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Taking the gospel beyond bars

In 2014, I was the most unchristian person you could ever meet. I had a gambling addiction, I lied to everyone and I was taking other people’s money.

But it came to a point where I knew that they were going to find out, I couldn’t cover it anymore. So I made a serious attempt on my life. And it was then that I had God reach out and save me.

I’d taken around 700 tablets and tried to drive into a tree. But my car flipped and landed a centimetre from the tree. I saw a white figure and a white light. The figure, who I now believe was an angel, was telling me it was going to be okay.

After that, I spent time in hospital and, while I was there, a woman opposite me read her Bible out loud every day. She had a friend who came in and I started bringing the curtain back around to listen. I remembered what a Christian friend of mine – who had stuck by me through everything – had said, ‘Give yourself to God’.

The two women offered me a Bible and I started reading the book of Job. He went through all this pain but he still believed in his God. So I started to have a conversation with the women about what it meant.

When I went home, I knew that I had to get over my addiction to get my children back. So I did that and I engaged in a church. Two women mentored me and walked my journey with me.

I had stopped gambling, I had a job and had begun training in peer support. I was involved in gambling help. But nearly three years into my recovery, I was charged with fraud.

Through 10 months of court hearings, I was so blessed to have an amazing church family around me, who encouraged me and told me God was going to be with me no matter what happened and that he had forgiven me. We prayed that if I went to prison, it was going to be purposeful.

In 2016 I was sentenced to four months in prison. In prison I spent a lot of time praying and, when I was prompted, I followed what God wanted me to do. I read the Bible to other women. I helped them with basic things, like learning to read a book, I prayed for them and talked to them about God.

After six weeks, I was released early on home detention. After my parole period, my young children were able to be with me.

Prison was tough, but in some ways it was tougher to come home because I had seen so much of God at work when I was in there. I saw women change. In six weeks, I know of 33 women who came to faith from sitting and reading the Bible and seeing what God had done in other women.

It was an amazing spiritual time. I would receive letters every day from people from my church, from people I didn’t even know, and my new friends that I had made. And I got to see how that affected women who never received cards or had visitors. I had tracts sent in and just to hear the women say, ‘Can I have that to put it in my room?’, was so heartwarming. I would sit with them and ask, ‘Can I pray for you?’. To see the look on their faces to see that someone cared about them was wonderful.

When I got out, I prayed, ‘What do I do now, God?’. It wasn’t until January 2017, four months after my release, that I knew he wanted me to start a ministry writing to women in prison. I had seen what a simple card could do, sent to someone letting them know that someone cared for them and was praying for them.

Women at my church were willing to write letters. As Nanga Mai Women’s Prison Ministry, we’ve written to more than 500 different women. We write and pray that it goes to the right person and that it’s a message that God is intending for them.

There’s so much more that we’d like to do but we’re only a small group. However, we are growing and now have three separate churches involved.

This ministry has always been based on prayer and we would be blessed by your prayers as we endeavour to serve women who are often forgotten by our society.

Rachel (not her real name) is a member of the LCA/NZ. If you have women’s names to suggest, or would like to become involved, contact Nanga Mai Women’s Prison Ministry by emailing nangamaiministry@gmail.com or writing to PO Box 43, Park Holme SA 5043.

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The prodigal father

Gavin started binge-drinking during his teenage years when heavy alcohol consumption was part of the culture at various places he worked at around country South Australia.

He believes his shyness made him easily led by other people in those days.

‘Maybe I used that as a mask to cover that up, but then I did it because everyone else did it’, Gavin says.

After getting married and having children, Gavin and his family moved to Adelaide, where he didn’t know many people. That’s when he began drinking by himself and the impact of his alcoholism on his family increased. Son Dion, who was five when the family moved to Adelaide, says while he didn’t recognise that his father’s drinking was the issue, he saw the impact on his parents’ relationship as a result of Gavin’s emotionally and verbally abusive behaviour.

‘Probably the biggest thing I noticed was the fracturing of my parents’ marriage and that was in the form of arguments’, Dion says.

‘I didn’t consciously recognise that it was the drinking at that point. It was only as I saw that Dad was different when he got home from work than at other times when he wasn’t drinking and I started to put things together and realise that there was a problem.

‘I didn’t like my parents arguing. I’d see my friends’ parents and how they were together and I kept thinking, “Why can’t my family be like that family?”.

