Praying to be a better father
Just over 7 years ago, Christine and I walked into the Sunday service at Bethel Christian Fellowship at Corio Christian Centre at 10:30am. We were guests and there was a visiting prophet / evangelist on the stage, Lee Wong. When he saw us, he literally said, “Are you Angus and Christine? I have a prophetic word for you.” He said, “Angus, you will be a father figure to many children in Corio.”
I’ve been gob-smacked by God’s emphasis on me being a father figure ever since, but it is only just recently that I’ve done something about it.
I’ve started praying, “Please God, make me the best father figure I can be for the children who come to Bus Stop Cafe.”
I think this is a very important prayer. Take what you know God has given you about your identity and purpose and pray into maximising it.
“Yes, Father God. Please make me the best father figure for these children that I can possibly be.”
Ministry is Rocking!
This term we are seeing record numbers and high uptake of the learning tasks. And this term we are teaching how to actually follow Jesus. More and more children are choosing to do more learning tasks than required for a chocolate milk. It seems they’re loving learning about Jesus and loving the whole learning environment. We seem to have reached a point of momentum where we have more people coming than we can handle. We are averaging 55 guests per afternoon and there are 540 students at the school. So there is definitely more potential for growth. We just need more workers to help wrangle the increasing number of primary school students coming to learn how to follow Jesus!
Clarifying our Vision for the Future – This is SO Exciting!
Over the last 8 months, we have been trying before God to answer this simple question: “Where are we going?” So much prayer and patient discernment has gone into this. And now I’m thrilled to say I have an answer:
1. Continue with Bus Stop Cafe’s ministry teaching primary school children to follow Jesus and giving them chocolate milk.
2. Popularise this simple and effective model of ministry.
Let me share highlights from recent meetings with several important leaders and how each meeting has helped shape our future plans to help others teach their community to follow Jesus.
Meeting with Jo Hood – Mainly Music
Jo Hood ran a play group in New Zealand and then another and then another. She developed Mainly Music into a Christian playgroup phenomenon in New Zealand, Australia and England! Jo and I had a recent meeting on Zoom. She said, “Don’t grow your organisation. The red tape is different in every jurisdiction and it costs so much to employ people”
Meeting with David Wraight – CCCVaT Principal
David said, “Keep your organisation as small and simple as possible.” He also agreed it would be better to inspire other people to follow the idea than to franchise the idea where you try to control exactly what they do.
Meeting with Jane Ang – Cradle Founder and Project Nexus
Jane wondered if we should help churches engage their local communities by applying the principles of Bus Stop Cafe to their unique context rather than copying the exact project. This is actually a game-changer. She said, “Work out the key pillars of your engagement model and then help churches work out how they can engage their local community using the principles you’ve learned.”
Meeting with Olly Allars
Olly created photographs and videos (including this video) for us a while ago. Olly confirmed much of our current media strategy saying our social media is OK and so is our website. She suggested we post our story more frequently and thoroughly on Instagram. Even three times a day!
New Vision – New Opportunities
With this new vision come new opportunities to collaborate, inspire and enable others to bring the gospel to their local communities. To begin with, we have a friendship with Carmela in Ocean Grove. We can try to support her. We have friends who run Hands and Feet in different churches. They complain that people just come and take the food. They don’t engage enough. We could work with them to develop a new approach where guests do a Jesus Challenge to earn the free food. This could be a game changer which could be applied throughout the Hands and Feet network.
Would you like to help us financially?
Name: Little Miracles Community Inc.
BSB: 633 000
ACC: 205 402 357
Thank you for helping us teach more kids about Jesus!