NTE was a Blast!

Well, I am back from NTE/Mission. It was a great and life changing time like always :)

For NTE (National Training Event) we went down to Canberra. The topic this year was last things first. Both Richard Chin and Phillip Jensen spoke to us on the topic. The talks were great and faithful to God’s word. Richard’s talks came from Colossians and including the topics delivered from darkness, the pre eminent Jesus, fullness in Christ and the heavenly life. Theses talks helped us to get our minds focused back onto God and to live a heavenly life, which gives glory to God. Phillip’s talk were focused on Eschatology and his topics included living in God’s time, living BC and AD (OT & NT), living in the light of the past and living in the light of the future. These talks challenged us to remember that we are in AD (year of the risen Lord) and that our God is also a God of history, the OT does matter, and to get to us from OT we have to go through NT then to us. The talks also encouraged us to go out and proclaim God’s word boldly and faithfully because it is the year of the risen Lord and God has given a delay of the last day so that as much people as possible will come to know him. Here are some quotes from the talk that I for some reason put boxes around during the talk :P

“Gospeling is when we are telling someone about Jesus, Not the Gospel it self”
“Fruitfulness should flow from Gospel”
“God’s will is what God delights in, what he wants for his people and it is plainly seen in the Bible”
“What can we thank God for? We should thank him for dealing our greatest need, the forgiveness of sins”
“Jesus is in the image of the invisible God”
“Reconciliation means bringing out true order where Jesus is Lord!”
“Put to death early things”
“We have already been blessed, every blessing through Christ”
“These blessing are election, predestined, adoption and redemption”
“OT promises find their fulfilment in Christ”
“We are in the year of the Lord 2006. Important thing is AD not 2006. This transition between BC and AD can happen because Jesus died for you. Learn to put last things first”
“We are a creation and covenant religion, History matters”
“We put our faith in the faithfulness of God”
“Build our lives on the faithfulness of the promises of God”
“Our God is the sovereign God of History as well”
“Our task in not to interrupt the bible but to understand it’s interpretation of us”
“Reason that God promises have not reach completion is because God is holding back the judgement to give time for repentance”
“Preach the Gospel to bring his elect under his throne, use the gifts God has given you to do the work of God”
“Those given much, much will be required”

And many more, but that would require lots and lots of pages. We also had a few strand groups which looked at Biblical theology, Systematic theology & ethics. I and group of old friends did the third strand which was systematic theology. We looked at the resurrection which was a really beneficially. We looked at stuff like the resurrection of Jesus, resurrection of the dead, the return of Jesus, and much more. As soon as we thought we had it all covered, one of us would ask a questions, and we were back to the drawing board but was good.The pictures are of the findings we found, the diagrams we had come up with and also a picture of the stand group.
NTE was also a great place to get to know each other better, and after the conferences it felt like we all knew each other for years. It is very joyful to run the race together with our fellow brothers and sisters, and to be both challenged as we wrestled with God’s word.
After we got back from NTE we were off to Port Macquarie Presbyterian church. In Mission we got involved with scripture, youth group, nursing homes, church, Sunday school, walk up, door knocking and carols.

