I'm wrapped that there is currently a resurgence of people around Australia asking how to plant a church that reaches people who don't go to church. 

This is an incredibly exciting time with so many men and women both young and not so young wanting to explore new ways of doing church and to discover new ways that they can reach their communities!

The good news is that we will soon be putting on a one day workshop that is available to all prospective church planters, irrespective of movement affiliation, denomination or style. The only thing we want to see in common is a desire to reach our country with the love and good news of Jesus by pioneering new works.

Oscar Muriu who has planted hundreds of churches around the world shared some incredible wisdom at the recent A2A National Conference when he spoke on 9 important keys to effectively planting churches. One of these keys was to plant rabbit churches that can be birthed and multiplied quickly rather than rhino churches that are slow to birth and have a high mortality rate.

Legendary church planter Ralph Moore seeded a rabbit church planting movement in the US where over 2,300 rabbit churches have been planted with some of these rabbits growing to be rhino churches of over 2,000 in size. 

Oscar and Ralph aren't saying that small rabbit churches are better, but they are advocates of planting simple rabbit churches that have the potential to become rhino churches.

The good news is that we will be running a 1 day Church Planting Workshop on Saturday 24 August at Our Church in Burleigh Heads, Queensland where we will be unpacking principles and practices that will help equip you to plant rabbit churches that have the potential to become rhino churches.

In the workshop we will be addressing a range of topics that include:

• who you need in your core team
• what the church you plant can look like
• how to reach the community
• how to put in place a disciple making strategy
• how to develop an effective launch strategy
• how to develop a financial model that will work
• how to pray in preparation to plant
• how you can get coaching to help ensure that your plant is successful.

If you are being stirred about the possibility of planting a church, make sure you book your place and come along. And definitely bring prospective team members to help them catch the vision and develop understanding of the steps involved in planting a new church.

Details for the workshop are:

• Where: Our Church in Burleigh Heads, Queensland
• When: Saturday 24 August 2019
• What Time: from 10:00am to 4:00pm (Registrations commence at 9:30am)
• Whats The Cost: $30 for registration and a light lunch
• RSVP: Using the Registration Form here

I'm excited that I see many across Australia being stirred at present to consider the call to church plant. If that's you, then this will be an invaluable workshop to help you understand key principles and work out the steps to take to embark on this exciting journey.

​If you have questions or want further information, call me on 0419582781 or email me at timo@a2a.org.au. 

Tim O'Neill,
President, A2A (the Acts 2 Alliance)

ps - if you are interested in having a workshop in your region that will help you to discover how you can plant a church, send me an email and we'll see what we can do.

As I get older, I am often asked to make a comment regarding the approach a Christian should have toward the celebration of Anzac Day. The question put simply is how should a Christian approach this national day?
 
Let me say from the top as an ex professional soldier who served during the Vietnam era and lost mates to the ravages of war, it should never be the intention of anyone to celebrate war, but a grim reminder that we cannot glorify war 
 
On Thursday the 25 April we will celebrate as a nation our most sacred day, Anzac Day
 
Anzac Day is important to us because it is widely accepted that the spirit of the nation was born on the blood-stained beaches of Gallipoli.

Australia is the only nation of the modern era not born in blood and there is credible thinking from scripture that unless there is the shedding of blood 
a covenant cannot be established. 

1 Jan 1901 was a peaceful day around the colonies, they came together in exuberant celebration to form the new nation of Australia. There was no blood on the streets and things continued much as before. Once the parties were over, numerous newspaper reports stated that the overwhelming feeling in the community was, "nothing much has changed". 
 
The 25 April 1915 was a dreadful day of human carnage and the blood of young Australian's was everywhere. Everything changed for Australia that day and the nation has never been the same since. 
 
The spirit of our nation was born at Gallipoli, but we can take heart that a spirit of war was not born at Gallipoli.
 
Young Australians went ignorantly to the adventure of seeing new places and experiencing what, to that time, they could only read about. They had no idea they would be thrown into a four-year struggle commanded by a foreign power that had little regard for human life.

