Australian Planters & Pastors Academy Begins
An update from Riley Spring, Lead Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church Parramatta, Sydney, Australia…
We are very excited that after much planning and preparation our inaugural SGC Australia Pastors & Planters Academy has kicked off!
The Academy is a program designed to train future Sovereign Grace Pastors and Planters to serve in and plant Sovereign Grace Churches, the Sovereign Grace way. It was birthed out of a desire to help codify what we’ve been doing informally and over a long period of time into a consistent leadership development program for people within our churches and to give a pathway for new guys coming in so that we can plant more enduring churches across Australia.
The Academy involves a relational process of training, caring for, assessing, and deploying qualified men to be faithful and healthy pastors. All the while focussing in on their character, convictions, competency and compatibility.
Every week the Academy students will gather to study through 10 different modules designed to help equip and train them for a life-time of fruitful ministry. These modules are based around our 7 Shared Values and will involve lots of reading and assignments to go along with these days together.
Monthly, they and their wives will then come together for our 'Leadership Cohort' growing in their marriage, parenting, and family life. They will also be placed in Fellowship Groups to further grow in key areas of character and holiness. In these groups we will take them through the cultural values of a Sovereign Grace Church so that these men can see the biblical basis for who we are and be challenged to grow and develop in these areas. Their wives likewise, will be invited to join our Regional Ladies Discipleship Nights for Pastor’s wives, led by Emma Taylor.
On Tuesday 1 Feb, we had our Orientation Dinner with the Academy students and their wives to meet one another, share a meal and gain an overview of the year. On Wed 2 Feb, we then had our first day of class. We began with worship and prayer, gave the guys some of their textbooks for the year (Systematic Theology - Grudem, Historical Theology - Allison) and their reading for Module 1: ‘The Theology and Practice of Pastoral Ministry’.
This unit is designed to help them gain a theologically informed understanding of the role of a Pastor as biblically defined. The primary model in the Scriptures is that of a ‘Shepherd’ and, therefore, Pastoral ministry ought to geared around pastoring the precious flock of God that he is called to serve by the Chief Shepherd.
We began by sitting under two seminal messages from CJ Mahaney - ‘The Pastor’s Charge’ Part 1 and Part 2 and then in the afternoon they got stuck into their reading assignments and discussion groups.
Please be praying for our students and their wives over this next twelve months. These are exciting times for us here in Australia!
Andrew and Kat Leung, Richard and Rebecca Song, Jack and Zara Packham, Austin and Ivy Loke, Joel and Jamie Seric
