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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Johnny Wong

Discipleship: Engine of Growth

Well, brothers and sisters, a blessing to be here today.

I'm so glad that we can come and spend this Sabbath with you.

I got up at 1.30 this morning, not because I want to get up early, but I'm a bit jet-lagged from coming from Australia.

So, if the speaker falls asleep, make sure you wake him up in the middle of the sermon.

My message today is called Business Unusual, but let me explain a bit about myself.

I was born on the island of Borneo, the third largest island in the world.

I told my parents, that's a bit too small.

So about 40 years ago, my parents immigrated to Australia.

And that's where I've been living since that time, in the most southern city of Australia called Melbourne, a city of about 4.5 million people.

A very secular city, Australia, but the Lord blessed the work there.

Melbourne, in fact, was the place whereby Adventists first arrived to the continent of Australia.

And the work started there in 1885, as San Hesco started the work.

And gradually, the Lord blessed us to move into downtown Melbourne.

Because right in the central of the city, there was no Seventh-day Adventist church.

But yet, apartment was rising up throughout the whole city.

There were about 400 apartments sitting in there, in 1 kilometer radius, there were about 300, 000 people living in these high rises.

How do we share the gospel to this urban population?

And my wife and I moved into this little apartment.

We moved right into there, and the Lord started the work there.

We're 1 care group to another care group to another care group, and gradually the Lord planted a church there in 2003.

I'm the elder and church planter of that church, and we started a network of care groups.

Today we have 5 church plants, 5 new churches, amen?

And a lot of blessings, we've over 250 baptism, 80% retention rate, and today This church that is started by young people, aged 15 to 22 years old, there were 10 of them, and there were 5 adults that supported that.

My wife and I were 1 of the 5 adults that supported this work.

And these 15 to 22 young people raised up a movement of church planting in Australia.

And because of that, we have seen over 250 baptisms.

We have seen this campus center of influence set up.

We've seen wellness center of influence set up.

And we've seen Bible workers being trained.

And 12 of them have gone on to become ordained pastors of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And we've seen training go around the place.

Our goal is to win souls, Gateway Vision is to win souls, to be a training center that multiplies churches.

And my role also involves being the director of Amazing Facts in Oceania.

And I'm also the director of FCO Oceania, which is the FCO program that is running in Australia.

I'm also the president of a wellness center called We Explore.

We have an amazing team of people that runs this Wellness Center.

I'm here in America because I'm teaching at Weimar University for their master's program.

And they have a master's program that combines gospel and health together.

And so we have a cohort of students from around the world.

And we deploy them to apply health, medical missionary work, as well as gospel work together, blending that.

It's a unique program because many schools are either MPH or Masters of Divinity, but this program brings it together and put it into a practical form.

Now, how did this church grow into such a rapid movement?

Not only planted churches in Australia, but also the people that are trained in this church go on to other cities in Australia and other parts in the world and leading to church plants all around the world.

Especially when you think about Australia being a very secular country.

How is it that 250 Baptists, a majority of them are studied by lay people rather than pastors?

Young people, Our youngest Bible teachers is around 17 years old, and they can win souls for Jesus Christ.

And so we have put the training online on this website called Rightly Train, and I've also described the 12 videos there.

Now, some of you may be interested in terms of when you finish your work here, your studies here, and maybe the Lord send you out to other places, how do I go about starting and growing a ministry of this nature in secular places and urban centers?

And maybe you might like to find out more this afternoon at 4.30 when I'll speak about that.

But I want to tell you 1 thing about the 4.30 program.

If you don't like radical ideas, don't come at 4.30.

You might not want to come out again after lunch.

If you seriously want to know how to win souls in an urban center and how we multiply disciples and multiply lay people, young people that multiply churches, come at 4.30.

You might be ready to throw stones at me before I run out the gates.

Because it will challenge some of your paradigm as to why some of the Adventist churches are not growing.

I've written a book called Business Unusual and it's talking about 7 competencies of effective ministry.

But you didn't want to come and talk about this church, you want to come to hear the word of God.

So before I open the word of God, let us pray.

Father in heaven, I thank you for the word of God before us.

These are the holy scriptures, where holy men of God were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Father, we need the same Holy Spirit to move our hearts today.

We ask you to cast away all those burdens and thoughts in our minds, that your Spirit can speak to us and guide us and lead us.

That whatever we listen today, Father, your Holy Spirit will tailor it to our own personal needs.

Let no 1 live here unattended by the Spirit today, We ask in Jesus' name, amen.

What is God's greater vision for my life?

Too often we ask the question, what's God's will for my life?

When I finish this grad school, what do I go after this?

Maybe I'm in a program of studies that you wonder, is this the program for me?

And perhaps maybe you're just about to retire, and what am I gonna do when I go into retirement?

Perhaps now you have kids, what do I do with kids?

And my family in terms of God's mission and God's plans.

Too often we ask this question, and we don't get the answer, or because we've been praying and praying and praying, asking God to give us a sign, give us a direction.

But I want to share with you today that God has a way to give us a plan, a greater plan.

Maybe you have a plan, but God wants to give you a greater plan today.

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Discipleship: Engine of Growth

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