Marilyn’s birthday today; yes I remembered. Marilyn always says that she never married a Pastor, but after nearly thirty years in ministry she has been an amazing support and encouragement. We have had an incredible journey and are thankful for the wonderful church God has given to us.

We would like to thank you all for your support again this year; it has been huge with the building of our new Junior College Campus. We always feel so encouraged and privileged to be your Pastors.
We are so blessed with tremendous Elders who are so supportive and have always been there to encourage the vision of the church.
Thank you to our staff for putting in so much creative energy into our programmes and pastoral care, and making the church such a fun place to work.

We have again put on a special Christmas Production for you this year and will hold two services on Christmas morning at East. I trust that you can attend and join with us as we celebrate our Lord’s birth.
Have a wonderful Christmas.
May God richly bless you,
Luke and Marilyn

We have a new series starting this week called Forgotten Virtues. In the latest North/South magazine there is an article about the huge demand by parents for special character schools like ours. Parents want their children to be taught in an environment where biblical values are taught and lived. We are going to look at some of these values over the next five Sundays.

On Saturday night we celebrate our volunteers. We have hundreds of members who sacrificially give their time every week to serve in the church. They are awesome and as staff we want to let them know how special they are by giving them a great night out. This year all of our campuses will join together including a couple of bus-loads from the North. Pray the weather is nice as we are outdoors.

Tonight we farewell two of our Elders as Jon Gundy and Phil Gaze come off the team, and we welcome onto the team Shane Suili. Shane and his wife Kuini are part of our South congregation. Jon and Bridget are off to the Netherlands for an extended time with Jon’s work Mainfreight. We wish you guys God’s blessing as you travel. What a great adventure.

I have just been down to the Junior college site to catch progress. All the concrete pads have been poured for the administration and one of the main classroom blocks, and framing is underway. Amazing progress for the middle of winter; with yesterday being the coldest day on record in Auckland at 8.2◦c and snow falling in some parts of the city. South Islanders say we Aucklanders need to harden up.

Marilyn and I have been in the City and then last week in the North for the Sunday morning. City was tough with my having to share that we were reducing our staff levels. This is never easy to do but the congregation and staff have been great, with understanding of the reasons and maturity in their response. It was great to have lunch with Hugh and Noelene Stringleman in the North, who were key members of our team in the East before they moved. We are looking forward to being back in the East this Sunday.

Tomorrow it is an early morning start with a Father’s Breakfast hosted by Parents Inc and opened and addressed by our Mayor Len Brown. Then on Saturday I have the unusual task of blessing the Meadowlands Multisport Centre. I have never prayed a blessing on a sports centre before, but the Scriptures tell us that we can pray that we may enjoy good health. Exercise will certainly support this prayer. Unfortunately my biggest effort in exercise this week has been sitting in the Xerox Corporate Box watching the Warriors win on Saturday night!

Last Sunday was our special offering for the church. It is always a joy to see folk come and generously give into the work of the Lord. We get no outside support and no financial support from the Government for our college land and buildings; but we have amazing facilities because of the faithfulness of God’s people. Thank you for your faithful giving.

Today the floor is being poured for the administration block of the college. Even though it is winter the builders are right on schedule for us to open first term next year. We have worked hard with the Council to ease residents’ concerns by providing a robust traffic plan, but there is still the occasional inflammatory letters from some residents. One silly letter in the local paper this week claimed there would be traffic mayhem stretching as far as Pakuranga, Highland Park, Howick and as far away as Manukau City with our 200 cars. There are 20,000 cars on Botany Road alone each day.
Still, I guess that even though the land was always intended to be for a school, some hoped it would never happen. I’m sure the college will be a good neighbour, and our desire is that the football field be open to the community so that families can still enjoy kicking a ball around together.

I've been in Christchurch this week, firstly for a National Leadership Meeting and then yesterday we had a Regional gathering of the Pastors and spouses from Christchurch, top of the South Island and the West Coast. It was good to catch up with Andrew and Lynley who have gone out from us to lead the church in Burnside, and Richard who along with Maria went from East to Nelson. Maria wasn't with Richard as she was not well. They are expecting their third child; another girl I think Richard said. Congratulations.

Both couples are doing an awesome job. I feel really proud of them when I hear the others speaking so highly of what they are doing.

Christchurch is a mess after the earthquake. So much of the inner city is to be torn down, but added to that are thousands of damaged houses and then the roads are up and down and need lots of work. Look at the photo of the road by Clinton and Jan's house.  We have been able to put $120,000.00 into the three churches from our Elim family to assist them in the recovery.

I tabled at the National Leadership Team my letter of resignation from the role of National Leader and as a member of the leadership team to take effect at this year’s conference. It is time to pass the baton to the next generation, and I also feel we have some huge years ahead of us in Elim Christian Centre. My passion has always been to serve in the local church.

The BNZ bank have approved the finance to do the first stage of the college in Golflands.

I managed to get out on Monday for a bit of fishing. It was a beautiful day but we only got eight. The highlight was a pod of about 50 dolphins swimming around the boat.  I think the season has come to an end. It’s time to pack the boat up for winter.

Congratulations to our College Principal Murray Burton on being awarded by the New Zealand Government “A Member of the NZ Order of Merit.” The reason they gave was for “the way he guided the college through the aftermath of the tragedy in a way that was an example to all.” The tragedy was when we lost six students and a teacher in a drowning on a school camp in 2008. Murray showed incredible leadership at the time and over the following year. A well deserved award for what happened in a very sad time in our church and college history.

On Thursday we shared with the college community our plans for the college future across our three blocks of land. The initial stage plan is to grow the role from the current 580 to 1000 students over a 3-5 year period, starting with an administration block and classrooms for 350 in Golflands. Stage two will be the building of the Secondary College on our Cascades/Botany corner site and then we will return to complete the Golflands campus. 

This is a project which is projected to cost over $25 million and does mean an increase in contributions from parents. We have kept this to the very minimum as we are aware that it is a sacrifice already for parents to give their children Christian education.

On Saturday we celebrated the marriage of our oldest son Lance to Virginia. It was a perfect day, the wedding was outside under a large Oak tree, and Neena our Young Adults pastor did a fantastic job as Celebrant in her first wedding. Neena and Chris had only themselves got engaged the week before.

Yesterday we took our grandson Hunter to Motat museum. He is a great little guy and we had a lot of fun.