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My Cambodia Experience (by Nina Brewer)

So mission is over. I’ve been back here for a week now and I am still mulling over everything that went on and straining to find an answer to the question, “How was mission?” The best answer I have managed to provide is that it wasn’t fun, but it was rewarding. There is just so much that happened. So many memories, so many challenges, so many confrontations. So much went on in our lives, but as a consequence,  most that went on occurred in our hearts. And as is the nature of mission, you go obediently, expecting and planning to give everything away, and come back having gained far more than you could possibly muster to give.

We had a team of 8 very mismatched people, who ended up complimenting each other perfectly. We loved on the children of the slums – hugged them, blew bubbles with them, gave them piggy back rides, and watched as they loved us back, giggled with us and talked to us. We cared for them – bandaged their wounds, washed their hair, helped with the pre-natal checks, took temperatures, and prayed. We built connections with the locals and spread the love of Jesus Christ and just watched His love come on those people. We taught in the schools, ran church services, aided in ministry, built, cleaned walls, administered pregnancy tests and answered peoples’ questions about God. But most of all we sat with them, ate, worked, talked and did life with them. But for me, Cambodia became a place; a reality with real people, with real pain, with steadfast memories. I found God there all over again. And now that I’ve found Him there, I know He’ll always be there to catch up if I ever find myself in that place again. More of the world has become my responsibility – and with that escalated responsibility, my heart has become bigger. I literally saw God write His stories in that place – and the amazing thing is that we weren’t the instigators of these stories; we were merely part of them.

We caught many beautiful moments; but for the most part, what we saw we could never hope to catch on camera. We saw lives change, we saw each other change, we saw a whole new country and became aware of the reality of the overwhelming poverty that is present in the world. We became aware of how blessed we are to live in this country, yet how much our creature comforts prove to be hindrances to our walk with God. These people who had, quite literally, next to nothing, showed us so much love and compassion due to the fact that they found their joy in sustainable sources. Their joy was genuine and real and they were not held back from loving by past experiences or worries about social security. They understood God in His organic form; they see His provision because they NEED Him to provide and cannot get by otherwise. We, on the other hand, safeguard ourselves with money and possessions, and never leave room for God to work in our lives. We don’t need Him to pull through in the things that really matter. Contrary to socially constructed norms and opinions, it is definitely us who are missing out on the reality of God.

Mission may be over, but my journey of learning and growing and discovering never will be. He’s the same as He always has been, but yet, He’s different.  This realisation comes from the beautiful reality that God is different because I have changed.

And the predominant question that people are asking me is, “What’s next?”. The beautiful thing is that I, quite frankly, have absolutely no idea. I mean I have my own plans, but they’re completely subject to change. I’ve come home with more questions than answer to be quite honest. If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt, it is that God does things His way – and in my life His way appears to be one step at a time – and part of my journey was learning to be ok with that. Maybe it’s a gift – not knowing. An opportunity to be free. Because if I truly believe the convictions I profess of how much He loves me, how much He protects me and how perfect He is, it is the most freeing thing ever to be able to say “I don’t know!” and throw it all into his arms… God loves to be trusted with such vulnerability and abandon, and to be given the opportunity to amaze the children He loves. I think that that’s the amazing thing about God – He wants us to live in the present, revealing each next step to us as we faithfully steward the blessings that He’s given us right now.

I have spent the last three weeks doing what should be an everyday normality – solely and exclusively seeking after the heart of God, and just standing in awe of Him. I learnt not to beg God to ‘baby’ me. Seeing the things I did, I was confronted by the harsh reality of the immense responsibility that comes with such opportunity. I can do anything I want – I have the money, the means, the support, the education. I have all the means to be able to help those without these things and instead I am wasting time by begging God to tell me what to do. I am in no way saying that waiting on God is wrong – indeed, it should be what we devote our lives to. But there are multiple options as to what He has directed me towards – and God will bless whatever path I take. He has given me ALL the tools I need to succeed, so why am I asking Him for more opportunity when He has already answered my prayer? Is what He has already blessed me with not sufficient in my eyes? People often substitute inaction or laziness with the term ‘waiting on God’. I had to stop waiting, and go. And now that I’m back, that journey will continue in much the same manner.

So this last part is dedicated to thanking you for your thoughts and prayers thus far. I sincerely hope that you will continue on this journey with me. I’m not promising to get everything right or always make the correct choices but I do promise you this with complete transparency and honesty – my heart is after His. I want nothing more or less than this for my life.

If you'd like to catch more of Nina's thoughts, check out her blog.

My Cambodia Experience (Capturing the thoughts of those 12twoers who went)

The last weekend in June, saw a team of eight young adults (12twoers) leae Austrlia and travel to Cambodia ona  short term misison trip for two weeks. The team was lead by cory Maxwell-Coghlan, and consisted of Nina Brewer, Katelyn Dyason, Andy Grant, Fiona Grant, Renee Grosser, Hannah McCallum and Heath Perrott. They spoke of their experiences the other night at 12two, which is featured below. In addition to this though I have asked each of them to write a blog post of their experience. these will be posted every second day and I trust they will be of great encouragement and enlightenment to you.

