You may wonder why we haven’t posted anything for 1 and a 1/3 months – partly we have been rather busy and partly we have been on holidays. But now that we are back into the swing of things, here is a little bit of what we have been up to.
Steph writes:
Way back on the 7th of June, the girls of ECU gathered at the beginning of stuvac to think about the topic of ‘Sisterly Love’. A couple of students along with Jen, our senior female staffworker and my trainer, organised a lovely morning of fantastic breakfast food (including homemade muesli and real coffee for those so inclined). I had the opportunity to speak at this event, seeking to help us women think about how we love our sisters in Christ. It was a challenging topic for me to prepare, being confronted with the insecurities and pride that often get in the way of me truly loving the girls around me. But it was great to be able to look at 1 John and see what true love is, “that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 Jn 3:16) We thought a lot about how this works out practically and key idea that came up was loving our sisters by having conversations about real things – being prepared to move beyond superficial to things that matter in life.
Matt writes:
A fair chunk of our time over the past month has been prep for Mid Year Conference (or MYC), a week long conference involving Wollongong Uni, the UWS campuses, UTS Kuringai, USyd Cumbo and Christians in the Media. The topic this year was the Cross of Christ – what exactly happened on it and what does it mean for us to live as Christians in the shadow of the cross.
The conference had three main parts – talks from Ephesians by Phillip Jensen, seminars on the Cross, and small group bible studies on John 18-20. MYC is consistently described as a brain explosion – we work hard at helping the students to see passed what it is that they think they know and to approach God’s word afresh. We never want to anyone to think that they know all there is to know about the Cross – the Cross of Christ impacts every facet of our lives.
Steph and I together ran a seminar on ‘The Cross & Discipleship’ on how our life and priorities ought to be shaped as we take up our cross, deny ourselves and follow Jesus. We also each ran an elective – Steph on ‘The Cross & Depression’ and me on ‘Living With Non-Christian Family’. I also organised the music for the week and Steph organised the UOW welcoming team.
It was great to see the 120 or so students from Wollongong grappling with the deep mysteries of God’s word, and it was great to get to know some of them better.
Proclaiming Jesus Christ at Wollongong University to present everyone mature in him. (Col 1:28)