Gavin, who was brought up in a Christian family and had continued to go to church with his wife and sons, says that for years he endeavoured to hide the truth about their problems.

‘We just acted like a normal couple and we hid everything’, he says. ‘[But] arguing all the time was the ugly part and [we’d] just argue over stupid things really, and once an argument started, it just didn’t stop and I didn’t know how to control myself basically. I would go outside and have another drink.’

After he’d finished high school, Dion left home and moved interstate to work at Warrambui Retreat and Conference Centre, a Lutheran camp near Canberra. Despite believing it was ‘inevitable’ that his parents would split up, he was still crushed when his father told him his mother had left.

‘I knew it was a possibility for many, many years. I remember Mum saying, “As soon as the kids are gone, I’m gone”. She recognised the marriage had broken, fallen apart, long ago. I was just crushed, but I was at Warrambui and I was so grateful that
I was in an environment, in a community that was so supportive and just surrounded me with prayer and love.’

The day after his wife left, Gavin had his last drink. His pastor had recommended he go to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) but he says he was ‘trying to think of all the excuses in the world’ not to go.

‘Eventually, I did and it was probably the best thing I ever did’, Gavin says. ‘I felt straight away I needed to be there and that was probably the turning point.’

The decision to attend AA not only changed Gavin, it also transformed his relationship with Dion, which had been virtually non-existent to that point, according to father and son. They met up a couple of weeks after Gavin quit drinking.

‘I [told] Dion I hadn’t had a drink for 15 days and he came and give me a hug. That was the first thing I suppose that I knew I hadn’t lost all the respect of my kids. And it also encouraged me to keep going on my track of recovery.

‘That was a big thing, a very precious moment.

‘I attended AA for 12 months. I had a wonderful support group of six people from the church and they still support me to this day. I couldn’t have done it without them.

‘I really turned to God a lot and it helped absolutely. So now there’s a very close relationship there. We can talk day-to-day and basically, I just treat him as another person.’

Dion also saw the good that came out of a devastating situation in his dad becoming sober and in their new relationship with each other.

‘My parents’ marriage had broken down, but there was also a joy in the fact that he’d walked away from the alcohol and that meant new possibilities, new things, new chances – a second chance really – and that was so much to celebrate and give thanks to God for’, Dion says. ‘Before Dad stopped drinking, I really didn’t know who he was, I didn’t have a relationship with him.

‘I would never have imagined that I could be such good mates with my dad before he stopped drinking.

‘I look at him and see his faith has just skyrocketed – because before it was essentially nothing. Now it’s real, it’s a living thing.’

Members of the LCA/NZ, Gavin and Dion originally shared their story of reconciliation and restoration through Lutheran Media’s Messages of Hope.

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‘Thanks God for my second chance’

by Matt Dutschke

Growing up in a large farming family on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, I came across as a fairly happy sort of a guy. I grew up in the church and was always involved in leadership within the youth.

So a lot of people who knew me had no idea of the pain that was on the inside. Through my teenage years and 20s I hated myself. I had been through various forms of abuse and was struggling with my identity and worth and was afraid of relationships. I had always suffered depression from a young age.

I had a breakdown in my late teens and spent years talking through things with psychiatrists. When I was 25, my psychiatrist retired and we thought I was okay.

I was heavily involved in my community and my church but felt I still had something missing. When I was nearly 30, I met a lovely lady who had a little boy, who became my son and, after we married, we had a baby girl. My wife did not share my faith and so this was a struggle for me in our marriage.

The farm always struggled; I was driving trucks and working long hours to supplement our income. My wife did not enjoy farm life and, after the best harvest ever, we could still not see things getting better. So, for the good of the family, we leased the farm out and I worked off-farm in many different jobs.

In 2010 we went to Vietnam to teach English, which was my wife’s dream, so I gave up my job as a hire franchise manager. I had a breakdown there and came home and the marriage was never the same again. And after nearly 16 years of marriage, my wife left me, which I knew also meant losing my family unit and my family farm. I slipped into absolute depression. I hid away and was making plans to finish it.

I was sitting in the scrub on my farm and having my last cigarette, with the intention of taking my life. I cried out to God and said, ‘Where are you? I’ve trusted you my whole life and yet here I am’. Then my phone rang. It was my sister, Carol. She realised something was horribly wrong and made me promise to wait and she drove two hours back to the farm.