You can download the audio of the panel interview here.

Undercover Jesus 4: The power of our story when it fits into God's story

Evangelism shouldn't be a scary thing to do. It is simply allowing our story, our life account, to cross paths with someones story who does not know Jesus, and when this occurs, we simply need to give voice to God's story. If you want to know more of what I mean by this have a listen to the sermon here.

 

Your testimony in 100 words or less (Undercover Jesus)

When it comes to communicating, or even in some cases realising, what we believe, it is easy to become frazzled when someone asks us 'what do you believe?' Now of course you don't want to provide a text book answer. No instead you want to provide your answer, that helps point those asking toward Jesus. 

A really great exercise to help clarify for yourself exactly what you believe and to equip you more effectively to answer with confidence if you're ever asked, is to write down your testimony in 100 words or less.

So let's give it a go and I'll post the testimonies of those who send them on here...

To help you get your mind around the following may help:

Write down thoughts and experiences that work together to provide a coherent story of your positive experience with God. You'll then need to refine the answers down to succint, clear thoughts.

1)      What were you like before you became a follower of Christ?

2)      What happened to change your direction, what did God do?

3)      What is your life like now? What difference has god made in your life?

4)      What do you most value that you have received from Christ?

Good luck, let me know how you go!

Just Walk Across The Room (Sermon to Morning congregations): Sharing Your Story!

In the morning services at Newlife, we've been preaching through what it means to walk across the room and share your faith. For more of the messages we've been preaching go to Stu's Blog. This week I spoke about the neccesity for us to share our story with our friends who are far from God. I followed that very closely by saying that we cannot expect our story to make any difference in someone else's eternal destiny if it does not allow for God's story to be heard. So have a listen in, to what ended up being quite an entetaining message. You can listen to the sermon here.

Youthstreet: Hungry For Strength (Odine Retief)

Last night at youthstreet Odine Retief shared her story of choosing strength over weakness and victory over defeat. She spoke of finding the triumph of christ through our worship, our belief, our focus and our choices. Listen to this amazing message here!

SAYCO Camp in Adelaide Promo

I have been asked to speak at South Australia's Synod Youth camp in October, here is the promo video :)  

Undercover Jesus 3: Are you listening to the Holy Spirit?

In our third week of Undercover Jesus, where we seek to live out our faith with words and deeds, in the environments we exist in, Craig Bailey, leadership lecturer at the Uniting College of Leadership and Theology, Adelaide, brought us a message that challenges us to become familiar with the work of the Holy Spirit and the heart of God, so that our relationships with those who don't yet know Jesus my be enriched by God's love, and challenged with Christ's cross.

You can listen to the sermon here.

 

An audience of like... more than 1,000

I've heard it said, and yes probably said it myself... Play for the audience of one! God, that's the only audience that matters, but actually the reality of leadership is, we play to an audience of thousands. Allow me to explain.

If I make a decision or a call between me and one other person. I speak to them about their behavior, I challenge them on something, I push back on an idea they have, etc. And it feels like it goes well, then I have played well to my audience, that one person. The reality is somewhat different though. Because the strong potential and consequent likelihood exists, that this person will then often go and tell others, others who more often than not include: friends, people they are leading, parents, other leaders (both yours and theirs), etc.

The tragedy of this is multi-fold as:

1) The story that is spoken about is one version of events or of a conversation, it's never the full picture.

2) Those who are told the story will often tell up to five other people, a slightly different (and yes most often worse) version of events.

3) The initial person does not go back to the one person whom should be the only one they go back to.

4) The initial leader all the unlit that process is given permission to avoid accountability.

5) The issue is fed, it grows, and unfortunately become totally removed from where it began.

6) The initial leaders credibility and reputation are severely damaged, but when so many people are sucked into the situation, it is impossible to undo that damage.

7) Those told of the news are fed doubt, confusion and potential dissatisfaction with the vision, cause, or organization, things that are now founded on misinformation, which cannot be remedied.

These reasons, and others I'm sure, are never in the thinking of the initial person when the spillage occurs, but the affects can be catastrophic.

As leaders we need to be aware that we are never dealing with an audience of one, but with an audience of thousands. This does not mean holding back things that need to be said to protect ourselves, it does however mean saying things really well, understanding that whatever is shared may be mislaid and voicing to the person that this is a real potential, and to jointly work out who else should be privy to the conversation had, whilst not limiting their freedom to speak of the the issue to others.

As followers we need to be super disciplined in who we tell what to and in what circumstance. This is by no means a request for silence, but it is a call to serve the church and our leaders in a way that honors them and makes the very difficult task of leadership a little easier.

Craig Bailey on Leadership

Newlife Leadership team had the priveledge of listening to Craig Bailey come and speak to us and challenge us to lift and expand the capacity of our leadership:

To Initiate, Invigorate and Innovate. He spoke brilliantly, the recording was so brilliant, but if you want to listen in please do so here.