Munn Kids

5 Kids, warmer weather, kids being kids and adventurous! This is also a growing time for all of us. Two girls 11.5 years old!

Learning Disabilities are still there thus school, withadditional tutoring, lots of homework help, and teaching responsibility is helping us to take baby steps forward.

Maxwell received the Most Aggressive Player Award for his Footy team!

Our House

For over 4 years now we have been talking about adding on some rooms. Well, now is the time and our counsel says, “due to the price of wood on this side of the country and home renovations prices it is cheaper to tear down your 40 year old house and build a new one! What?! So where does a family of 7 live for a year? What?! Where do we put our stuff and our dog for a year? What?! Then the counsel says, “and only if you plan on living there for ten years and you will double your money!

Please please pray God gives us understanding as we have some major life & ministry issues to consider now, then just starting over.

Women’s Ministry

16-18 Sept. Women’s Retreat. Lori is organizing this weekend and nearly 90 women will be attending. This Weekend has the potential to be a huge blessing for so many families; as women retreat to hear the Lord speak and Husbands become full time fathers for the weekend. Please pray God breaks through everywhere He wants too. Pray for Lori as she has only 3 weeks to plan the menu, shop, organize, etc and that a team of ladies will rise up in most of these roles. Denise Glenn from www.motherwise.org will be the speaker for the weekend

Cookbook: Lori is organizing our first all church cookbook to be ready for our big celebration of our new church building on Nov. 5^th.

Missions Ministry

With Matthew given leadership over the missions ministry, we are very excited to have helped break our 4 years plus of no new missionary partnerships. We are now investing in a mature couple to continue their work globally, and two young missionary families preparing for their first terms in Indonesia and Mozambique.

Community Impact

Last April, Matthew communicated to a parent who was leading the big anniversary fair fundraiser for one of our local primary schools, but telling her we would not do our annual Easter Funtastic this year and instead we want to support them in having a successful fundraiser. Since it was on a Sunday he only promised items like table, chairs, and advertising to our church family. Some in our church helped in various ways included adding to their bake sale and organizing a few booths. The school made $25,000. Matthew found out later he was not supposed to let certain tables leave the building! We then found out the school was so appreciative of us they passed the word around. We now have another primary school and a Catholic school asking if we can help them! What shall we do?

Men’s Ministry

It often seems the typical men’s discipleship of weekly bible study is a difficult strategy to accomplish here. So we are taking advantage of opportunities where we can. Next week, a number of men said they would join me for BEmen. An annual weekend Men’s conference at a different church in town. They changed it this year to Friday night only! Now I have more men attending with me! God is so great!

In two weeks, #50 men have already signed up for our Men’s BreakFeast to be held in another man’s backyard. Guest speaker is David Glenn from the USA. He is passing thru on his way to Indonesia, India,…From Frustration to Freedom.

Please pray God impacts men’s lives thru these two events. I will seek to provide men next step opportunities after each: Fathering, Husbands, $ Management, Free from habitual sins…

Wow! What an exciting and tiresome first four months to 2011.

Yes, it has been that long since we have entered into our blog and certainly way over due. Let us boast on God a bit so you too can give thanks and maybe even smile like I am at the moment.

Women of Worth

We started off the year with promoting a One-Day Women’s Conference and a Men’s Advance Weekend.

In February, Lori secured their 2010 Getaway speaker for a one-day conference held at our church. It was open to the community and over 200 women spent a Saturday learning how to Fan the Flame of Faith! The American speaker had a team come and video record the conference for publication. This was a big success for our church, particularly in helping us to pursue excellence and saying “yes” to opportunities.

Men’s Advance!

Men don’t retreat they Advance! This was the call out to our men to participate in our first Men’s Advance Weekend in too many years. 70 + men responded. God drew us together as we were challenged to put His priorities in order in our whole life. Our fellowship was so authentic, we have witnessed many men connect deeper to one another into accountability groups. We have decided November 5-7 will be Men’s Advance Stage 2!Want to come?!

Small Groups Bursting!

Over the last several months we have seen many of our adult small groups expand to double digits and several leaders have asked for their group to be declared Full! We are in great need for others to step up and out in faith to being equipped to join a Small Group Leadership Team. This will be a major prayer and priority for us in the next 3-4 months.

Community Care

Rather than provide our Community-wide Funtastic event the weekend before Easter at a local primary school, we communicated our desire to support the school’s plan to hold a Fund Raising Fair (FETE). They were so surprised and relieved. We believe God opened the door of trust even wider to continue to partner with the school in bringing the presence of Christ Jesus to our community. We supplied some helpers, food, chairs and tables, and publicity. It was a great day and they made lots of money!

Easter Weekend

“Would you hear Him if He spoke?” This was the title for the 4700!invitations we placed in mailboxes in our neighbourhoods inviting people to our Easter Services. We thought if we had 2-3% response we would have standing room only.

On Thursday night we had the largest Communion service we have had on this special night of the year. A young man suddenly yelled and scream into the church and threw a few eggs at us and ran off. God used this disturbing event to cause us to reflect even more on Christ and those really being persecuted for their faith.

Then for the first time we offered two Good Friday morning services (typical Aussie culture) and the Lord brought 400+ people! Amazing time!

On Resurrection Sunday, we almost had standing room only but we set out even more chairs in the aisles. Not a good day for a fire marshal to visit. 600+ people! Then I was told we had about 1/3 of our own people out of town! WOW! God is incredible.We had some professions of faith and Morgan reaffirmed her faith in Jesus as her Saviour and Lord! What a great God we have!