There is some research that suggests Australians are more resistant to settling disputes with arms than many of the nations we are allied with. It is truly a last resort for us, but as member of a community of nations there are times when we do go to war.
 
Here are a few musings about war for consideration.
 
What is the cause of war ???
 
The bible says it is selfishness and pride
 
James 4 v 1 -2 says….
Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? They come about because you want your own way and fight for it. Deep inside yourself you want what is not yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.
 
Is it ever right to fight?
 
Ecc 3 v 8 and 11 says….
There is a time for war and a time for peace, 
and everything is beautiful in its time.
 
Many of the heroes of faith were military men. There are numerous examples of war being the means that God used to work out his purpose.
Jesus honoured the station in life of the Roman Centurion. 
Jesus himself used force to remove the money changes from the temple.
 
Will the world ever have permanent peace?
 
There is a day coming, but not until Jesus comes back.
 
​Jesus said in Matt 24 v 6….
There will always be wars until the prince of peace comes back.
 
We will not see peace in our lifetime.
 
We do not celebrate war on Anzac Day. You will never hear a veteran talk about the glory of war, but you will hear over and over again, I hope no one ever has to suffer the pain of battle again. I hope our young men and women never have to experience what we experienced. 

We will never celebrate war on Anzac Day but what we will honour again this Anzac day are the sacrifices that men and women of our nation have made. 
 
We will never celebrate war and project it as the acceptable way to settle the differences we have with each other, so what do we do?

1. We can pray

The bible says….
Pray for kings and all others in authority

1. We can put our trust in God

The bible says….
The Lord is my light and my salvation 
whom shall I fear? Though an army besieges me 
and war breaks out against me, even then I will be confident.

1. We can seek peace

The bible says….
Turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it

It's been an absolute privilege catching a glimpse of so many great things happening across A2A churches as we recently conducted Leaders Together (LT) days in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
​
Building A Discipling Culture

One of the hi lights of the days was having Tim Piesse from “Building A Discipling Culture” (BDC) with us at all four events. Many thanks to Tim and BDC for coming along and giving such great input. It’s encouraging to hear that quite a few A2A churches have already or will soon be in contact with Tim exploring how BDC can help their churches be more effective at reaching and making disciples.
​

​Unstoppable Forces
Jesus cast the vision for what the church was to be when He said that the not even the gates of hell would be able to hold back the church. It was to be  prevailing church, or in the words of Erwin McManus, an “unstoppable force”.

Just think about that for a moment; an unstoppable force. That’s what the church is to be when the people of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, are led to walk in the love of God, as they follow the teachings of the Son of God and take His good news to a world that doesn’t know Him. Powerful isn’t it!

I want to make special mention of two A2A churches and their leaders that are doing great things.

In Brisbane we were hosted by Sean and Annette Woods at The Rock Christian Church. They had only just moved into their new building the week before. The vision that they and their team has shown and what they have accomplished with their new building  has been outstanding.

In South Australia, I was a guest at Fleurieu Family Church (formerly Covenant Family Church) in Port Elliot. The joy and vibrancy that I experienced there was amazing. 

Michael and Kathy Ridley have only been leading the church a short time, but what hey have done with the assistance of their team has been incredible.

​​As I look at these two churches I catch glimpses of the unstoppable forces that Jesus calls His church to be, and it’s exciting! Especially when we look around the movement and see other churches in the five states we are represented in also doing great things.

Vision and Direction
The National Leadership Team (NLT) met together for a few days Retreat to once again seek the Spirit’s leading for the movement and to conduct our board meeting.

From doing this, we reaffirmed the Mission of A2A as “raising enduring leaders who will build prevailing churches.” This is a continual and ongoing theme of critical importance that we seek to sew into. At the LT days we spent time on “Leadership Pathways” in a workshop put together by Marcy Paynter.

After 10 years, we have revisited and revised our Vision Statement, which is now to be:

• an alliance of innovative missional churches transforming Australian lives.

This is reflected in our Playbook Strategic Plan which we have revised so that the single most important focus for us as a movement over the next period of time is to help “grow missional churches”. 

We have a number of strategies that we will be working on to be able to implement to help A2A churches grow as missional churches. 

