Background

  • The prayerful plan & hope is that Fresh Start Church will be planted in the Albury CBD in 2015!
  • Church planting is a strategy to grow followers of Jesus.  New followers are grown as God calls people to himself through faith in Jesus for the first time.  Existing followers are grown in maturity as we are trained & equipped to multiply our ministries & our gatherings.
  • It all fits in with our core value of multiplying

multiplying

We delight in multiplying our gatherings of God’s family. We are committed to `growing big by staying small’, planting and nurturing new family gatherings as God’s Word and Spirit brings growth.

  • IMPORTANT…  Its 1 church plant but 4 new churches….  there will be a significant shake up of all of our churches.
    • That’s a good thing!  This church plant is an opportunity for every single person across APC to reassess their commitment to the mission of Jesus and their commitment to growing as a follower of Jesus.

Where are things up to?

  • Margie & Paul as the church planters are in the middle of an assessment process conducted by Geneva Push and are awaiting an interview with experienced church planters to help refine our thinking etc.
  • The Core team is being formed.  From across our 3 churches we are looking for a core team of 30 people to begin the church plant.  This core team will be drawn particularly , but not exclusively, from church@nine & morningchurch since they are our numerically strongest churches.  But we’ll be looking to nightchurch to help as well particularly in the early stages of launching.  That Core team will start meeting each month or so for the remainder of the year to pray. plan & pray and then in 2015 the Core team will leave their current churches commit fully to Fresh Start church.

An invitation to consider committing to the Fresh Start Church Core Team

  • Its important that we get the balance right between the health of FreshStart church AND the health of church@nine / morningchurch / nightchurch.  Not everyone will be part of the church plant but everyone has the opportunity to reassess their commitment to the mission of Jesus here within APC and their commitment to growing as a follower of Jesus.  For some that will be committing to the church plant…  for most that will be recommitting to their current church with renewed energy & prayerful zeal!
  • It might be that you are considering committing to the Fresh Start Church core team.  If that’s the case you’re invited to approach Paul & Margie to talk some more about what a commitment to the Core Team of the church plant might look like etc.  There’ll also need to be conversations & consultations with Mike / Dave & the elders as we seek to get the balance right across all the 4 churches.

There are lots of unknowns & lots of things that might cause us to be a bit fearful or anxious about where things are heading & how it will all go.  But reading through Acts has been very helpful for me personally.  Its been a great reminder that the risen Jesus is ruling and that we are his church and that as we seek to testify to him in the power of his Spirit he will be with us and our prayer is that he add to our number daily those being saved & that his Word would continue to increase & spread.