AMEN Australia 2019 Conference: Witnesses Unto Me

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Aaron Koh

Lifehouse Project

Our Father in heaven, as we come before you, Father, we'd like to testify your goodness.

Father, we have heard so many stories and testimonies about what you have done in your life.

Father, I pray that, Lord, you will increase and I will decrease.

In 1996, a ranger flew a helicopter over the Death Valley in California.

And he spotted a minivan, a van near the canyons, called the Anvil Canyon.

And the finding was ominous for several reasons.

There was no road leading up to where the van was, and in that area, it was not passable without a four-wheel drive.

As the rangers, after investigating the vehicle, the rangers determined that the 4 German tourists, a man, a woman, a son, 2 sons, that has last rented that minivan, and there was no trace of that family itself.

The remains were not found for another 15 years, until this gentleman by the name of Ton Mahun, he's a physicist that turned adventurer, started to retrace their steps.

It was a series of reasonable mistakes such as misleading the steepness of the of the canyon descent, the being led astray by the culturally confusion maps and landmarks that likely led to the decisions that ended them separated from their tracks and then dying in the scorching heat.

Getting lost at times can have devastating consequences.

Could we get lost sometimes in our business, in our ministry?

Can we get lost in our workplace helping patients, trying to help put out fires within our clinics and our hospitals?

Well, I just want to ask, does anyone remember what's our mission statement of our Seventh-day Adventist church?

You know, our mission statement helped us to point us in the right direction.

But to condense our message as a Seventh-day Adventist, what's our mission?

But what really is our mission statement?

Well, our mission statement here states that, make disciples of Jesus Christ who live as his loving witnesses and proclaim to all people the everlasting gospel of the 3 angels' messages in preparation of his soon return.

But I challenge you, if we were to take a portion out of this, could you spot the difference?

Make disciples of Jesus Christ who live as his loving witnesses and proclaim to all people the everlasting gospel in the preparation of his soon return.

We do ourselves injustice if we take the 3 angels message from our mission statement.

We're no different from Methodists, Baptists, and other Protestants denomination.

But what makes us unique is our 3 angels' message.

And the 3 angels, what's our distinct identity as a Seventh-day Adventist?

We know that as Sabbatarians they are not Seventh-day Adventists.

The sanctuary message is found within the 3 angels' message.

But this is what the Spirit of Prophecy has to tell us.

This is the 3 angels' message that make us distinct from the seven-day Adventist church.

The Spirit of Prophecy tells us that the health reform I was shown is a part of the third angel's message and is just as closely connected with it as are the arm and the hand with the human body and I saw that we as a people must take an advanced move in this great work.

Combine medical missionary work with the proclamation of the third angel's message, but why the third?

Well, the thing is, we must preach the third angel's message because it comes in succession.

In order to get to the third angel's message, you must preach the first angel and the second angel and the third angel's message.

For those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, the third angel's message.

You know, we are nearing the great and the final conflict.

Every advance must now be made with increasing effort, for Satan is working with all power to increase the difficulties in our way.

He works with all deceivableness of unrighteousness to secure souls of men and I am charged to say that ministers of the gospel and to our missionary physicians, go forward.

The work to be done calls for the self-sacrificing at every step, but go forward.

I'm gonna share with you the testimony of our church.

I'm from Gateway Adventist Center, and many of us here as well, with Daryl Bernice, my wife, and Cynthia, and A few of us.

And this church started in 2003, a branch, a church plant from a mother church in Melbourne.

And the goal was to outreach in the cities, in universities, as a campus ministry.

And over the years, the campus ministry, we were once students and we were studying in universities and we reach out to the students.

As we get older, we got married and we have children.

And we sense the need of ministering to young families.

And it was last year that we had a church plant.

And in campus ministry, I praise God because we have an average per year about 10 to 15 baptisms a year.

And we have over 90% of members paying their tithes.

And I've learned that when we are faithful in little things, God will bless us with big things.

As we branch out into Gateway Lighthouse, it was a challenge.

And we decided that we have to have a mission statement for us to fall back on so that we don't lose our track in our way to win the souls of young families.

To build and multiply a vibrant, soul winning Adventist lifestyle center of influence in the eastern suburbs for young families.

This church plant has taught me many things.

Sometimes we go in our own might and Lord has taught me so much and has enriched me with my prayer life and my family's prayer life.

It's so important and Tom has shared a very inspiring 1 and I connect with Him and the importance of our daily prayer life and our relationship with God.

But another thing that struck us, that hit me, was this, the prayer life of our church.

We expect our church to go and move in the Spirit of God.

How are we going to move if we are not a praying church?

And as I fall back on the spirit of prophecy, and this is what she has to tell us, a prayer meeting will always tell the true interests of the church members in spiritual and internal things.

The prayer meeting is the pulse to the body.

It denotes the true spiritual condition of the church, for a lifeless church has no relish for prayer meetings.

Do your church even have a prayer meeting?

And that has spoke to our church in such a big way that we want our church to be a praying church.

And in the health ministry we have a few arms in place and 1 of them is the children's ministry because we are ministering to the children.

We have these things called happy hearts.

And Some of you may know it came from happy hands.

Carol Smidge was the 1 that started happy hands.

And we decided in our church, we spoke to Carol about this, that we want to add a spiritual aspect of things.

So it's just art and craft, but we want to add something spiritual to happy hands, and we call it happy hearts.

And it was ran during the weekdays and we find that a lot of families are coming during weekdays.

We're able to help them and mingle with them and witness to them but we prayed about it and God has shown us something.

So there's no fee, we absorb the fee and we started having happy hearts in the morning before our church service and people will come through our church as we do our Sabbath school and when Happy Hearts ended, some of them actually stayed for worship.

How are we as a church to outreach to the people?

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