Growing in Discipleship
Reach Up, Reach Out & Reach Across
Our mission in Greater Sydney is to make disciples of Jesus Christ and grow together in discipleship. This is based on the directions that Jesus gave His first disciples, after He died on the Cross for the forgiveness of our sins and then was resurrected back to life to give us the promise and hope of eternal life. As we get closer to the Second Coming, Jesus has a special message of good news for us to share with the world, to invite people to become His disciples, join His prophetic end-time movement and prepare for His soon return.
Reach Up, Out and Across
in Greater Sydney
As we grow in discipleship:
- We see a church that is passionate about knowing and experiencing God, both personally and through a lifestyle of worship within the local church that we are committed to.
- We see a church that is actively serving in our community, making disciples who are making disciples and growing healthy churches that are planting new churches.
- We see a church where people experience authentic Christian relationships and real Biblical community by being involved in the life and mission of the church.
At a personal level, we can all grow in discipleship in these three dimensions:
Multiply the Harvest
in Greater Sydney
As we grow in discipleship, we join Jesus in His mission of growing His kingdom. We will see a growing movement of Seventh-day Adventist disciples and healthy churches that is expanding throughout Greater Sydney. This kingdom growth occurs when we intentionally follow the process that Jesus taught His disciples, which is the Multiplying the Harvest process that is being adopted right across the South Pacific Division:
To learn more about the Biblical foundations for this Multiplying the Harvest strategy, refer to Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 10, John 4, Acts 1-28 and Revelation 14. These principles are also confirmed in The Desire of Ages “The First Evangelists”, pp349-358; The Acts of the Apostles “God’s Purpose for His Church”, “The Training of the Twelve”, “The Great Commission”, “Pentecost”, “The Gift of the Holy Spirit” pp9-56; and The Ministry of Healing “Teaching and Healing”, pp139-160.
How the Greater Sydney Conference Can Support You
The Greater Sydney Conference ministry team is here to support you and your local church with this vision of growing in discipleship. In particular, the Conference will:
- Pray that Jesus fills you with His Holy Spirit and pours out His Spirit into all of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Greater Sydney
- Cast the bigger vision so that you can understand how you can be part of growing the Seventh-day Adventist movement across Greater Sydney
- Equip you with practical and effective resources to enable you to grow and reach out to people who are far from God
- Train you to become more effective in your ministry and mission
- Coach you to empower you to reach the goals that you sense the Holy Spirit is calling you to accomplish
- Provide opportunities for you to network with other Adventist disciples and leaders who are committed to growing in discipleship
Your Conference has these important, broad strategic initiatives for growing in discipleship:
- Healthy Churches Strategy
- Quality Adventist Schools Framework
- Home Grown Focus
- Public Evangelism Initiatives
- Reclaiming Former Members
- Mission to Sydney Church Planting Strategy
Measuring Our Growth
In order to work out whether our strategy is really effective, we need to be able to measure our progress. We will measure our momentum towards achieving our vision of growing in discipleship using a number of insightful indicators. Refer to our webpage sydney.adventist.org.au/strategy to find out what particular indicators we are using and how effective we are in terms of growing in discipleship in the Greater Sydney Conference.