I was in hospital on and off for the next 12 to 18 months. My dad makes beautiful wooden comfort crosses and my sister had written the verse from Isaiah which says ‘I’ve got your name on the palm of my hand’ on a cross. I just clasped that and cried many tears over that journey.

The following year, a cousin and mate who is involved with the Shed Happens interdenominational men’s ministry nights on Yorke Peninsula, invited me to share my story. I prayed for strength and then shared everything – the shame of what I had gone through, the shame of losing my family, the shame of losing my family farm.

It was a turning point for me. I met the Shed Night founder, Queensland Lutheran Ian ‘Watto’ Watson, at a camp and he has given me constant encouragement and been a real mentor throughout my journey.

I’d decided to move to Adelaide to be closer to my kids but went back to Yorke Peninsula in mid-2012 to help my brother out while he was battling cancer. When he died, it was amazing how God gave me strength I did not believe I had, to be there for my family.

Not long afterward, my sister encouraged me to get involved with Teen Challenge South Australia, which helps men to overcome addiction, and I’ve been volunteering there ever since, including running a monthly Shed Happens night there. I also hosted the first Shed Happens nights for Adelaide’s north after
I moved permanently to Adelaide in 2012 and I remain involved with the group.

Through volunteering at Teen Challenge, I was offered a job at Cornerstone Housing, formerly Lutheran Community Housing, where I fill a variety of roles, from maintenance to dealing with contractors and whatever is needed.

Last year I went to Africa on a mission trip for SOUP, a Christian organisation which provides housing, medical treatment and emergency aid for people in Uganda.
I also taught adults life skills in Kenya for two weeks. It was a life-changing time for me, as I trusted wholly in God and sought his guidance.

But despite the way God had already turned my life around, my heart still yearned for a Christian life partner. Then through a Christian singles site, I met a wonderful lady named Dodie. We’ve now been together a little over 12 months and we were married in February this year and were blessed to have our four children in our wedding party.

God has been such a God of restoration, of grace, of healing for me. We are deeply indebted to God and I thank and praise him for giving me a second chance.

Together Dodie and I have developed a children’s Good News Reader Bible storybook for Africa, adapted from one done previously for Cambodia. But this is not my and Dodie’s doing, this is God’s leading.

I believe God’s got me where he wants me. And Dodie and I will be really excited to see where he’s going to take us next.

Matt Dutschke is a member of Para Vista Lutheran Church in suburban Adelaide.

For more information about Shed Night ministries, go to www.shednight.com

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Community connections core of church vision

by Phil Husband

In the early 1980s, St John’s Lutheran congregation at Whanganui, on the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island, had approximately 50 members and contacts, with up to 40 children in Sunday school. But as members moved away or died, numbers fell and closure looked likely.

However, the remaining members were sure that God had a plan for them. In 2008 a decision was made to rename the church ‘Harrison Street Community Church’ (HSCC) – in keeping with our vision to be involved in our local community.

We have become mission-focused and ready to answer questions from the people God will bring us. And now each person in the church is involved in the mission of the church. And in this, the biggest advantage by far is having small numbers!

We have rescued the sick and sad and we have had the homeless sleeping in our hall on cold nights.

Holding a Longest Lutheran Lunch started an outreach program in our street, which consists of mainly low socio-economic people, many living in below-standard housing. A street party was planned on the church grounds and we provided food for 50 people. There was a scramble for the supermarket when instead God provided 200 hungry people for us to feed spiritually and physically! We said ‘thank you, God’ – but a few less would be more manageable for our team of 10!

Through that one event, God showed us the mission field and what we could accomplish working together. And so we started.

Providing a monthly community meal, which guests help to prepare, has meant upgrading the hall kitchen. This has led to other possibilities, such as budget cooking lessons, a frozen food bank and, in time, preserving food from the church garden.

Our community meal nights have evolved into a worship service where the gospel is preached, people are prayed for and ministry is done.

And we have had an increase in worship numbers, baptisms and confirmations from these informal gatherings.

And we are grateful to have received a grant from LCNZ to help with our outreach.

Some ideas we have tried haven’t worked but God is leading us forward with exciting plans percolating.

The pews aren’t full but the community knows who we are. We are small in numbers but we have a big heart and passion to bring the gospel to our area around Harrison Street.

Phil Husband serves Whanganui as Specific Ministry Pastor.

