HCC news: Finding your comfort

Pastor’s Message

Finding your comfort

It's that time of the year when I talk about money and giving!!

The biggest mistake, I believe, that we as church leaders have made is to guilt people into giving, or giving more, especially using scripture. So, I have decided that I will just pour out my heart here and will not use any scriptures for this part. We mostly know the scriptures associated with giving anyway.

In the last AGM, we had an update regarding church finances, and there was a significant rise in giving. I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who heeded that call. I would especially like to mention those who use their personal finances for church resources, both in the kids' ministry and morning tea as well.

A congregation of our nature relies fully on donations to keep going, and we have never lacked, due to all of you being so faithful in giving. The only two levers we have in terms of finances are increasing giving or reducing our expenditure. As the pastor of HCC, I can confidently say that we endeavour to be faithful in our spending and are only spending on the non-negotiables. This is where the day of giving comes in.

Two years ago, we made the decision (which I stand by today) to have two paid youth workers. They work 15 hours a week each, with hours divided between Youth at church, Oaklands School and the Halswell Outreach programme at the Hub. The outreach part is covered by the council, with funding ending mid-2026. This will most likely not be renewed, and if it is, it will be a significantly lower amount. The Outreach continues regardless. The church is responsible for the rest.

We have a day of giving as a concerted effort to raise money for a specific event/season or ministry. This is what we would like to do. This year, all our day of giving proceeds will go into supporting youth work at HCC and in the community.

As I have always said, you are welcome to offer what you can. This is purely voluntary and devoid of manipulation and pressure. Something that I do during this season that I have found helpful (apart from talking to my lovely wife, of course) is to have a figure in my head/heart and sit with it for some time before God in prayer. He often makes it clear what to give, and if this is of comfort to anyone, it is usually an uncomfortable figure for me.

As we lead up to the day of giving, my prayer is that you sit with the comfortable until it is uncomfortable, or even vice versa. Maybe with the uncomfortable until it is comfortable. Who knows? God may tell you not to give or to give to something entirely different, and that’s okay. I would never want to stand in the way of your obedience to God.

Giving details.

Halswell Community Church

Account Number: 06-0601-0867216-00

Reference: Tithe/Offering      

Particulars: Your Name

Have a comfortable/uncomfortable week.

Mato

Community

This is coming up on Saturday, and we would like for as many of us to be involved as possible.

I attended this conference last year, and it was a beautiful time of reflection and networking. The sessions are very good value, and the breakout rooms are both interactive and theological. There is always a take-home. Depending on your day, come for a session, come for two sessions, come till lunchtime, come after lunch, or if you can, please come for the whole day. 

HCC is part of the CCCNZ movement of independent churches, and the Regional Summit is an annual highlight.

Please register if you have not yet.

More details and registration at www.cccnz.nz/regional-summit

Giving details.

Church Sundays

It is the last week of our resilience series. We are in Daniel 11 & 12. I will be speaking predominantly on Daniel 12, and it will be a conclusion of what we have been covering. The main message centres around the sovereignty of God but also the idea that love is a choice. If there is no choice, there is no love.

As we conclude Daniel, we will move into the New Testament, where we will stay for a while. To start us off, I will be doing a short series on the book of James. For those who are unaware, James is the brother of Jesus. I believe that is the biggest argument we have for the deity of Christ. Think about this: what would your brother have to do to convince you he is the son of God? James believed that his brother Jesus was the son of God, and he lived his life focused on him. He was the first “Bishop”, that is, overall leader of the church that we know. He is often called James the Just because he was very honest in his dealings and assessments with people, and he is said to have had rubber knees because he spent so much time in prayer. He then writes instructions to his “congregation” that are so simple and practical that most of it is either too difficult to comprehend its application or too simple, and we think it does not work. 

After that, we will move on to Acts. Why Acts? Well, you will have to wait for next week’s newsletter to find out.

Community

This last Sunday, we were a little short on children’s helpers, so thank you to Isabelle for stepping up to help. Last week I talked about the importance of child dedication. I think it’s a message worth repeating, so here you go again:

We do not baptise children. We believe strongly that baptism is for those who have made a personal decision to follow Christ. We believe in child dedication. 

This involved the parents realising that they are stewards of their children and committing themselves to raising the child in God's kingdom. We, the church community, promise to support the parents in keeping those vows.If you have not had your child dedicated, regardless of the age, maybe it's time for you to consider dedicating them to God and involving your church community.

Youth update from Zack Howe

This week at youth group was special, coming off the back of five of our awesome young people getting baptised.

We started the night by having some activities, followed by a quiz about people of the world, which was related to the lesson coming up. This was done in teams.

At the moment, we are focusing on who Jesus is for our lessons.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have done a lesson about the historical accuracy of the Bible and Jesus in particular, and we also did the Alpha session about who Jesus is, which was really impactful.

Coming up, we are doing a couple more of Jesus’ parables to end the term, and then we are focusing on the ‘I am’ statements of Jesus to start next term, so we have lots to look forward to.

Thank you all so much for your continued prayer and support.

Community

An important (not crucial) part of church is our social media presence and footprint.

This includes our newsletter, website and social media pages, such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. I say not crucial because we would still run as a church without them, but important because they serve as an evangelism tool and an encouragement when you either cannot attend a service or need to go back and rewatch the service. 

While our Facebook page has been active, since we livestream our services there, and our website is running, we need a more deliberate social media presence.

We are working on enhancing the website and making sure our YouTube page is running effectively as well. Rachel McFedires had graciously agreed to run our social media and will be telling us what that entails this coming week.