Minutes
President's Report for 2nd Meeting, 12/12/2009:
As you may recall, our previous meeting divided the committee up to research and develop four important areas of CCF. On our meeting on the 12th, we presented our ideas to the committee. We have also settled for a theme for this year. It is perhaps too much to include all the details in this report. I will present some of the more important and interesting breakthroughs and refer you to the minutes for details.
1) From the Movement/Campaigns team (Patrick & myself):
a. Work with Rockdale Alliance Church for O-Week.
b. Continuing poster campaign in USYD after O-Week.
c. Proposal for establishing communication with CBC & CPC.
2) From the Fellowship team (Candy, Carol & Micaiah)
a. Proposal to recover our emphasis on Christian life and godliness rather than skills alone.
b. Proposal for "Strand" and other aspects of training.
c. Cell groups will no longer be fixed at 1pm (!)
3) From the Public Meetings & Worship team (Elton & Ruby)
a. Ideas about the talks in public meeting.
b. Including a mix of workshops with the talks.
4) From the IT team (Kobe) - Established a website for electronic storage of contacts and data.
5) Deciding on the theme for this year - Being Christ's testimony in Sydney University
Movement/Campaigns
This year we plan to work on O-Week with Sydney Chinese Alliance Church Rockdale (where our advisor Rev.Martin Lau ministers to). One important motivation is to establish a healthy relationship with the wider community of Sydney chinese churches in the long run. We have already started planning for O-Week too. Please let us know if you want to help out.
On the same note, we will soon initiate a friendly dialogue with the local churches, CBC and CPC (SH) and establish an ongoing communication.
One of the aims of the committee this year is to for CCF to achieve a higher profile in USYD as a testimony to Jesus' Lordship in the university. We plan on doing this with a series of poster campaign across every small corner of USYD. Please let us know if you are interested in submitting designs.
Fellowship
A truly important insight from the Fellowship team is that currently many training emphasise on skills (competency) and much less on the knowledge of God (conviction) and godliness in life (character). We, however, believe that the reverse is appropriate. Accordingly, the plans for training was proposed and the committee gave useful feedback for the team to refine their thoughts (refer to the minutes). We have also arranged a consultation with Rev.Joe Lin of BCPC on these aspects.
A more adventurous update is that we will be relieving the restriction of the cell group hours to 1pm. We will give you the flexibility to choose a time and arrange as best as we can to have your small group with about 6 to 8 people. (You can still choose 1pm!)
Public Meetings & Worship
The team thought over the public meetings and gave the committee guidelines for submitting talk topics. We hope to divide the talks into "blocks" in a semester. So instead of isolated topics each week, we may have a topic which last for a few weeks. The topic choices would fall under a larger theme for the year. We also want include some blocks which are more concerned with practical living. We also wish to include some workshops as part of the blocks. The main idea is to use the public meetings as a platform for engaging both the CCF Christians and as a platform for non-Christians to get a taste of CCF.
The committee has been asked to submit topic ideas. You can submit some topic choice that interests you too.
Electronic Storage & Database
A secondary website has been set up to handle storage of data and contact details. Feel free to check it out yourself but note that it is still quite experimental and some of the sections such as "Committee's Forum" has been made redundant and will be taken down soon. (The website has a registration for Welcome Night 2010 but that doesn't refer to anything real.)
We will soon be gathering data and contacts to be put into use.
Theme for CCF 2010
In order to co-ordinate the committee's planning, to improve communication between the committee and all of CCF, as well as to set the tone and direction for CCF in 2010, we have decided to settle for a theme from which everything else will flow. We have kept to a theme which is both narrow enough to be clear and broad enough to be flexible - Being Christ's Testimony in Sydney University (we have not yet refined the phrasing). If you went to the AGM, the term used was "evangelism-by-being".
