Marilyn and I headed down to Nelson on Saturday to catch up with Richard and Maria Batchelar, speak in their services and dedicate their new baby Eva to the Lord. Eva makes three with Joel and Bella. Richard was our Youth Pastor for a number of years. They are doing an awesome job in the church and I love their plans for the new church building. They have been very wise in the way they have led the church and built it into a vibrant, multi-generational congregation. Plans are for construction to begin this year.

On Friday night the Elders and key leaders met to plan our way forward keeping in mind our BHAGS. (Big hairy audacious goals). We have had to expand on some of them since we set them a couple of years ago as we had grown past them in some areas. We also received word that the Prime Minister will come an open our new school in April. Some of us slipped back around to the church after the meeting to catch the end of the youth service. The place was packed and buzzing with over 400 young people from across our four congregations. 

We are holding discussions with the Pakuranga Golf Club at the moment on purchasing some land off them for sports fields for the college. The timing is not great with all the other developments but hopefully we can work out something that would be of mutual benefit. It would give us another 1.5ha which is just a bit bigger than our 159 Botany site. This would give us around 17 acres of land in Howick which would be amazing. Keep us in your prayers. 

I’m real excited about this year. All four congregations are reporting strong services with great attendances and many visitors. Friday night youth got underway with around 350 young people and I hear it really pumped.

I was in the East on Sunday and we had a really fun time in the 11.30am service when we celebrated Roger and Thelma Nichols’ 60th wedding anniversary. They had almost the full wedding party and a number of friends and family watch them renew their vows. Roger and Thelma have been with us since we started the church over 26 years ago; an awesome couple.

Yesterday we had a team building day at Maraetai Beach. The weather forecast was not good but we had an amazing calm sunny day. Each year brings changes to the team, and this year we farewell Selwyn and Anne Jackson from our City staff; they are taking up the pastoral leadership of our Elim Church in West Auckland. Then we welcome Bob and Margaret Lawson into our City team. Bob and Margaret have been leading our Hamilton church but have now entered a new season in their lives working more widely in our Elim churches. Bob will be on staff in the city two days a week helping Tim and overseeing our missions. He is also on our National Leadership team. 

As many would know we have had three young German men staying with us this past week. They had their camper van broken into on their last day in NZ and had all their money, documents and clothes stolen. Through an amazing set of circumstances they ended up with us. We have three boys who have travelled and if they had got into difficulty it would have been good to know someone would be there to help. Tim, Igor and Theo are great guys and a pleasure to have in the home. I took them out fishing yesterday; it was a perfect day on the harbor so we caught some fish and then I took them right around Waiheke Island.

We went to church last Sunday; a new experience for them to go to a contemporary church, and the church folk were so generous in blessing them. The boys were blown away.

Here is a word of thanks from them.

On this way we want to thank everybody who helped us with their donations! It was really nice to see for us how graceful and kind the people in the Elim church have been. We are also thankful for all the impresses we made that day in your church and will return with many good memories from this country to Germany.

Best regards, The German guys. Tim, Igor and Theo

Thank you church, you are such a generous people.

This week saw church starting to get back into full swing after the holiday break. Ministry Training College started with a great group of students; the Junior College got underway smoothly with no traffic issues at all.

I’m in the East this Sunday taking the second in our series called My Church. Make sure you come as this will really help you to understand why we do church the way we do church.

Happy New Year; it has been a long time between blogs. January has been a mixture of work and holiday with Marilyn and myself getting away to our bach at Mangakino for a couple of weeks at the end of the month. Our daughter in law Virginia and grandson Hunter came with us, so we got on the lake and had trips to Rotorua and Taupo. Grandchildren are a lot of fun but very tiring; it is good to get back to work for a rest.

This year is shaping up to be huge. Sunday services are very strong and are well attended with lots of visitors; there is a strong sense of expectation in the team that we are in for a great year.  

Our Senior College started today and the new Junior Campus next week. We start the year with over 800 students so that is a jump of nearly 300 for our college staff. Today Arrow Construction hand the keys over for the completion of the $9m. stage one. The next stage is on hold as it will cost a further $4.5m to complete. We have some other possible exciting developments with the college that we will find out if we get a green light to move on next month.

Don’t miss our new series starting on Sunday morning called “My Church.” We want to share some of the special values that I believe makes our church unique. Sunday night kicks off again on February 12 with a teaching series on relationships.

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

It was really sad to hear that Tony Johnson passed away last Saturday after fighting an aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease. Tony and Karen joined our team in our early years and headed up our children’s work and oversaw the youth.
Tony had a great passion for children, and developed a programme for us called Touchdown All Stars. It incorporated Sunday services and a holiday programme that attracted up to three hundred children each day. It found huge favour with our community and resulted in many families coming into the church.
Tony also developed a model of mentoring our youth as leaders in this programme, and many of those early Touchdown leaders are now church leaders. He was an outstanding leader.

