully seek out a person to coach or disciple.

The topics will be useful to you in your personal growth even if you decide not to participate in coaching for now.

We are inviting both prospective 'coaches'  and 'coachee-s'. We'd like to think about possibly matching up coaches and coachee-s at the end of the course. 

Maybe as someone receiving coaching, you might also find someone you can coach. Want to learn what is coaching is all about? Check out this article - HERE

What is Coaching?

WHAT IS COACHING?

In the 1500s the word coach described a horse-drawn vehicle that would get people from where they were to where they wanted to be. Many years later, in the 1880s, coach was given an athletic meaning, identifying the person who tutored university students in their rowing on the Cam River in Cambridge. 

That use of the word stuck, and coaches became known as people who help athletes move from one place to another. Over time the word also became associated with musicians, public speakers, and actors who rely on coaches to improve their skills, overcome obstacles, remain focused, and get to where they want to be. 

Former Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula writes about the athletes who would come to his team with their skills and talents, ready to submit to the coach whose job was to instruct, discipline, and inspire them to do things better than they thought they could do on their own. “The coach leaves each person being coached … more competent, fulfilled, and self-confident than he or she would have been otherwise.”

Coaching might have stayed in the realm of sports and entertainment if it hadn’t burst into the corporate world a few years ago. Faced with the unsettling impact of galloping change, rapid technological advances, and tidal waves of information glut, business leaders began to see that no single person could keep abreast of everything. The CEO could no longer manage from the top, keep aware of everything that was going on, and have the ability to tell people what to do. In companies large and small, people at all levels had to learn how to deal with change, develop new management styles, make wise decisions, and become more effective, all while they coped with their hyperactive lifestyles and increasing stress.

Many wanted help with their own life planning and life-management issues. Workers needed to think and behave like leaders and decision-makers. CEOs and other executives wanted people to guide them into this new world … The coaching principles that athletes and performers had used for years suddenly became relevant to the business community. Personal coaching moved beyond health clubs and into corporate offices and the workplace. According to Fortune magazine, coaching has become the “hottest thing in management” today’

But the impact of coaching goes beyond management. Currently, coaching is hot everywhere except in the church. People are turning to nutritional coaches, fitness coaches, financial coaches, public-speaking coaches, and what have become known as “life coaches” who help others find focus and direction for their lives and careers.

Some people look for marriage coaches, parenting coaches, coaches for their spiritual journeys, time-management coaches, and coaches to help them through life transitions. 

All of these coaches come alongside to guide others through life’s challenges and to help them move forward with confidence in the midst of change.

At its core, coaching is the art and practice of guiding a person or group from where they are toward the greater competence and fulfilment that they desire. Coaching helps people expand their vision, build their confidence, unlock their potential, increase their skills, and take practical steps toward their goals. 

21st Century Ministry.

This post is a  flashback to an original post from 2013 when we were in the UK:

A few weeks ago, I stood at the back of the little village church in Grasmere in the Lakes District. This is surely one of the most quintessential of little English villages! The poet William Wordsworth who lived in here for fourteen years, described it as "the loveliest spot that man hath ever found."

The little stone church has been there since 642. It’s one of the oldest chapels in England. With its high wooden pews, stained glass windows, pulpits, organ, fading hymn books and other pieces of typical church paraphernalia  it looked and felt and even smelt “Churchy.” I had the sense of being whisked back in my imagination to every archetypal memory of childhood associated with being in “Church.”

Connect Training Course

Some time ago, a paragraph in newspaper caught my eye:

“Generation Y so connected, but oh so lonely: Survey. Theatre Director Bryce Ives came home from a wedding recently, and was amazed by how lonely he felt. "Oh my, those people were so happy and I was so furious and angsty, there by myself at 2am eating toast and having a beer," he says. At 27, Mr Ives is part of the most connected generation we've ever seen. ...” - Source

A national survey released recently by Relationships Australia suggests the under 30s may well be the loneliest generation of all - Source. According to the Relationships Indicators Survey 2011, 30 per cent of Australians aged 25 to 34 told the survey they were frequently lonely, significantly more than any other age group. The next most lonely were the young adults aged 18-24. Just under 20 per cent of them were frequently lonely. Interesting, in the light of the amount of time people spend ‘with' each other on-line in the internet age.

Fourth Place Consulting

Over the years I've had the privilege and opportunity of sharing with a wide variety of congregations and their leaders in their ministry work. That has involved all manner of interesting conversations and opportunities to participate in a number of activities such as:

  - designing and taking training for team members,
  - running leadership development programmes,
  - speaking at camps, services and retreats,
  - helping groups put feet on their missional dreams,
  - consulting around vision or governance issues,
  - mentoring leaders in their roles,
  - offering support in times of transition,
  - preparing reports and recommendations for Boards,

As these opportunities continue to arise from time to time, I've decided to get a little more organised via some everyday tools such as getting an ABN, setting up a web-page and getting a fancy name and logo! (I hope you'll take note, that Mr Gates company also has four squares for a logo!)

The webpage is HERE (or at the top in the tabs for this page) and will give an idea of the sorts of things I might be able to help congregations, agencies, pastors or leaders with.

21st Century Ministers

A few weeks ago, I stood at the back of the little village church in Grasmere in the Lakes District. This is surely one of the most quintessential of little English villages! The poet William Wordsworth who lived in here for fourteen years, described it as "the loveliest spot that man hath ever found."

The little stone church has been there since 642. It’s one of the oldest chapels in England. With its high wooden pews, stained glass windows, pulpits, organ, fading hymn books and other pieces of typical church paraphernalia  it looked and felt and even smelt “Churchy.” I had the sense of being whisked back in my imagination to every archetypal memory of childhood associated with being in “Church.”

Ten2 Training for Church Planters

Learn more about Ten2 Training...

Off to the States!

On Good Friday I fly out to Orlando in Florida for the Exponential Conference.

Exponential 2011 hopes to answer this question: “what does it take to see apostolic movement through my church?”

The Western church is on the verge of tremendous change in response to the significant missional challenge we currently face. Contemporary church growth has been a blessing to the church, but as a paradigm is not able to take us to the next level. Despite some real gains, taken as whole, it has not halted the decline of Christianity and the church in western contexts. More of the same is not likely to achieve significantly different results; so something different is needed.

The church is waking up to this reality and on the verge of making tremendous shifts. We are seeing this change in every segment of divergent church models: mega, multisite and incarnational. While each expression of the church might look very different, they are all taking the idea of mission seriously. The best way to describe what is happening is this: we are on the verge of the birth of apostolic movements in the west. Churches of all kinds are looking to use their current forms and assets as platforms to launch the more fluid, adaptive, and missional people-movements. It is the hope of the exponential conference to play the part of a mid-wife as we see these apostolic movements come to life and in so doing provide working models, a new vocabulary and processes for other churches and church leaders to do the same.

I see this an an opportunity for (1) Networking with practitioners and colleagues from across the globe. (2) Stories and inspiration to fuel our movement here in Vic/Tas, (3) Resources to bring to our situation, and, (4) Insight and training.

The Conference is going to be held at First Baptist Church in Orlando, and I will be staying at the Wycliffe Associates Centre about 20 minutes away.

Late next week, Caity's flying down from Virginia to join me for a short break during which we will explore the more sacred sites of Florida!