We are delighted to share wonderful news about our church family’s commitment to fostering lifelong faith and discipleship. This month, Poppy Esdale begins the 13-year program—a dedicated season designed specifically for her spiritual development, personal growth, and ministry exploration.

Year 13 is a gap-year program organized by Youthworks (the diocese's training support organization for children and youth) to help school leavers establish their faith before going on to whatever is next after high school. The program is about Youthworks partnering with the local church to support the Year 13ers’ growth.

The program will have her spend time at Loftus in a structured discipleship program with a large cohort of other gap-year people. She will also be involved in some ministries here at St John's, including MAD and SRE (See photo above; she was the youthful presence). While she will be a regular presence around St John’s, the emphasis is firmly on her development. We believe that by providing a supportive space to ask big questions and take on new responsibilities, we are helping to build a resilient foundation for her future.

In tandem with this new role, there has been a helpful "sharpening of tools" with our SRE team. Last Saturday, a group of our dedicated church volunteers—including Poppy—participated in specialized Scripture in Schools training.

This training ensures that our team is not only passionate but well-equipped to teach scripture in local classrooms. It’s an essential part of our mission to take the gospel to our wider community.

While some small groups have already started, some have met for the first time last week. This year Alex and I hope to write bible studies that go along with our sermon series.

How we serve our Lord is going to be a focus this year. God shapes us in the context of our serving, putting others before ourselves. But it is more than just putting others before ourselves, because we are serving God. We serve God according to his purpose and his good. We serve for his glory, which is found in the work of Christ and the victory of the cross which sees a people gathered in his name – the church.

It is so encouraging to see People taking on new roles with greater responsibility in order to serve the Lord. We will talk a little more about that on Vision Sunday, 22nd February, and how God is building his church by his Holy Spirit through people serving and being shaped into the image of his Son. Having people willing to step up into leadership roles is vital for a healthy church that is being transformed.

Behind the scenes many people are serving without wanting anyone knowing. I am thankful to God for the love and servant heartedness of his church here at Wilberforce. People care about God’s church and want to see us serve the Lord and bring even greater glory to his name.

A big shout out to Cephas and Lynn who painted and ‘spruced up’ the room our kids church meets. It makes it a much nicer place for our kids to meet and learn to trust in the Lord. It communicates that not only what we teaching is important, but they are important to us.

Our SRE teachers have sharpened their pencils and readied themselves for another year of teaching. All our teachers will spend a whole day together this Saturday with other SRE teachers from the area, in order to be trained as part of their ongoing professional development which is required for SRE Teachers. A big shout out to Alex B, Judy B, Meryl, Sandra C, Christine, David A, and Jenny W who have given so much of their time to make sure children of our area can hear the good news about Jesus.

We are also thankful for the stories of people inviting people to the Life series coming up (Starts Monday Night). Unfortunately we haven’t got any takers. It is a great series which we know is helpful because it has worked in the past to see people come to trust Jesus. We need to pray, but then we need to invite. We can continually pray, but nobody will come to hear the gospel if there is only a few people inviting.

Also along these lines, looking forward to our first mate night this Saturday. Hoping God might use that.

We have been challenged across this term to reject the way of folly and pursue wisdom. We know wisdom leads to flourishing and folly to disaster. As we looked at last Sunday, wise words bring life and foolish words can lead to death. We know that wisdom accords with God’s ways and is in line with God’s righteous character. It seems obvious that that wise, skilful living should be our aim.

Yet as we pursue wisdom’s way we need reminding that more than technique, and the understanding of living out God’s wisdom well, we need to receive God’s wisdom, Christ crucified.

Of course, the wonder of Christmas is that in God’s wisdom his son came near. Jesus, God’s wisdom in flesh displayed most perfectly wisdom in humility and sacrifice. It was God’s wisdom to see Jesus through the ordinary and general hardships of first century Israel bring about what humanity’s most skilled could not: reconciliation to God. As much as provides an example of wisdom, it is not his example that we need most; we need his death and his life for us.

Our society is captured with living the good life. The life of choice and habit that cultivates self-expression and comfort. Perhaps there are things to be gleaned in some of their practices, even some of the proverbs seem to be adapted from the nations surrounding Israel. Yet Christmas reminds us that what brings the good life is God’s wisdom incarnate. Living well (in light of eternity) is only possible because of Jesus life, death and resurrection. Skilled living is in response to the salvation we have received by God’s wisdom. God’s wisdom came near so that it could be ours by faith. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, God’s wisdom, our Saviour.  

We are so thankful to God for the amazing response towards Anglicare’s Toys and Tucker this year.  It was fun to be part of packing all the food and toys into boxes and bags, awaiting Anglicare’s pick up.  We are thankful for our church community who are praying for this and have donated food and toys.  We are also thankful for Wilberforce and Glossodia School communities who also have donated food and toys in partnership with us.  Both schools were impressed with the interest shown & the amount of donations their communities brought in, and both are keen to partner with us in this next year again! We will be giving hampers of food and toys to people in need in this area  – 22 hampers will be distributed by our church.  Please pray that all who receive a hamper will be delighted by the contents, and even more so – come to know the God of hope who deeply loves.

With our thanksgiving service coming up we are reminded again of God’s kindness to us. The last month has been a special time in our church particularly with our baptism and confirmations in early November. And as we come to the end of the year there is much in the youth and children’s space to be thankful for. Here are two things I want to share:

Some joys of MAD. When I talk to MAD leaders and see that Day Camp and SRE kids are involved in Friday nights it fills me with much thankfulness. We want all children to hear the good news of Jesus. And When I hear about the conversations that MAD leaders are having with these kids it is a great reminder that gospel fruit can and is happening amongst our children.

I’m also super excited to see more kids and teens serve in our church. Whether on Friday nights, or perhaps Sunday mornings we see more and more of our young people serving others. I am thrilled to see Josh, Alex and Samantha help with making our morning tea inviting and warm. I am encouraged to hear Daniel loves to be a helper in minis. There are many other examples. I am so thankful God has given each one of us for the building up of God’s people.

As we take the gospel to all and help our young ones thrive in following Jesus, we see in many ways that this is happening amongst us (and so many others not stated here). As we stop and reflect on God’s work let us marvel in the power of his transforming work.