Missions Ministry Team

We are finally on our way with a new strategy for global and national missions. Today we met with a young couple heading to Mozambique to help evangelize and plant churches among the Muslim-Animalist communities. Prayerfully, I hope we are also able to support missionaries to our Aboriginal communities, fanatical Muslims in Indonesia, and a national pastor in Eastern Europe.This will require our church leadership to let loose of the old way of funding and moving to a new way of funding. We would appreciate your prayers inthis.

BIG CHEERS...USA here we come!

Yes, that is right. After four years, we are finally able to return to the USA. May 16th the Munn tribe will arrive and will be furloughing in a State near you until our return to Australia the 13^th of June. We look forward to spending time with some family and friends and thanking our partners who have generously partnered with us for the last 4-7 years as we have sought to serve the Lord in missionary capacities. We hope to see you in a few weeks!

The Greatest Story Ever Told...Merry Christmas...may you accept this gift today.

More Moments Down Under

Small Groups Amazing changes to our small group experience is upon us. Pastor Colin has started preaching on the End Times and will continue this series for several months. We have disbursed more than 175 Bible Study Guides and offered 15 small groups to assist people in the study and discussion in the Doctrine of the End Times. You can join us! Listen to the sermon and read the additional notes available for our church website.www.wbcinc.org.au.

Evangelism - Please pray for the upcoming outreach events!

This Christmas Outreach will involve:

Christmas Lunch to be held in the park. Our church along side several other several other churches will be helping with this event. We expect to serve 1000 people who are lonely and have no family to celebrate Christmas with this year.

Sunday Brunch - Matthew is preaching Dec 19th & 26th. On the 26th immediately following the service will be a Sunday Brunch. This particular Sunday is filled with visitors/extended family visitor and those that normally would NOT attend church on any other Sunday.

Mail Box Drops - Last year we delivered 4,000 fliers into mailboxes of surrounding suburbs inviting them to various events for Christmas. We hope to increase that number this year!

Carols Sing Along at the public park in a community of 1500. This year we will give out take away bags along with the candy cane story.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Thank you so much for all your prayers for our WOW (Women of Worth) Retreat.

The retreat was held on the weekend of Sept 18th. Lori was praying for 70 ladies to attend and God exceeded those prayers and blessed her with 78 ladies in attendance! Lori's mom was able to join her again this year as she was in the area visiting! They had the priviledge of having speaker Denise Glenn for the weekend. She is from the USA but her husband was transferred here for 3 years for work. Well, their 3 years ends this March and then they will go back to their home state of Texas. BUT not before David Glenn (the husband!) speaks for the weekend at our Men's Advance (men don't retreat...they advance:). Their website is www.motherwise.org for those interested. They are international speakers and authors. All Glory and Praise to our Lord for a WOW of a weekend.

(Photos: Lori/Annette (mom), Wildflowers in the area, Women of Worth)

Ministry Happenings...

Ministry to Men has taken off in a new direction.

It was 8 months ago, I called a few men together to discuss our "Ministry to Men". Out of that birthed a man's event almost every month starting with a Sunday afternoon Cricket match, Father/Son and Mate fishing trip, Golf Outing, and a Meat on a Spit Social.

Cricket was a blast with 24 or so men involved . I understand the highlight was how hilarious it was for most to see a Baseball player take a baseball stance and hit a few long balls before the "bowler hit the wicket" (struck me out). I then waited my turn to throw some MunnHeat (pitch) as the bowler. Humbly, I will say I gained their respect. However, I still think we should use baseball gloves over open hand catching!

I enjoyed planning the "meat on a spit" too, as the men came together for a great feast of lamb and a butt of beef cooked-up rotisserie style by a team of South African men and an Aussie. There where plenty of side dishes as well! Sixty + men cultivated relationships and responded well to two men sharing how Jesus has impacted their lives.

Then just last week about 50 men showed up to an impromptu Saturday AM “Man’s Breakfast" with a South African Evangelist/Pastor sharing about men of faith from the Scriptures. I took the opportunity to recruit men to join in "Ministry to Men" by volunteering to help lead in organized activities they themselves are interested in. We are looking forward to experiencing a greater depth of personal growth over the next few years in ministry to men.

Missions Ministry Team

I finally was able to propose a renewed vision & strategy for our Missions Ministry. Since then God has begun revealing the potential of new partnership in national and global missions.

We have begun partnering with Student Life (Campus Crusade AU’s) ministry to University students here in Perth. Without any SL staff on this side of the country, God has risen up a few students from our church to be the forerunners to this ministry among the 70,000 students. May God expand His kingdom from the labour of a few faithful students.

We have also identified a potential missionary couple to the indigenous people (Aboriginal) of AU. Lori & I were attending a denominational missions meeting to represent our church family. I saw a prayer card of a missionary couple who have recently returned to AU to carry the message of Christ to this aboriginal community. We recently shared our similar visions for the people of AU & were thrilled to discover they are known to some here and they too have adopted children. We are anticipating a meeting in December to move our partnership into action for the Lord.

We continue to keep our eyes open for opportunities to reach Muslims for Jesus in Indonesia even though God may have provided a local couple to complete that aim as well. This does seem to be a possible "crazy story of God" so we will let you know more if it develops into a partnership.

And how about this; as I proposed we bolster our Short Term Missions experiences, this past month we have been invited to partner in STM in South Africa & Zimbabwe more strategically. Hmmm. Seems God wants us to share our faith beyond our local community!