HNLC CHURCH FAMILY NEWS (postings in date order)
These bits n pieces (up to two-years on file) are gleaned from our in-house bulletin - to give a public idea of what lies at the heart of our church life - ie. that we are built on a relational model of Christian community, rather than performance model. Theologically, this is about sonship preceding servanthood... We do get to the doing stuff, yes - but the essence of our worth to God and one another is in the fact we are born of one and the same Spirit, and are equally valued by our heavenly Father, BEFORE we are differentiated by our God-given grace giftings. This deals a lot with the competitive spirit innate to our fallen nature.
July 2010 - Six churches were represented in our group of 36 at our Women's Winter Weekend held at Lake Munmorah. This year we had an inspiring speaker, Joy Strahle, a friend of Terri Di Ienno. She brought an encouraging message to us on ways to build good relationships and the importance of forgiveness and being able to say "I'm sorry". The fellowship between all of the women, both young and old, was wonderful. The meals were excellent and our thanks go to Michelle for her great organisation, We were also privileged to witness Kayleen's debut as chief musician. Mysteriously, the mattresses from the top bunks made their way to the floor - our investigations are yet to decide whether it is due to comfort or encroaching age. We are leaning towards comfort. Did anyone snore? Love covers a multitude of .....
29 June 2010 - Maddilin Isabel Roberts was born to James and Megan Roberts. Maddilin is also a sister for Isaac.
June 2010 - Ralph and Anne-Marie Sutherland from New Life Church Palmerston North New Zealand were the speakers at our annual church camp, held again at Camp Kedron. The Sutherlands spurred us on to pray more deeply, be more grateful to God and cast aside the hurry-sickness of this world. Phillip and his boys showed their prowess at archery while the smaller kids like Joshua, Tora and Jordan scurried up the rock-climbing wall. There was no injuries on Peter's bike ride except for the mud tyre marks on Ben's back.
31 May 2010 - By the grace of God, Ben and Kayleen Wright welcomed their firstborn into the world on Monday 31st May 2010. They named her "Naomi Helen".
May 2010 - On Sunday 23rd May Kefasi Makava married Chido during the morning church service. A vast bridal party attended to them as they committed their lives to each other with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ. The reception that followed was filled with joy and festivities as the bridal party led us all in African dancing.
April 2010 - Barbara Hine was water baptised on Sunday 18th April.
March 2010 - Trevor Scott was the guest speaker at our men's camp, about three years since his last visit. The main thrust of his message to us was to live from the heart not the head. An analogy was one of a shepherd he had seen in the middle east, leading his flock. Every now and then a sheep would come up close and take something from the shepherd's hand. When asked what he was doing he replied, "it's sugar, a special treat for those who follow me closely". May we all desire to follow the Good Shepherd closely.
February 2010 - Abigail Brown and Lexie Terry were water baptised on Sunday 21st February.
January 2010 - More than youth and families from Holroyd New Life and Mt Druitt Anglican camped at Kangaroo Valley again. Each day was themed by a gospel colour: Monday = green = creation; Tuesday = black = sin; Wednesday = red = salvation; Thursday = white = justification; Friday = gold = heaven. One of the highlights this year was the talent show hosted by 'Brad McManus'.
December 2009 - Brian and Elizabeth Rensford returned after 11 weeks away. The first six weeks was spent in Zimbabwe ministering alongside Jeremy Rensford and Debbie Hudson. Then Brian and Elizabeth took nine days off in Paris before catching up with friends in England, Canada and the United States.
November 2009 - Bollywood was the theme for our annual Women's Christmas Dinner, Lots of fun was had as we dressed up in sari's. Megan led us in some fun games and then Terri spoke about each woman being sure that they are doing what God wants them to do.
November 2009 - Ben and Kayleen Wright AND James and Megan Roberts have announced they are expecting babies in mid 2010.
September 2009 - On Saturday 5th, at Gavin's house, some men from various churches attended the men's breakfast, the topic was "Waking the Dead". Peter Chan from Fellowship Of Christ, talked about the four fundamental qualities that make men, men. That is an attitude of a son, heart of a father, protector and faithfulness. [Report from Steve Milosevski].
At the end of September Brian and Elizabeth are heading over to Zimbabwe again for a month. This time they'll be accompanied by Debbie Hudson (from HNLC) and Jeremy Rensford (now pastor of Goulburn Valley Christian Fellowship).
