NEW START DATE - THE DINING ROOM | SUNDAY 30TH APRIL 2023

Please note, the DVBC  ’The Dining Room Program’  will  now start one week later — 5:30pm Sunday 30th of April (NOT 23 April as first advertised). 

With the term holidays just concluding, and Anzac Day early  the next week, this will help with those returning from leave! Spread the word! See you soon!

• Join us for Term 2, starting Sunday 30th of April (not 23rd April)
• 5:15pm - 7:15pm - Includes meal at start
• This includes workshop plus time of praise & prayer
• There will be three discipleship topics, run consecutively (not concurrently), through terms 2 & 3 ‘Building Relationships’ (MB), then ‘Listening to God’ (HD) & then ‘Reaching our Community’ (BF)
• High Schoolers really welcome! 
• SMS the DVBC office (0409 667 008) if you’re planning to join in (it helps with catering)

The first workshop series is:

CONNECTING
6 weeks on forming REAL relationships!
Led by Martin Boutros
 

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: 4

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 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

In what ways can we encourage discipleship in our faith communities?

Here are some thoughts about what might be helpful in developing a discipleship culture in our church communities. What would you add to the list – or cross out:

1.  Release the minister leader to equip the people: If a minister is so busy running the church and its programmes and providing urgent care for the many who are dependent on the minister, then the wonderful but time consuming work of making disciples will never ever happen sustainably. The dependence cycle becomes self-fulfilling. On the other hand, create a sustainable discipleship culture, and you wouldn’t need a minister to look after the congregation!

2. Apprentices not students: Gather small groups of people who can learn in community. It’s about modelling, and mentoring; having a go and coaching, building skills and habits more than listening to lectures. Says Alan Hirsch again: “We are all familiar with the gospel stories where Jesus selects a band of disciples, lives his life with them, ministers with them, and mentors them. This approach to the formation of followers was common in the Israel of Jesus’ day. Most rabbis would initiate and develop their schools of thought through similar means. It was this life-on- life phenomenon that facilitated the transfer of information and ideas into concrete historical situations...”

3. Teach people to feed themselves:  Let’s teach people to really re-enter the Bible story, not just to dip into the bible for a juicy verse here and there. Let’s model how not to use it as a handbook for successful living, loaded with good hints! Re-enter the narratives together! Ask what the stories might have meant to the original hearers – what sort of God was engaging them? As you do this, slowly, allowing time to mull over together – what does the same Spirit reveal to us? How are we compelled to respond? We become pilgrims on the same journey as they! Listening and obeying and sharing what happened. There are awesome stories of Christians inviting non-church people to read the bible with them regularly, and considering together: “If this passage were true – what would I do differently this week?”

4. Connect discipleship closely to witness: Discipleship and witness need to be two sides of one coin. How can we help our people to make genuine friendships? What skills and encouragement might be needed to initiate conversations that travel from the surface to the heart? To start a conversation with a friend or stranger with a heart attitude of: “Holy Spirit, may Jesus in me, bless this person” will take conversations and relationships to a place where the salt and the light of the good news will impact lives beyond our imagination. 

5.  Local context:  What if we helped our people to view their neighbourhood in exactly the same way as an overseas missionary views their village or tribe – and to ask: “What does God really want me to do and be in the midst of this place?” It may be something way outside of the textbook! Let’s consider whether we still need all the programs we’ve run as a matter of course. Instead let’s consider what we can see God doing in our broader community. Who do we really know well? What local activities, clubs or networks are we a part of? Our outreach events often depend on people coming to our set programmes – rather than us living amongst them and their social settings. What if, instead of us assuming we need to develop our own (for example) craft group or youth group or housing program or basketball team – as disciples of Jesus we joined the neighbourhood’s  groups as salt and light? Let’s create the space for our church people to authentically connect with the people that God has already put on our doorstep!  

  I wonder what you think? 

What would you add or subtract from the list?

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

Discipleship: A Discussion Starter Part: 2

Why is Discipleship important for us?

As we are born-again into the household of faith, we want babies who grow to mature adulthood. When my three children were babies, their mother and I absolutely adored them – but they were hard work! They had to be spoon-fed; washed, wiped and comforted for any discomfort they might have felt. They understood little we said and contributed nothing to the running of the home. As toddlers, they took a while to learn that it was not just ‘all about me!’