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Friends in knead, friends indeed

by Steve Liersch

How do you get total strangers to open their door to you, progress from a quizzical look to a genuine smile and even say ‘Thank you’, all in a few short minutes?

Easy! Load your arms with a couple loaves of bread, knock on the door and smile saying, ‘Hi, I’m Steve (though you might want to use your own name, not mine). I live across the road and my church picks up, packs and delivers bread to people so that it doesn’t go to waste. Would you like some?’

A team of us from Rockingham-Mandurah Lutheran Church in Perth’s southern suburbs has been doing just that for more than three years. Between our two worship sites, we have just more than 100 people, with an average weekly attendance of between 25 and 45 at each site.

It all started back in April 2016 when a young mum with a partner and two young daughters, who attended our Little Guppies playgroup, asked if we were connecting with the community through the school campus of Living Waters Lutheran College. I realised that we weren’t really reaching out at all, so I invited her to explore what she had in mind.

She reported back that a local Bakers Delight would allow us to pick up unsold bread one night a week. We are now delivering bread to a local women’s shelter/hostel, to single-parent families, to our neighbours, and to anyone we hear about who could do with a little help with the basics of life. A local op shop takes as much bread as we can supply. This is especially helpful over the Christmas holidays when our school is closed and some of our regular distributors are away.

A number of Little Guppies mums have realised that the bread ministry is an easy way to build good relationships with their neighbours, especially with the elderly or those in difficult life circumstances. In our community there is a mum whose husband took his own life, leaving her widowed with seven children. One of our members has maintained weekly contact with her, purely through the delivery of bread.

A while ago a school teacher at the college bought some Vegemite and peanut butter, and our daughter would take a couple of loaves to school so that, one day a week, some students who weren’t eating breakfast would at least have something with which to start their day well. Another lady works as a receptionist at a medical centre and knows firsthand who is in need of some extra support. She regularly drops by my office on Friday mornings to pick up a half-dozen loaves for her regulars.

Many people doing it tough often skimp on fresh produce. We have signed an agreement with a local Woolies, which gives us imperfect fruit and vegetables. As a result, a second pickup and delivery person is now a regular team member.

Every Thursday our house becomes the central packaging and pickup venue, with a regular team of four to eight people. We distribute between 80 and 140 items of bread, including rolls and bread sticks. Thanks to Woolies, we also can have up to three crates of produce to share along with the bread.

It’s not yet the ‘five loaves and two fish for thousands’ story, but who knows what God will provide through this ministry?

One of the practical blessings of our bread ministry is the regular contact we have with both helpers and recipients. The weekly conversations during packing or delivering ensure that people are not forgotten, and we can journey with them as they ‘do life’. Importantly, the role model of service is obvious to all, both inside and beyond our church community, as ‘love is coming to life’.

Steve Liersch is the pastor of the Rockingham-Mandurah congregation in Western Australia.

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It’s time to ‘have a go’!

by Brett Kennett

‘I’ve never tried this before … but I’m willing to have a go!’

How many times have you used this expression or heard someone else use it?

Behind it, there’s usually a particular kind of attitude, a mindset that causes us to step out adventurously in order to try a new experience or to tackle a problem by using a new approach. I have a sense that we think this is commendable and admirable, and so we respond with encouragement for those who are prepared to ‘have a go’.

In Matthew 25:14–30, Jesus tells a parable about three servants who are entrusted with various sums of money by their master. It seems to me that two of them ‘have a go’. They invest the money entrusted to them and are able to return it with interest to their master. The third, however, buries what has been entrusted to him and as a result, generates no return on his master’s investment. He has only the original sum to give back to his master and is rebuked for his lack of faith.

I really feel for that third servant! He took an extremely conservative approach – but suffered as a result. My wife sometimes challenges my tendency to hoard stuff. It’s in my blood. Growing up I was taught to save what you’ve got and preserve faithfully what has been given to you. Those are fine values to have, but not at the expense of putting the gifts you have been given to good use! The flip side of hoarding and saving and preserving can be a shed full of old stuff fast turning into junk.

I think the real loss suffered by the third servant in Jesus’ parable was in not realising the possibility of the gift that he had been entrusted with. And at an even more profound and tragic level, it appears that he didn’t know his master’s character and as a result, he acted in fear rather than with the confidence to ‘have a go’ and invest his gift.