August 2009 - Steve Milosevski travelled to Eastern Europe to participate in a short term missions trip. Here's his report: "I was on a mission trip , with OM (Operation Mobilisation) in Eastern Europe, in the Balkan nation of Montenegro, I spent 2 weeks, sharing the gospel and running programs that were aimed at youth, children, young adults and the Roma Gypsy population. The team and I were Greatly blessed."
July 2009 - The annual Women's Winter Weekend took place at Lake Munmorah. 30 of our lovely ladies had a wonderful weekend together relaxing, connecting with God and thoroughly enjoying each others company. The theme was acceptance and after each meal a different lady shared on this theme.
June 2009 - Our annual church camp was held at Camp Kedron near Mona Vale with speakers Michael and Allison Green. A powerful message was shared about being weaned off whatever was are dependant upon (apart from God) and learning to meditate on the word of God through muttering. Praise God that a number of people were baptised in the Holy Spirit and a number of our men were baptised in the creek on the bike ride!
April 2009 - There was much celebration when James Roberts married Megan Pavy on Saturday 4th.
March 2009 - Sunday 15th was a great day for celebration as five people were water baptised - Chido, Paige, Ebenezer, Melody and Aimee (from NZ). Sunday 29th also saw the launch of our 5th-Sunday Book Club. We reviewed and discussed "The Shack" .
February
2009 -
The men from our church and Parramatta Christian Centre went camping at the
Upper Colo River Reserve. As
the tribes came together and assembled, the fellowship between Holroyd New Life
Church and Parramatta Christian Centre grew as the camp went on and the Lord
anointed Keith Rensford with a powerful, yet simple message of men getting back
to the basic’s and cultivating a strong relationship with Christ and a strong
prayer and word discipline, through this men can overcome the World and the
snares and temptation’s of the enemy, flesh and the World system. In the
free time, there was bushwalking, swimming, knife throwing, Logging and boxing
etc. Thanks to all the men who came to men’s camp in 2009 and thanks to
Parramatta Christian centre for joining us. Finally thanks to all who organised
the men’s Camp 2009 and thanks to Jesus who made it all possible. (Report by
Steve Milosevski).
January 2009 - Brian and Elizabeth were completely surprised when on Sunday 11th January our church hall was turned into a surprise celebration for their 40th wedding anniversary. Guests came from as far away as Queensland (Marcus & Patsy Leiman) and as distinguished as local ex-Mayor Allan Ezzy. Rod McElroy, Michelle Allan, Allan Ezzy and Kathy Watts shared humorous and touching stories from their years of friendship with Brian and Elizabeth and we all got to laugh and cringe over photos from their journey together.
January 2009 - Nearly 60 of us from HNLC and Mt Druitt Anglican went camping again at Kangaroo Valley. this years theme was "What is my purpose?" and after every breakfast and dinner a different leader shared their thoughts on the theme. God spoke powerfully through the sharing times and through His miraculous provision during some accidents. There was also lots of fun and laughter while we swam, rafted, interviewed wombats, rode in trailers, played spotlight, bush-walked, played soccer & volleyball, and hung out in the camping ground.
December 2008 - December was the month for end of year meals and celebrations: the management team had cake & coffee at Abla's; the ROCK youth got wet at Jamberoo Park; the women's morning devotional group had brunch at Lilies on the Park at Homebush; the women's craft group had a special Christmas Card making supper at Debbie's; the Pastoral Care Team enjoyed pizza and pasta at Guillianne's Cafe; the LOUD Young Adults lunched at the Albion Hotel and everyone joined in the combined churches Christmas Dinner at the Fellowship of Christ (photos from the combined dinner are in our photo gallery).
November 2008 - Dharsh Williams was the speaker at this years Annual Women's Christmas Dinner. Our theme was a Masquerade Ball and many of our women dressed up to match the theme. The best dressed prize was won by Janelle Watts who wore her pyjama's, dressing gown, rollers in her hair and a mud face mask! Ray Freeman was the 'pantler' or chief servant for the night and he demonstrated a cutting of the 'upper crust'. Dharsh shared how each of us are a story being written and we each have a choice as to whether we write our own stories and live with the mistakes or we let Jesus take over writing our story for us.
