Last Day.

admin —  May 16, 2013 — Leave a comment

Today is the day I board a plane and head back to Australia. After months of preparation, prayer, patience and assessment I head back to Sydney to begin the process of picking a location and planting a church. It has been an emotional week, farewells to Church staff one last time, to close friends and to a team of friends at my Jiu Jitsu Gym.

Nobody likes to say Good-bye there is a certain definite finality associated with that phrase. Farewell seems more apt, while in the short term I might not see you, in the long term there will be a day when we will meet again and worship the King.

In 2008 Carly and I moved to the states, to church plant. We scratched together some incredible supporters (who will remain nameless) who deeply blessed our ministry and helped us to launch into something special. We had no house, no finances and no clue. We did have a calling that we had to respond to.

Now we head home, with two amazing children and our own mission. I am so thankful for the team who invested, nurtured, partnered, cried and encouraged as we planted together. The valley of the Sun has forever changed the Robinson’s and we feel truly blessed that God blessed us with such an amazing community.

We are getting closer to announce how you can support us in more details. We are getting closer to announcing a location where Mission Church will be. Continue to pray for us in the process as we adjust back to Australia and prepare for the next phase of our ministry.

Arizona, Farewell. We will see each other again, might I have one more glorious 100 degree day to remember you by!

In Church Planting
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Friendship is unneccessary, like philosophy, like art…It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

CS Lewis

Posted by admin on April 29, 2013 In Previous Posts
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Final Assessment – Converge

admin —  April 23, 2013 — 6 Comments

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Last week we were in Chicago. In fact we stuck around in the USA partly so we could be a part of the Converge Church Planting Assessment Process. It was 4 grueling days of challenges, assignments, testing and interviews. The goal was to figure out whether or not we had the skill set to become a church planter.

God blessed us and we got a full recommend which was really encouraging!

So Why did we choose to multi-affilate?

We just became candidates for A29, now we are also going with Converge! It seems a little like NASCAR but there is some wisdom here I promise. We are multi-affilated because different networks bring different elements to the table.

The benefits are huge, additional coaching ,wisdom and resources. Not only that we get the shared benefit of one of the more successful church planting networks in the USA.

So what was the difference?

A29 was HEAVY on the theology, that is hugely important to establishing a good foundation for the church. They were also excellent in bringing up some of the idolatry in our lives that we needed to address. Converge has more of a tilt towards the practical side of planting. So we had to give a mini-sermon to our ‘core’ team. Then we were sharing our ‘philosophy’ of ministry. Next up were a couple of exercises in small groups. Then a couple more church planting exercises and some teaching. There were 3 personality tests (DISC, Strengths Finder and Gold Personality) and finally a large group project.

It was intense, we were working with some wonderful people that we hardly knew and every moment we were being watched and assessed. Then end goal was to figure out whether we could plant. Both were valuable and both for very different reasons. Heck we may not be finished on the multi-affilation. If we can team up with a denomination and make it work when we get back to Australia we may do that as well. This weekend I’m getting ordained with the Converge team which is another huge blessing!

So was it worth sticking around 3 months?

Absolutely! I got to spend time with Josh Barrett my boss at COC, which was super fun and slightly sad, I’m going to miss hanging out with him. We met 10 other couples on the same kind of journey as us and got to make some friends from all over the USA. I learned more about myself and our relationship with Carly which was HUGE! Finally a word of encouragement that we are on the right path is always helpful.

The whole process was a huge blessing and just gets us more excited to touch down in Australia and settle on our location!

We are getting close now!

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