Right at the moment in our LCA/NZ, we are being confronted with many depressing and gloomy statistics.

There’s decline across the board in our church attendance figures and a startling trend in terms of our age profile. According to the last NCLS survey, we’ve been welcoming new Christians into our churches at half the rate of our denominational cousins. Underlying these factors is a more foundational reality that we need to come to grips with. The last Australian census reported a drop in the number of those adhering to Christianity – now down to 52 per cent. Correspondingly, the number of people answering ‘no religion’ has been a rising trend for decades and it’s accelerating.

The context in which we are ‘doing church’ is no longer the context whereby Christianity was once at the centre of our culture.

But …

As Jesus also taught us, ‘The harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers for his harvest’ (Luke 10:2).

If we look outwardly and honestly at the conditions we face, we surely see more opportunities than ever to meet people who don’t know Jesus, and to ‘have a go’ at sharing the reason for the hope we have in new ways!

We have a God who also does new things after all. Especially when times are toughest.

‘Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?’ (Isaiah 43:18–19).

The story of the gospel, of God’s commitment to our rescue from sin, is surely the inspiration we need to ‘have a go’ and try some new things.

Pastor Brett Kennett is District Pastor for Congregational Support for the LCA’s Victoria and Tasmania District.

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Micro-loans to marketplace

by Jonathan Krause

Hair braiding. Busking. Cupcakes. Bookmarks. Lemonade. Painted rocks.

These are just some of the products created and sold by the Grade 5s at Good News Lutheran College in Tarneit, Victoria, as part of the ALWS What’s my business? program.

Starting with just a $20 loan, students form groups to create businesses, sell products at a marketplace, repay their $20 loan, and then use the profits to buy ALWS Gifts of Grace to help people in need.

The proprietors of Smiling Lemons, a business selling lemonade and lemon slice, decided they would like to use their profits to buy a chicken. They said: ‘This will help someone thrive because this chicken can provide food from its eggs, grow baby chicks from its eggs, meat for a family and the ability to sell extra eggs. The money the family makes could be used for education, health, such as medicine and doctor visits, clothes, beds, food and more. The chicken manure can be used to help plants grow.’

What’s my business? was developed jointly by ALWS and Lutheran schools in Victoria and New South Wales as a way of teaching students about finance, business and managing money … and at the same time how God’s gift of money can be used to bless others who may be poor.

Sienna from the business Shake It Up said, ‘We had fun, and the money we made will help other people’s lives and bring change’. Meanwhile, Isabelle from Amazing Accessories stated, ‘We went from just getting by with $20 to being successful with the profits we made, which will help the people just surviving and turn their life so they are thriving’.

Hair braids, bookmarks, painted rocks … Gifts of Grace … how wonderful to see our church in schools, and ALWS and the LLL working together to bring love to life!

Jonathan Krause is the community action manager for Australian Lutheran World Service.

WHAT’S MY BUSINESS? SCHOOLS

  • Good News, Tarneit Vic
  • Geelong Lutheran College Vic
  • St John’s, Geelong Vic
  • St John’s, Portland Vic
  • St Paul’s, Henty NSW
  • St John’s, Jindera NSW
  • Wagga Lutheran School NSW
  • St James, Hervey Bay NSW

LLL INVESTS IN SCHOOLS

The ALWS What’s my business? program in Lutheran schools is supported by a generous grant from the LLL. The LLL tagline ‘finance with a mission’ comes to life in a very practical way as students build their businesses to create finance for their mission to help others.

Read more stories like this in the October edition.

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The harvest is plentiful

by Nathan Hedt

When I was growing up on a farm near Horsham in the Wimmera, harvest time was the most important, urgent, busy, vital and also exciting time of the year. It was all hands on deck in our family as we worked to get that good grain from the wheat fields to safe storage.

When the harvests were good, there was a palpable sense of joy and thanksgiving in the midst of the hard work. This was what made farming worthwhile. The long hours, the stress, the anxiety when rain didn’t come or the crops weren’t so good, the gloom of long years of drought … all that was put in perspective when the harvest was good.

Lately I’ve been meditating on Jesus’ words in Luke 10:2 as he sends out the 70 on his mission: ‘The harvest is plentiful’.

It’s such a familiar passage but I want to just pause right there. ‘The harvest is plentiful.’ When Jesus talks about the harvest, he is talking about people who are open to the good news of the kingdom of God. In the first verses of Luke 10, Jesus is saying that there are more people who are open to hearing the good news than there are people willing to share it.