October 2008 - It was a great day of cooking and feasting on Saturday 18th when 20 women met together to form cooking teams creating beef koftas, chilli corn fritters, sweet chicken nuggets, deep fried camembert, grilled coconut wings with satay sauce, ricotta and spinach scrolls, fresh spring rolls and California sushi.
September 2008 - 17 of our youth and leaders headed up to Budgewoi on the Central Coast for a camp on the last weekend of September. Here's a report from Jessica (one of the youth who attended): To learn something new, To have LOADS of fun, To learn how to make time for God, To make more time for Christ, To strengthen your walk with Christ, To pray and enjoy it, To eat a lot and not have to tell your parents how much junk food you actually did eat over the weekend, To have absolutely TOO much fun, To hold people down and have someone wax their legs or at least a small fraction of one, To swim in the beach, To be stupid and forget to put sunscreen on, To stay up late and be REALLY tired the next day, To befriend someone new, PLUS MORE! All these things took their place in our youth camp. An amazing weekend packed with lots of fun and laughs. Terri, Megan, James and Kefy, our youth leaders took us up to Budgewoi for a camp that changed my perspective on how I spend my time and how I should spend my time. ‘Do we have time?’ was the overall topic for the weekend. You may be wondering what it is that this question is really asking ‘do we have time?’ for what? For God. When James spoke on the Sunday afternoon, I learned that we do have time. Throughout the day we can be praying in our heads. God is our heavenly father, and just like our earthly father he loves us to be able to talk to him about anything and everything. But along with that, we still need to make time for reading the bible and praying aloud, just like we have to make time for everything else in our lives. Sometimes that even means we have to give something up, but when James said that he didn’t mean give up school to spend time with God. He meant to spend less time on the computer, spend less time on the phone. Spending time with God is essential.
August 2008 - Our Annual Women's Winter Weekend took place again at Lake Munmorrah. This year the theme was JOY and Maureen, Samantha & Kayleen shared on what they've learnt about the topic. On the Saturday night we had fun pampering each other with manicures and Janelle's home made facials.
July 2008 - It's winter - and that means a Concert! Wow! This one was really well-rehearsed and showcased some actually talented people - young and not-so-young! Go here for a photographic record of an excellent night (you'll need broadband coz the photos are all around 100kb and not thumb-nailed.
June 2008 - Hilary and Dharsh Williams were this years guests speakers at our annual church camp at Mount Victoria. We braved the cold weather outside and bathed in Hilary's teaching on the Book of Ephesians. Some of the men conquered the mountain side on their bikes (or did the mountain side conquer them?)
May 2008 - Our church hosted a "Building Safer Families" Workshop on a Saturday morning. Those who attended were equipped with information and tools to help build great families and prevent child abuse.
April
2008 - God
really blessed us with some perfect autumn weather on the weekend, with 19
dad’s, kid’s & others making the most of the opportunity to enjoy bush
walking, swimming, rock climbing and roughing it at the Upper Colo River
Reserve. Special achievement awards went to Jordan Burns for walking most of the
8k bushwalk, Chris Muscat for the best Monkey impression, Abigail & Samuel
for tree climbing, Mitchell Pavy for winning the fire lighting competition and
managing to worm his way out of washing up for the whole weekend. Special thanks
to Des for bringing his bar-b-q, Philip for all the fire wood, Ben Wright for
the lesson in treating snake bites and David DiIenno for managing to include a
boxing demonstration in our Sunday morning devotions (ask Philip how his ribs
are). The
February
2008 -
HNLC
hosted a men’s camp at a terrific venue on the shores of
January
2008 - 34 campers from our church and Mt Druitt Anglican joined
together for our annual Kangaroo Valley Camp at the free Bendeela picnic
grounds. This year the theme was "Living with Christ" for our
devotionals and "Who cares wins" for our challengers. Each day people
were nominated for their caring actions and one winner got the wear the
ceremonial necklace and eat chocolate. Ben Wright caught a six foot diamond
python which ?happily? posed for photos.
On Australia Day we picnic-ed at Chipping Norton Lakes. Lots
of people mingled under the cool gum trees. A group of keen cyclists, including
Micah, Samuel, Keziah and Abigail were led by Brian from Bristol St to the park,
and then on two separate rides around the park after lunch. Des, Tim and
Christopher slung mud at each other while the kids frolicked in the lake!