Taking from Ed Stetzer, we regard a missional church as being one that is lovingly engaged with their local community whilst holding a high view of the teachings of Jesus and adhering to them, and thats what we want to help A2A churches become.

In line with this at the Retreat the NLT spent time considering the main issues that churches in Australia faced that prevented them from becoming all that God calls them to be. Ultimately we want to be able to assist A2A churches in this regard and bring even greater clarity to who and how we can assist. 

Mentoring Leaders
We are delighted at the high uptake amongst senior leaders of entering into mentoring relationships. To bring a little structure to the mentoring relationship, we have produced a 1 page Mentoring Agreement where you can specify the frequency of mentoring, any financial arrangement and the duration of the agreement.

A copy of the agreement is can be downloaded here. Alternatively email Liz Jesson and we will send you a copy. We would like all mentoring arrangements to have an agreement such as this in place.

Emerging Leaders Initiative.
Great feedback continues to come in from the ELI participants. One aspect of ELI is that the candidates visit different churches to gain different ministry insights. You can watch feedback they gave after visiting Tailrace in November here.

This year we will be taking a mid year intake into ELI, so if you are an emerging leader, or if you have potential emerging leaders in your church, contact Mark Ansell at Gateway and he will be able to provide more details.

2019 Conference
If you haven’t already seen it, the short video of our keynote speaker, Oscar Muriu from Nairobi Chapel in Kenya is really worth watching.

Seven weeks out and we are delighted at how registrations have been pouring in. Last year we had 200 registrants. This year we are hoping for 250, and are half way there already. If you haven’t registered yet, you can do so here. More information about the 2019 National Conference can be found here.

Here’s a video promoting the 2019 A2A National Conference that you are welcome to show in your church.

Pastors in Transition
There are currently a number of A2A churches where transition to a new senior leader has or is taking place. And there are a number of churches where pastors approaching retirement are looking for possible successors.

We are always looking out for men and women who are open to exploring a call to ministry. Perhaps you may be a good fit for one of the churches where the current pastor would like to pass on the baton? If you would like to explore this as a possibility, talk to one of the NLT members or contact me.

What are You Reading?
As John Maxwell says, “leaders are learners”. Here are 3 books I’ve found particularly helpful over the last few months:

• “Memoirs of a Pastor” by Eugene Peterson. This book helps rekindle the love of being a pastor, a shepherd to a flock of people.
• “Irresistible: Reclaiming The New That Jesus Unleashed To The World” by Andy Stanley. A great book ultimately pointing to the new commandment of Jesus and what that looks like in todays world.
• “Building A Story Brand” by Donald Miller. A fantastic book in helping understand why clarity of what we do is important, and how to gain that clarity so we can easily and effectively tell others about it.

I love how new and different input helps stimulate new ideas and  helps keep ministry fresh!

Back to the Book of Acts
When you read this, Sharon and I will be heading to, or already in Asia with Empart. I love these trips! They are like going back to the book of Acts and seeing the Holy Spirit moving with people being healed and saved, leaders raised, churches planted and communities transformed.

Every time I come back, I have fresh hope for Australia and fresh hope that A2A will truly become an alliance of innovative missional churches transforming Australian lives.

Carl Mutzelburg at Catalyst will be acting President in my absence should you need urgent support. I will be returning to Australia at the end of March.

Please pray that the Holy Spirit moves in our country, that our churches grow as healthy missional churches and that many young men and women are raised as workers for the harvest.
​
Blessings,


Tim O’Neill
President, A2A
The Acts 2 Alliance.

Why not make the decision to start a new habit that will reward you for a lifetime? It's not as hard or improbable as it seems.

God has given us the scriptures in the bible to not only teach us about Him but to also teach us how He wants us to live our lives. It’s not just there as head knowledge but so that we can apply the teaching and principles to our lives. And when we do, it will be life changing!

As we read and meditate on the scriptures, the Holy Spirit gives us understanding and revelation. When this happens, the word of God becomes living and powerful; becoming simply life changing.

