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InterSections

inform - encourage - unite

NEWS

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Men's Challenge, August, NZ

Men’s Challenge is a camp that’s been running for well over 40 years in New Zealand. Participants come from across the world to immerse themselves in God’s Word and discuss the realities of being a 21st century Christian. Coupled with the Leadership Forum that takes place the day before, this unique experience has been attracting more and more men from Australian churches over the last 8 or so years (The Point, Belmore Road, Gosford, Malaga, rural Queensland, etc.)

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This year Stuart Penhall spearheaded various lessons on how God uses broken, imperfect men to achieve his will. Although mental health struggles, burnout, spiritual attacks, and criticisms often come with being one of God’s ambassadors, God demonstrates his power by using Samson despite his anger and carrying Elijah through his bouts of depression. In fact, it wasn’t despite their flaws but through them that God’s glory was made clear.

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​Geoff Fairest, who’s been organising the camp since 2008, had this to say about the goal of camp: ‘It’s a time when we can come together to share the blessings and struggles that God has allowed us to experience in the year just passed, and to encourage one another to fight the good fight for the year ahead. We want God to change us so that we can go out into the world to help change others.’

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The next Men’s Challenge is planned for 28–31 August 2025. To find out more, email Geoff Fairest at g.fairest@gmail.com, or check out the Facebook group Men’s Leadership Retreat / Challenge.

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Johnathon Atchley, Otumoetai Church of Christ, Tauranga.

WinterSong 2024, August, VIC

Around 50 people gathered for WinterSong on 18 August 2024. As usual, WinterSong was hosted by Belmore Road Church of Christ in suburban Melbourne.

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Initiated years ago by a group of songleaders (including Jules Cseszko, John Cooper, and others), these inter-congregational singing sessions have helped individual Christians as well as area churches to get to know each other better.

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They offer an opportunity to worship God, enjoy fellowship through singing, learn new songs, and give younger songleaders a chance to improve their skills.

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WinterSong 2024 brought together Christians from more than eight congregations. A special guest was John Lim, a minister with the Pasir Panjang Church of Christ in Singapore. John was holidaying in Melbourne and shared with us his enthusiasm for praising God through our voices.

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This year WinterSong was held on Sunday afternoon, after lunch. The Belmore Road church ran a sausage sizzle during the lunch break between their usual morning worship assembly and our time of singing. It was great to be able to fellowship with one another over sausages as well as songs!

A huge thanks to all who helped organise WinterSong and made it a memorable time. And, of course, special thanks to everyone who set aside time to come together for the occasion.

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Benny Tabalujan, Belmore Road Church of Christ, Melbourne.

Toowoomba Lectureship, September, QLD

In the last weekend of September the church that meets at Gipps Street in Toowoomba, Queensland, held a three day lectureship on the topic: ‘Teach Us To Pray’. We had nine lessons to focus our minds on different aspects of prayer. The speakers taught through some of the challenging prayers of the Bible, such as Heman the Ezrahite’s prayer of lament (Psalm 88), Hannah’s prayer of praise (1 Samuel 2), and David’s prayer of confession (Psalm 51). 

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These heartfelt and earnest prayers confront us to examine our own prayer life which, as Jesus warned, can become empty repetition. A particular highlight of the weekend was the prayer evening on the Friday night. We collectively offered up prayers of confession, lamentation, praise, thanksgiving, and submission. It was a powerful moment of experiencing the church united in prayer.

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We were blessed by the presence of over 110 attendees, mostly from South-East Queensland, but also from interstate. Many more joined us via livestream from around the country. All the lessons are now available to watch on our YouTube channel.

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The lectureship was a powerful reminder of the importance of a strong, sincere prayer life. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
 

Daniel Smith, Gipps Street Church of Christ, Toowoomba.

Camp Revive, October, VIC

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Church youth camps are both an encouragement and a priceless spiritual boost, especially to those who are beginning their walk with God. Over the Friday night to Sunday afternoon, 4 – 6 October 2024, the mission was on to make the most of our time at Camp Revive.

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We delved right into it. We unpacked what a Christian is called to do, and be, after the waters of baptism. A huge thanks to Micah Kirkpatrick from Canberra who, over a series of lessons and discussion groups, brought to light many examples from Scripture. Micah shared lessons from the early church and the teachings of the biblical writers on how to put our faith into action. He encouraged us not to have a faith like the lukewarm Laodiceans. He emphasised the call to serve others.

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Fellowship with like-minded God-fearers is of enormous value too. We had a nice balance between structured lessons and activities (not forgetting the fabulous singing), to unstructured fellowship time. Indoor glow-in-the-dark crab soccer, conventional soccer played in thunderstorms, fun icebreaker games, cards, and chess – these are just a few of the fun activities that we were blessed to participate in with one another.

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A huge thanks to the camp committee and all the people who make camp possible!

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Douglas McPherson, Mornington Hill Church of Christ, Hobart.

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