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When Matt Schubert became mission facilitator/church planter at Rockingham Mandurah Lutheran Church (RMLC) in Western Australia earlier this year, he didn’t know what God had in store for him and the congregation’s outreach ministries beyond 2020.

RMLC, which worships across two sites south of Perth, began a church-planting journey more than four years ago, praying for guidance. In following God’s lead, they committed to support a mission facilitator position for three years and to plant a new church. But, as a relatively small congregation, they knew they wouldn’t be able to source all the necessary money from within their immediate community.

Chairperson Monika Tropiano admits to ‘some anxiety’ – in addition to quiet prayer and contemplation – over how RMLC would raise the $250,000 they needed to make the outreach ministry sustainable.

Meanwhile, the 16-member Redeemer congregation at Nairne in the Adelaide Hills – more than 2700 kilometres from RMLC – had been planning to support a church plant in northern Adelaide with some of the proceeds of a 2006 land sale. But that South Australian church plant didn’t materialise and so, when the Redeemer members learnt of the need at RMLC, they donated $50,000 to the Western Australian church. Matt and the leaders of RMLC were thrilled by God’s goodness. ‘This gift towards our church-planting endeavour in WA is an incredible example of Christian maturity’, Matt says. ‘The question that these people asked was not “What’s best for us?”. They instead asked, “What’s best for God’s mission?”.

‘The nature of any missionary work – church planting included – is that I spend a lot of my time with people who don’t initially value gospel ministry. In a very real sense, the Nairne congregation are standing in the gap for not-yet-Christians, placing value on a ministry the unconverted don’t yet value, supporting a church which is yet to exist.’

In response to the gift, RMLC Pastor Steve Liersch says, ’If it were not COVID times, I would have hugged anyone I saw. Praise God! Prayers have truly been answered. This reflects that God is up to something within our church and the wider LCA. Only he could have orchestrated such an amazing and inspiring gift.

‘I hope that Matt’s next few years here will not only bear fruit with people coming to know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, but also in that process the Holy Spirit will use him to inspire others to be involved. We have already had adult baptisms as a result of Matt’s ministry and this will hopefully show even more how everyday people, conversations and opportunities can be used by God for eternal blessings and current inspiration for his church.’

Western Australia District Bishop Mike Fulwood says he is ‘so thankful’ for the way God’s Spirit works to inspire people. ‘Wow – God is good’, Bishop Mike says. ‘That people we have never met are supporting mission to people they have never met, is something straight from the heart of God.’

Monika is hopeful that the donation will allow RMLC to move from being focused on its own needs ‘to being a part of the mission of God and sharing our faith so that others will come to know the transformation that following Jesus can bring’.

This is the latest chapter in another story of God’s faithfulness in bringing good out of disappointments or hard times. When the Redeemer congregation was given a parcel of land by John and Maureen Nitschke in the late 1980s, they intended to build a church. Established 33 years ago, the congregation has never had its own worship centre, instead holding services in the local Uniting Church building.

But when the land was deemed unsuitable by the local council due to parking requirements, Redeemer members were led by the Holy Spirit to turn their disappointment into blessings for others. They aimed to support a church plant in the Adelaide Hills, but plans for possible developments in their local area stalled, according to Nairne chairperson Michael Gladigau and other members.

‘We wanted to be good stewards of the gifts we were custodians to’, they say. ‘The Holy Spirit moved us to investigate looking into giving some of this money to (the LCA’s) New and Renewing Churches. God is always leading us and answering prayers, as he knows best. We need to trust him. Our vision is limited. God is omniscient.’

What they learnt regarding church planting, together with prayerful consideration on how the funds would be used for furthering the planting of God’s word, led them to first make a gift of $50,000 to a church plant in south-east Queensland in 2018. At that time the recipients – LCA/NZ church planter Chris Podlich and the young leaders of Beyond Church in northern Brisbane – believed God was calling them to move.

Approximately 2000 kilometres from Nairne, Beyond had been planted out of Living Faith Lutheran Church at Murrumba Downs in 2015. Now it was time to step out in faith into the heart of the unchurched community they had been preparing to serve. But, Chris says, they didn’t know where they would establish a new base or how they would fund setting up their own church facilities. Within a 48-hour period, God had shown them the ‘how’ and the ‘where’, with Nairne committing its financial gift and a local state school agreeing to welcome them into their campus at Griffin.

The move has enabled Beyond to establish its distinct presence as ‘a church that unchurched people love to attend’. It has grown from one service to two; one small group to nine; one youth environment to three; one team of eight leaders to multiple teams that have more than 50 leaders in them; and service projects that began with 10 people serving having grown to involve more than 30 people in them.

As with Rockingham-Mandurah, before COVID-19 adult baptisms had become a regular feature of life and ministry at Beyond.

Chris has met with members of the Nairne congregation when he’s had the chance and says the two donations they have made to Beyond have brought much more than financial benefit.

‘It’s something that I’ve personally drawn on and I know our leadership team has drawn on as an encouragement when things get hard,’ he says. ‘When you ask, “Is this worth it?” and you look back on those times, you think, “Well, God clearly thinks it’s worth it”. God’s been moving in people’s hearts. Clearly God’s behind this. These gifts change lives.’