Oh, the joys of those who … delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.
Psalm 1:1-3 (NLT)

You might have tried reading the Bible and found it hard to stick at. Perhaps you haven't really even seen the point. There are 3 keys to meaningfully engaging with what the Bible has to say if you want it to truly impact your life.
​
3 Keys To Engaging With Scripture In A Life Changing Way

1. Make a habit of Reading and engaging with scripture daily. Real benefits happen when you do this 4 or more times a week.
2. Reading is the first step, but don’t stop there. Read, Reflect on what is says, meditating on what the scripture is saying and on what the Holy Spirit is saying to you.
3. Then Respond by deciding to apply what you have reflected on to your life.

It's as simple as Reading, Reflecting and Responding. And the benefits are enormous!

Some of the Benefits of Regularly Engaging In Scripture
A survey of over 100,ooo people has found that regularly engaging with scripture has the following incredible benefits:
“We find that if a person who engages the Bible four or more times a week their odds of giving in to these temptations decreases: 

• Drinking to excess -62% 
• Viewing pornography -59% 
• Having sex outside marriage -59% 
• Gambling -45% 
• Lashing out in anger -31% 
• Gossiping – 28% 
• Lying -28% 
• Neglecting family -26% 
• Overeating or mishandling food -20%
• Overspending or mishandling money -20% 

Bible engagement also produces more peace and joy in a person’s life, by reducing the frequency of various emotional struggles. 
Receiving, reflecting on, and responding to God’s Word four or more times a week decreases a person’s odds of struggling with these issues: 

• Feeling bitter -40% 
• Thinking destructively about self or others -32% 
• Feeling like they have to hide what they do or feel -32% 
• Having difficulty forgiving others -31%
• Feeling discouraged -31% 
• Experiencing loneliness – 30% 
• Overeating or mishandling food -20% 
• Having difficulty forgiving oneself -26%
• Thinking unkindly about others -18%
• Experiencing fear or anxiety -14% 

The impact of engaging in God’s word on a regular basis is absolutely amazing! And there's a simple tool called SOAPing that can help you on the path to experiencing benefits like those listed above.

SOAPing; a Great Tool To Help You Regularly Engage With God’s Word
SOAPing is simply a tool to help you engage with scripture in a way that becomes life changing as you partner with the Holy Spirit in applying God’s word to your life.

If you aren’t already using amore comprehensive reading plan or if your church doesn't recommend a particular reading plan, you can use the 2 month plan below.

This plan will help you start a habit that will reward you for a lifetime by leading you to read 1 chapter a day over 52 days, starting with the story of Jesus life and then the story of some of the first believers found in the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. After this there are 2 short letters written by the Apostle Paul.

You can SOAP by simply:

1. Reading the scripture for the day
2. Pray, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal insights to you
3. Selecting a scripture to focus on and then SOAP as follows:

Scripture – write out the scripture
Observation – write what this scripture is saying to you
Application – write how you will apply this to your life
Prayer – commit this to prayer, asking the Holy Spirit to help you

   4. Take steps towards living the life God wants you to live and that He will blessYou can watch a short video helping to explain how you can SOAP here.

How Long Will This take Me Every Day
On average it takes 3 to 4 minutes to read a chapter form the New Testament. That's not a lot of time is it? So if you were to read a chapter a day and SOAP on that. it's likely to take you just 10 to 15 minutes a day. I don't think anyone can say that they don't have the time to do this! It's more a matter of whether you want to make the time to start a habit that will reward you for a lifetime.

A Reading Plan To Help You Get Started
For those who have already developed the habit of SOAPing regularly, we recommend that you keep using a comprehensive reading plan such as the Life Journal reading plan or the plan that your church recommends.

However for those starting off, it may be easier to start off using an introductory reading plan like the one below. What’s really most important isn’t how much of the bible that you read and meditate on, but that you develop a regular habit that leads you to meditate on scripture every day.
​
Below you will see a 52 day introductory reading plan; 1 chapter of the Bible a day through January and February. Why not give it a go and get SOAPing?

Happy SOAPing! May the benefits be life changing!

