The Pastors’ Post

Here is a short video from one of our pastors, Stew, as he talks about life at SCPC this week.

Below is the text from the video.

Welcome to The Pastors’ Post, an update about life at Southern Cross.

On Wednesday night, I met for two hours with our Sound and Tech team from our 9:45am locations: David, Tim and Scott. These men and their families have served tirelessly, week in and week out, since the start of this pandemic. Week, after week, after week, they have been meeting early on Sunday mornings to ensure our sound and audio and visual are adequate, both for our local sites and for on ZOOM. And let me tell you it is hard to be in two places at once, to be trying to work on the physical location and then also to be working on the online presence.

So we are looking to make some purchases in the sound and tech area to ensure our duplicate systems are adequate for a weekly set-up and pack up process as we aim to utilise these locations multiplied locations until the end of 2020. And as we have described before, we need adequate systems to prepare us, because this is a marathon and certainly not a sprint. The challenges of this pandemic are long-lasting.

We are hopeful to recruit and train one or two individuals for each site to assist with the local sound at these multiplied locations, to enable particularly these three men and their families a break as they have been serving tirelessly since March.

But let me say as difficult and confusing and complicated it is to minister and serve the people of God in these days what an incredible joy it is to serve with loyal and faithful and generous saints at Southern Cross Presbyterian. Through my involvement with the Northern Rivers Presbytery over the last 9 years and other pastoral networks across the nation, I am painfully aware this is not always the case. However, as I was reflecting on the labours of our sound and tech team, particularly over these gruelling months, my mind was drawn to this text from Philippians 2:19-30. Here are some highlights:

19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon,
that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you.
20 I have no one else like him,
who will show genuine concern for your welfare.
21 For everyone looks out for their own interests,
not those of Jesus Christ.

25 But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus,
my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier,
who is also your messenger,
whom you sent to take care of my needs.
26 For he longs for all of you and is distressed
 because you heard he was ill.

29 So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy,
and honour people like him,
30 because he almost died for the work of Christ.
He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me.

Well, our sound and tech team and their families, they would be the first to say they are not quite dying (and yet I am extremely worried about their future because we need to not kill these guys!), because they show genuine concern for you. I encourage you to welcome them with great joy and to honour people like them.

Thanks for tuning into The Pastors’ Post.

Posted in General, Pastors Post