Another example of the life-changing power of local mission through church planting is occurring in Epping, a north-western suburb of Sydney, around 1300 kilometres from Nairne. In 2019, Redeemer provided seed money towards staff for a multi-ethnic church plant out of LifeWay Lutheran Church. Lead Pastor Mark Schultz says the gift was an ‘incredible encouragement’ and an answer to prayer as LifeWay wrestled with how to do mission and ministry in a changing community, with 59 per cent of people speaking a language other than English at home and a third of the suburb being recent arrivals.

‘It enabled us to get into the local schools and work with young people as they straddle multiple cultures, and employ Mandarin and Cantonese speakers to be bridge-builders between cultures’, Pastor Mark says. ‘Walking in mission is a constant journey of trust; it’s easy to hold back because we fear a lack of resources, but reminders like this draw us back to a faithful God, in whom we lack no good thing. God is a God of abundance and provides for his church in surprising ways.’

LifeWay has now embarked on another step of faith. In conjunction with the NSW District, it has just employed a church planter, Danny Brock, to plant LifeWay Westside, a greenfields multi-ethnic church near the new International airport in Western Sydney.

Michael and the Redeemer folk say hearing the grateful responses from people who have received the gifts gives them ‘a feeling of joy and thankfulness that we are able to help others through the blessings we have received’.

‘We are reminded of the wonderful miracle that Jesus performed when feeding the multitudes with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread’, they say. ‘This one block of land is enabling multitudes to know of God’s love for them. We hope that God’s word will be proclaimed to as many people as possible and people will be led to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

‘What is the point of having money in the bank, when there is a need to support those led to spread the gospel, people with gifts of listening, praying and leading people to Jesus? This became our ministry, part of God’s plan to spread the gospel, as he wants all to be saved.’

by Lisa McIntosh

While the tragedies caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have upended many lives, ‘getting back to normal’ is not something the people of Mawson Lakes Community Church (MLCC) are hoping for.

Like many other church communities, the people of this LCA/NZ congregation in Adelaide’s north have undergone some dramatic shifts in their ministries since March this year. But for MLCC it wasn’t just a case of temporarily ‘pivoting and innovating’ while churches were closed – instead it’s been a matter of ushering in sustainable change.

For Pastor Chris Mann that attitude is biblically based.

‘Every time there’s a crisis, what God wants people to do is to embrace something new – you find that all through the Bible’, he says. ‘And so when people say they want to go back to the way things were, I find that sad and disheartening. They’re missing what God has for them.

‘We’re wired by God for new things, especially in hard times. So the question really is, “What is the ‘new’ that God would have us do during this time?” Newness gives the direction, hope and structure to people that they desperately need in hard times. So we want to keep on going and see where God would take this.’

Before COVID-19, MLCC had an out-of-date website and little social media presence. When shutdown occurred, decisions were made to employ staff to improve and increase the church’s online presence, including through its website at www.mlcc.org.au

Creating an online community using live-streaming – a focus even after face-to-face worship returned in South Australia – has enabled the congregation to support those unable to meet in person, says Amy Dahlenburg, who oversees the communication of church culture through branding, online presence and community connection. She says the congregation has utilised online social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, as well as making weekly community calls through internet conferencing system Zoom and sending out newsletters.

Today MLCC describes itself as ‘one church, two rooms’ – one virtual, online room and one face-to-face room on Sundays.

Pastor Chris says the most important thing MLCC has learnt as a community through the pandemic is to be as inclusive as possible. ‘We’re serving people with online church who always needed to be served, but would only be included through people visiting them in their homes when they were able to’, he says. ‘Now they’re part of the worship service and they feel included. They were always important, but now they feel that they are.’

Having connected with people interstate and overseas through online worship, MLCC is working on improving its ability to follow up those connections. And Pastor Chris says some people who first connected through online worship have started coming to in-person worship once that was available. ‘We’re probably at around about half-a-dozen people who have started coming face-to-face, who we didn’t have contact with before COVID.’

Those without internet access haven’t been forgotten. Amy says MLCC has had church members on a phone cycle to make regular calls to anyone who wasn’t online. Most of these connections were through the church’s small groups.

‘We also encouraged members, when it was safe to do so, to invite people to their houses to watch the live-stream’, Amy says. ‘We still encourage this to help people who are still unable to come to face-to-face church and don’t have internet access, but who may be able to get to a friend’s house or have someone bring a device and sit with them.’

As the congregation’s shepherd, Pastor Chris says his biggest personal learning has been around the capacity of other leaders. ‘We’ve always had an emphasis on “team”, but relying on the expertise of other people and developing a real team ethos among all the leaders, that’s really increased for me as a pastor.’

They’ve also gained new volunteers, some of whom weren’t previously regular worshippers, even though they were part of the MLCC community.

‘People have become motivated, but also their skills have become more valued’, Pastor Chris says. ‘Every church community has people who love that community but don’t come most Sunday mornings. They may just feel there’s not a role for them. We have people who weren’t regular worshippers but have been volunteering regularly, because they care about the church and they care about the people in it.

‘We have a fundamental belief that God has already given us the gifts that we need to do what he wants us to do, so we’ve asked ourselves “Who are the people who’ve got the abilities we need?”.’