As we approach Christmas, it’s a great time to reflect on all that we have to be thankful for. 
To me the spirit of Christmas is all about giving. We catch a glimpse of this in that this is the one time of year where a diverse range of people across our country engage in the act of giving, and of course also in receiving!
Giving is as old as Christmas; older in fact! We read about the generous giving of the Magi in Matthew 2:11

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

​The Magi sought Jesus out. They worshipped Him. And they unleashed generosity on Him.
To me, these actions reflect the Spirit of Christmas and the generosity of the Magi reflects God’s heart and it should reflect our hearts as well.

Jesus came to earth as God’s gift to us, and He gave His precious life to us. What an amazing gift that we have much to be thankful for!

​For some reading this, perhaps this last year hasn’t gone as you have expected. Perhaps there are dreams that remain unfulfilled and plans that remain incomplete. Perhaps you have experienced the hard of life and ministry in a way that you didn’t anticipate. And maybe you are finding it hard to be thankful at present. Or perhaps this last year has been a wonderful year and a time of great blessing.

​Either way, all of us have much to be thankful for and Christmas is a powerful reminder of this. For all of us, Christmas is more than a reminder of what Jesus gave to us. Christmas provides a wonderful opportunity to recalibrate our attitudes and perspectives to embrace thankfulness.

For Sharon and I, 2018 has been a year where we have seen incredible grief and acts of evil, as well as unexpected and major crises, but in the midst of this, God’s grace and love have been amazingly evident. 

​The world in which we minister is undoubtedly becoming darker, but as this happens the light of Jesus shines brighter through people like us and faith communities like the churches that we lead and are a part of.

Looking back on the past year, we can see the hand of God in calling us to be a “sent” people, carrying the scent of Jesus into our communities.

Being a “sent” people means that we will love Jesus so much that we will obey and follow Him, and we will love our neighbour so much that we will take risks for them in the hope that they will come to know and receive the incomparable grace that Jesus offers.

As churches, we are to be His people on a mission. As a movement we are to be a fellowship of diverse churches united by the desire to see our nation reached for Jesus.

​We have much to celebrate from this last year:

• The ELI program for emerging leaders has got up and running in such an outstanding way
• Camp No Fear youth camp has extended to the northern states for the first time
• There has been a wonderful uptake on the Mentoring Program to help ensure our leaders will be healthy and enduring
• 2018 has seen many A2A churches grow in the way that they are being missional and engaging with their local communities and beyond
• Across the movement, there are now 5 new church plants being planned by 2022
• the 2018 Conference has been an outstanding success​

As we prepare for a new year, I encourage you to uphold the value of journalling on scripture and develop strategies to see people in your churches decide to practice this as a healthy spiritual habit.

Having adopted this habit now for over 16 years, I still get blessed by the fresh revelation and insights that I receive from journalling on God’s word to us. In fact, I’m still pondering the insights I gained from journalling just this morning!

A short video explaining how to SOAP is below. Why not show this to your church? with thanks to #ourchurch

I would also appreciate your prayers for the National Leadership Team as we will be preparing for another retreat in the new year, specifically putting aside Tuesday 12 February as a day when we will be coming together to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance for our movement for the times ahead.

We have a great sense of anticipation about the 2019 National Conference to be held on the Gold Coast commencing Monday evening 29 April.  If you haven’t booked yet, just reminder that the early bird discount is still available until 31 December. You can book for the Conference using the LINK HERE.

And finally, don’t forget to register for the next round of Leaders Together days in February. We have a guest speaker lined up to come and provide excellent input at these days. Dates and locations are as follows:

• Thursday 14 FEB TAS at the Rock Penguin
• Tuesday 19 FEB VIC at Gateway Seaford
• Thursday 21 FEB QLD at Church One Helensvale
• Saturday 23 FEB SA at Coast and Vines Willunga

You can book for the LT using the LINK HERE.

Thank you for being part of A2A.
​
​We are a diverse group of men and women who God has pulled together to be an alliance of dynamic missional churches, loving on our communities, impacting them and making disciples.

​It is my prayer that you will be filled with the joy and peace of Jesus, overflowing with thankfulness to Him and that you will be freshly envisioned, inspired and invigorated for the work He is calling you to in the year and years ahead.

Be blessed!

Tim O’Neill
President, A2A
19 December 2018