I believe that is still true, even in Australia in the 21st century. For so long, it has seemed that the harvest is poor, and we have lived with the anxiety and gloom of years of congregational decline. For so long it seems that we have been in a spiritual drought. Adult baptisms have been rare. We see few converts, people coming to faith as adults in the Lutheran Church.

However, I believe Jesus’ words are true for us now. The harvest is plentiful. There are many, many people in our cities, in our towns and in our rural areas who are desperately hungry for good news – the good news that only comes through Jesus, the good news of forgiveness and unconditional acceptance, restoration and community that comes as part and parcel of the kingdom of God.

There are more people open to hearing the gospel than there are people willing to share it with them.

Jesus goes on in Luke 10:2 to say, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. So pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest fields.’

Read the full story in the October edition.

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The water is for the flowers

Prayer. I find it so hard.

My prayer journey over the decades has been fraught with difficulties and failures, but at the same time has opened up for me some fascinating and marvellous experiences.

Ever since I was a kid, I have been encouraged to pray and have been taught the deep value of prayer. I can remember my dad buying me a little notebook when I was in primary school. He sat down with me at the kitchen table to divide the pages into seven sections, one for each day of the week. We then assigned people, groups and world needs to each of the days. I used this book to guide my prayers each morning or evening, starting with praise, then thanksgiving, then requests. I recorded answers to my prayers at the back of the book. This method instilled in me discipline, but it required so many words from me. Words, words, words! If prayer was so important, why was it so hard?

When I was young we had an unspoken motto in our family: if the church opened its doors, we were there. This included the Wednesday evening prayer meeting. I was usually the only kid among a bunch of adults. The prayers seemed to go on and on for hours –so much talking I had trouble staying awake. More words! I often wondered if God got mad with me because I got bored. In my more daring moments I wondered if God got bored, too! Why didn’t God sit down with me and have a normal two-way conversation?

Since then, more than four decades have passed. I’m older and bolder. My prayer journey has had many twists and turns.

A little while ago I came to live and work in South-East Asia. ‘Allahu Akbar Ash-hadu an-la ilaha illa llag …’ The call to prayer reverberates out from the mosques five times a day. It is a constant reminder that people who have surrendered to God have a life centered on prayer, time with God. Listening to the call (there is nowhere here where you can miss it!) is slowly working towards a change in me. Five times a day I am reminded that I must continually surrender to God if I am to have any influence here as a follower of Jesus.

Read the full story in the October edition.

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Striving to see all feel welcome

We live in one of the most diverse societies in the world. In Australia, more than 300 languages are spoken at home and our residents were born in almost 200 different countries.

Trinity Lutheran Church, Pasadena, in suburban Adelaide, and the Indonesian Christian Fellowship of Adelaide at the same location, are taking cross-cultural ministry seriously as they reach out to our diverse multicultural society.

Where once the Indonesian Fellowship aimed to be a fully independent congregation with its own pastor, the two worshipping communities have now engaged in an open dialogue to explore a ‘unity in diversity’ of becoming one congregation at Pasadena.

Trinity Lutheran Church is a recipient of a Cross-Cultural Ministry grant which assists with the employment of a lay worker, Ani Sumanti, who pastors the Indonesian community.

Pastor Matt Huckel reports that two out of the four intentional joint worship services planned for this year have been conducted so far with ‘wonderful results and feedback’.

‘These services have been bilingual, and cross-cultural, as we have drawn in music, language and contributions from our African, Persian and Indonesian people. Each service has finished with food and fellowship’, he says. ‘Our people are embracing our new identity as a multiethnic and multigenerational congregation and are rejoicing in that new vision.’

Cross-Cultural Ministry in the LCA is on a learning journey. We love to hear from congregations regarding what they need to become a truly multiethnic congregation – a congregation that welcomes all.

The Trinity experience, as well as that of other multicultural congregations, has taught us that intentional training/workshops that assist and support church workers and key leaders are required. Research shows that denominations are supportive of the multiethnic movements of God in the churches, but don’t know how to give proper support and training to multiethnic church workers.

In 2019, the first Cross-Cultural Conference was held in the LCA. You can find the conference report, presentations and videos at www.lca.org.au/cross-cultural-ministry and click on the conference link.

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