Overall, I myself am thankful to God for our progress. The tasks involved are not easy. Three of our committee members work full time, Patrick is at summer school and Micaiah is in Hong Kong, but we have all worked hard. Please do pray for us, not really for the planning and research themselves, but for the committee to walk in holy fear of God and for us to develop a deep bonding and love for one another. If you do see anything which interests you, please do not hesitate to speak to us. Who knows if God may be using you in unknown ways.
Our next meeting is scheduled to 2/1/2010.
Matthias Wong
President of the Sydney University Chinese Christian Fellowship
A copy of the 2nd Committe Meeting minutes has been uploaded and can be downloaded.
President's Report for 1st Meeting, 20/11/2009:
Thanks God for giving us the honor to serve him. Glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.
In today's meeting, several important items were discussed, namely:
1) The operation of cell groups and training course
2) The format of our public meeting (formerly called Friday Meeting) and worship session
3) Possibility of our first campaigns and movement (formerly called Events)
4) Storage of CCF data
Cell Group Structure & Training Course
In keeping with our overall focus this year on building the community of Christ in the university, we will reform the cell group structure. We hope that the cell group structure can function as the place of gathering the Christians on campus. One area of concern with cell groups is the question of sustainability, due to lack of a systematic training program in SUCCF, we often fail to provide cell leaders for the next generation.
We have decided go with a more traditional style of cell groups by putting a maximum of about 8 or 10 to number of people and by limiting entry to sign-up. We will also balance our focus on catering to the Christians' needs. We plan on seeking a professional, qualified person to help us implement a training course as well as to help us with preparing bible study materials of sound doctrine. Micaiah, Carol and Candy are responsible for planning the specific strategies and implementation in these few weeks. Please do keep us in prayer as we anticipate challenges in finding a person to help with training. If you know any one who might be interested, do not hesitate in contacting us.
Public Meetings & Worship
We believe that a weekly worship (i.e. hymn singing) right in the middle of the university is an important way to testify to Jesus' lordship. We intend on extending our current public meeting duration in order to incorporate a worship. We will also be reviewing our current public meeting format (which currently are talks). The chief objective of the public meeting and worship is to testify to Jesus' lordship, to provide an opportunity for all CCF Christians to gather together, as well as to provide an entry point for non-Christians interested in SUCCF. Elton and Ruby are responsible for planning the details. Please do not hesitate to assist them or to give them advice.
Movements/Campaigns
As you know, we have decided to replace the current event structure of annual Welcome Night, Easter Gathering and Thanksgiving dinner with a more flexible approach of running "Movements" suited for that year. The main motivation is that we need to meet THIS generation's needs instead of the last ones. We are are planning our first movement/campaign and one area we are looking at is our public relationship with the rest of the Chinese Christian community. We are thinking of promotion campaign for CCF around the churches. We also need to think about how CCF and the local churches can better work together. Patrick and myself will be responsible for this aspect. Please do pray for us because introducing reforms are always met with questions and challenges in the community. Please do not hesitate to contact Patrick or I regarding this. One area in which graduates can really help out is to act as a bridge of communication for SUCCF and your local churches.
Storage & Database
Finally, a major problem with SUCCF is that we do not have a systematic storage of data nor a database for contacts so we often have to re-do things every year. (We don't even have an original, editable copy of our 10th anniversary album! Does anyone know where it is? Next year is 20th anniversary and we may need it.) We are going to build an electronic storage of everything that we do, e.g. program card designs, printing companies contacts, bible study materials, newsletter, etc for the benefit of the next generations. We also intend on building a database of current CCFers, graduates, chinese churches, other Christian organizations of interests (e.g. CCYSC) and useful contacts. We hope that such a database can assist us with sustainability and our campaigns. Kobe is responsible for building the database. Unfortunately, we do not have very much technical knowledge. If you know of people who might be able to help, please do find us.
In the interest of to making our work transparent and to communicate with you, I have not hesitated to let give you this report as soon as we are able. Please support us through prayer and whatever means God lead you to do so.
May God use his people in these last days for his own glory.
Matthias Wong,
President of the Sydney University Chinese Christian Fellowship
A copy of the 1st Committe Meeting minutes can be found downloaded.