Tony and Karen were generous supporters and encouragers in the building of the East church. At one stage the contractors, Canam Construction, offered us up to twelve of their top carpenters for free; we only had to supply materials. The problem was that we didn’t have any money until Tony and Karen stepped up and gave us a generous gift.
Karen and the family also made a huge contribution to our music. We are indebted to them. Tony was a great husband, dad and servant of God.

Last Friday Mike Griffiths and I went to the celebration of 15 years of Christians Against Poverty (CAP). To celebrate John Kirkby the founder was running 15 marathons in 15 days in 3 countries, and then hosting a fundraising dinner each evening. Incredible.

His story goes like this;
In 1996, John nearly lost everything. He was in dire financial straits and was heartbroken about his inability to provide for his two daughters. With over 20 years experience in the finance industry on his side he was able to fight his way out of debt, but he could not forget the culture of brokenness, pain and fear which he had battled. He realised that those without his knowledge and expertise would almost certainly succumb to the loneliness, terror and desperation caused by unmanageable debt. So, with £10 in his pocket, he went into the poorest communities of Bradford, England and Christians Against Poverty was born. John created budgets which prioritised food and essentials, liaised with creditors and educated people in financial self-management. He advocated for clients whilst empowering them to take control of their finances in order to sustainably repay debts and provide for their families. He supported those who were lonely and alienated by society and gave them a sense of hope, while asking for nothing in return.
Since those days, CAP UK has well over 100 debt counseling centres around the UK, has won numerous management and leadership awards and is the UK’s largest Christian debt counseling charity. CAP is now an international organisation, with head offices in Australia and New Zealand and 20,000 people a year are helped by CAP’s services around the globe.

We have a CAP office in our church led by Lilian Moss. I believe that CAP is one of the great moves of God in our generation.

The country goes to the polls this weekend. In a congregation as large as ours, I am sure that members have different political persuasions; therefore I have avoided in the past emphasising one party over another.
But we do have a responsibility to vote, and the Christian community must not just sit passively on the sidelines while we allow ungodly laws to be put in place and our Christian values to be destroyed. The Bible says that “Righteousness exalts a nation” or it could be translated “makes a nation great.”
A Government’s record on issues like abortion, prostitution, homosexual marriage, euthanasia, as well supporting those who can’t fully help themselves, a strong stance on crime and justice are all very important.

And then there are secondary issues which are also important to us. We want to be able to stand on the truth of God’s Word without being accused of hate speech. We want the freedom to educate our children in a Christian context and Christian environment.
Here we have experienced the current National government incredibly supportive, whereas the previous Labour government was very unsupportive. The government has been happy to identify with us and see our contribution as positive to the nation, not something to be suppressed. My hope is that current government gets another term with a strong majority.

From the sadness of taking a funeral on Thursday to the joy of taking a wedding on Saturday; this is the variety of privilege and emotion a Pastor has. Neena our Young Adults Pastor and Chris had their special day with a service in St George’s Church in Epsom. Neena was so keen she arrived early and had to wait around the corner from the church. They are a great couple and faithful servants in our church.

Yesterday I had my last lecture with our interns at Ministry Training College; first year students have a few more weeks before the term ends. I teach the interns on church health/growth. And then tonight it looks like I will be attending my first ever cooking demonstration. Not really my thing, but one of our Elim College students has invited TV cooking celebrity Annabelle White to demonstrate as a fundraiser for the college Israel trip. Marilyn is hoping I might learn something, but I don’t think you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Saturday night is our staff Christmas party, and then I am back in the East on Sunday after being in the North last Sunday. We are into number four of our series on Forgotten Virtues; this week talking about integrity.

Marilyn and I got away to our holiday house at Mangakino for a few days over the weekend. It was good to get a break in what is a lovely spot, overlooking Lake Maraetai and the golf course. Beyond the lake are the Pine forests, so it is a very quiet peaceful place. There wasn’t a lot of rest though as the place was a bit over grown from winter; still I don’t mind tidying it up.

Sadly Marilyn’s sisters eldest son passed away after a period of sickness last Thursday. I took the service yesterday. It was a sad time for the family and not something any parent envisages. Our children, they are supposed to have dreams, plans, work and contribute to society, get married, raise their own children. Parents become grandparents. Well at least this is the dream parents have for their children when they are little. Life does not always work out as planned.
In Ecclesiastes the Bible says that “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die.” The passage goes on and says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Ray Stevens misquoted this verse; he sang “Everything is beautiful in its own way.” That’s not true; everything is not beautiful. The Bible says that God “makes” everything beautiful “in its time”. He will bring good out of bad, beauty out of ashes, life out of death.