Avondale University Seminary students, along with other guests, participated in a Mission Symposium held on the Lake Macquarie campus on May 13 and 14. Themed Disciple Making, the event featured several keynote presenters who explored the topic.
“The goal is that everyone attending the event—Avondale stuents, persons recommended by their Conference leaders or anyone interested—learned four things: How to make disciples, how to plant churches, what it will take for them to reach our cities and how to do cross cultural ministry,” explained symposium organiser Dr Wayne Krause.
South Pacific Division (SPD) president Pastor Glenn Townend added, “The whole thing was about how they can be a disciple-making pastor and encourage others that they influence, with different tools to make it happen.”
The leadership training event was a joint initiative between the SPD Adventist Mission and Mission to the Cities, Avondale University Seminary, Avondale University Church, the Australian Union Conference (AUC) and the New Zealand Pacific Union Conference (NZPUC).
“For the first time we have presenters/partners from the two unions, Australia and New Zealand, who are two unions that feed their students into this particular institution,” said theology lecturer Dr Erika Puni.
Ministry student Daniel Petersen shared his learnings from the talks, “We aren’t trying to get church members to do church work, we are trying to get them to do God’s work. I thought that was an interesting paradigm shift.”
Another student, Natasha Su’a, said, “For us as students, to see the Division and the unions investing in something like this, it means they actually care.”
The next symposium will be held in October, focusing on Church Planting. If you would like to attend this free event, register your interest at m2c.adventistchurch.com. In-person spots are limited, but you can also join via Zoom. If you missed the May event, the presentation can be viewed on the website above.