But as babies grow and learn from those in their families they eventually grow through dependence to independence and finally inter-dependence. They become partners with their parents in the work of the family. They learn to give; they learn to share; they learn to make precious contributions out of their unique personhood. One day, they may have babies of their own and so the family multiplies.

It is normal and expected that as “spiritually baby Christians” are fed and encouraged and trained so they will grow towards “spiritual maturity.” The metaphor in John 15 is that we are branches on a grapevine that are tended and pruned so as to be fruitful. “I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last...(v.16)

I wonder what that might look like? What do you make of the descriptors below? 

What would you add or change about such a list?

• They will better discern God’s will and call and presence in life’s situations.
• They will be able to pray as a regular deepening practice.
• They will be developing their gifts and using them to bless others.
• They will be growing in an awareness of the grace of God to them and extend it to others   
• They will be able to read and study the bible for themselves and understand it.
• They will be able to share their story as witness and point people to Christ.
• They will be growing in generosity and faith.
• They will become spiritual parents, able to disciple or mentor young Christians

     Don't miss our Discipleship Conference 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 22 Feb 2023  Office: 0409 667 008 or office@dvbc.net

Discipleship: A discussion starter - part: 1

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, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20).

What is discipleship? A disciple was someone who learnt from a teacher, but unlike our modern understanding, the image is not so much a student taking notes and passing exams, but an apprentice who watches and imitates the teacher so as to adopt their behavior and practice. Disciples became like their teachers.

The apostle Paul described this learning obedience like this: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”  (Romans 12:2).

Disciples do not simply accumulate information in regard to the teachings of Jesus Christ but transformation (metanoia) toward Jesus Christ in every way - complete devotion to God. 

Don't miss our Discipleship Conference 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 22 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

Craig Ogden speaking at the DVBC Discipleship Conference Feb 2019

Saturday morning workshop



Question and Answer time

Tim Piesse speaking at the DVBC Discipleship Conference Feb 2019

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  

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

Saints & Scoundrels - summary

An interesting 10 minute summary of a series of longer talks by Mike Breen worth hearing... The three longer talks can be found HERE.

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Generations Y and Z

The children and youth of today, known as Generation: Z (born mid to late 90's onwards) live in what is now called the post-Christian era. Their younger siblings, 'Generation Alpha' are beginning school!

Out of the 5-10% of Aussies who do church regularly, maybe less than a third are under 25s who have any meaningful connection to God’s community. Younger Aussies do not operate from a traditional Christian worldview. When they look at the ‘Church’ they too often don’t see a vital outward-focused, Godly, engaged relational community. Ironically, just at this strategic time in history, the Western Church finds itself in crisis. It is losing ground; it is often seen as out of touch; it is often  perceived as ‘institutional’ rather than ‘communal’, it is seen as ‘institutional’ rather than ‘missional’.

It is vital that we consider how to connect with Generation Z and their parents!

Who are ‘Generation: Z?’

1. -Generation Z are those people born from 1995 to the end of 2009.    
2. -They are the next generation after Generation Y (today’s teenage and twenty-somethings).    
3. -They are mostly the children of Generation X.    
4. -They are in their childhood although at the oldest edge they are approaching their teenage years.    
5. -They are today’s children and students, and tomorrow’s employees and leaders.    
6. -They are the world’s first 21st Century generation - the digital natives, the dot-com kids, Generation 'media.'    
7. -They are today’s emerging generation who resemble children of any era past, yet they personify our future.
8. -Their siblings, Generation Alpha are now entering primary school.

Dream Dreams

“‘In the last days, God says,
    

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.


Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    

your young men will see visions,
    

your old men will dream dreams.” (Acts 2:17)

It was great to be sitting in the cosy meeting space at the Ascotvale Church of Christ a few weeks ago with about forty people from a range of western and northern suburbs – it was an inspiring Renewal conversation. Two of the things I particularly recall were someone saying that we need to be ready to do whatever the Holy Spirit directs! And someone else saying we ought not be fearful because we may be an older or a smaller church.