I personal got involved with scripture, Sunday school, walk up and carols so I’ll review them mostly. Scripture was great, we did 3 schools with two sessions each which were about 40 minutes each. We did a play based on Jesus rising Lazarus, had a song and a talk. I was privileged to have to do the talk at two of the schools. The talk established the link between Christmas, Easter and the story of Lazarus. That the baby born in a manger was just not a little small baby but the King, the King who defeated death by dyeing on a cross and raising up as Lord and through whom we will also be raised up. My friend did the talk at the last school, and I was encouraged from the likenesses and differences in the talk he gave. For Sunday school, I had to write another talk. I got the kids to act out the story of the little girl (Talitha) and then explained to them that we will also be raised up but unlike the little girl, we will be raised up eternal with the King who is Jesus. Walk up was great, I went out with a friend and we ran into a guy who was really interested. He was up for a holidays to get away from work. We shared two ways to live with him, and he wanted to live God’s way but never had the time to look further into it. So we encouraged him to think about it and gave him our contact details. I also managed to get along to the early church service, and the team did a wonderful job to proclaim Jesus at the church service. The sermon was really solid and encouraging as well. I also heard that the sermon at the nursing home went well, and even though some of the old people their, were really hard to talk to, they did a great job. Lastly the carols they gave me the job of setting up the sound equipment and mixing/singing. To be honest I have no idea how to set up sound equipment even though I’ve done it a number of times. Most normal professionals know what things are called and how they plug in together. However I don’t know any of the technical names, but I somehow managed to plug things together and get them working, and all the instruments working smoothly together, thank God :). The carols went well; the sermon went well even through kids running around during it. I head about 300 people came through the service, Christian and non Christian.

But other then the formal things we had to get done. We also did a lot of social things together. We had dinner all together, went to the beach. I was personally really encouraged and had bought me joy that the team was faithful to God’s word and worked together. Also for the care and love for each other, even when things seemed down or hard. Keep strong guys & girls!
The hosts I stayed with were the loveliest couple I ever met. They were a missionary couple with an outward focused. They took us in as their own children and looked after us and their prayers have encouraged me. I also stayed with a friend their and it was great, we got to sing most nights, pray together and encourage each other. The location was in the bush, on a dirt road with plenty of wild life. We saw lots of birds, kangaroos and spiders. Each night we had to fight our way through a few spider webs and spiders to get to the door, was great fun :).
Below is a photo of the team that went to mission and NTE.

On a funny note, we finally went to Telstra/Telecom tower after years of suggesting it. We boys went up at night time to the top. When we got to top, one of the leaders suggested that we just bush wack through the bush to get to the bottom. So we started heading down the bush, a little further we found a sign that told us to turn back, that the road was under repair. But since it was knocked down we choice to kindly ignore it. Anyways on the way down we had to jump a few fences, one with barb wire on it and we came up to this sign. The sign read “Caution Venomous snakes traps in progress” It has to be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. We continued down the track and came up to a gate. The gate had about 8 pad locks on it; clearly someone didn’t want people to go through it. However right beside the gate, there was a rather large hole were people could fit through it, so we continued on. We ended up inside the CSIRO science laboratories, not sure how we could just freely enter the place, but we ended up getting through them and back to the university where we were staying.

On a sad note, two of the leaders and a few students are leaving this year, so it was great to be in partnership in the Gospel at mission. I will miss them greatly and it does grieve me that they are grieving, but they are going into something bigger. One of the leaders is going to bible collage next year, and I’m really glad to see him furthering in his knowledge of God. Anyways where ever they are, I hope they will be able to continue strong and serving God, giving him glory where ever they are.

One big thing I need prayer for is during NTE, our home got sold. Over the past two weeks I have been making a decision to if I would stay with my parents or live away from them. I have come up with conclusion that living away would be the most wise but most hard option but will be greatly beneficial to my ministry. At the moment the place doesn’t concern me too much however I would like to stay in Katoomba, my heart still lies in the ministry their, and to that family. The big prayer point I need is that my parents are doing everything they can to get me away from doing ministry, and not leaving any thoughts on my behalf to what I will be doing for the rest of my life. Although this is only a little thing, house being sold, it actually sparks off the thing of doing full time ministry. So please pray that I will have the courage and strength (in Christ strength) to tell them that I am considering full time ministry in the future, and that I would like to live away from them for a while. I’ve actually only got to Saturday to tell them, so please do pray because I am weak.

Anyways didn’t realise that I’ve already wrote 1,882 words, woops sorry guys, please do continue to pray and thank God that NTE/Mission went well. Pictures are finally up, you can find them by clicking on this link http://PapL.bebo.com. God Bless.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Laurence