Upgrade in Strength

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Speaker 2Rev Dr Steven Gan

• Steven is the Senior Pastor of Amazing Grace
  Presbyterian Church. He has been serving as a
  pastor in AGPC since Oct 1992. His wife, Maggie,
  serves with him as the church Music/Choral
  Director. They have a lovely and active 5-year
  old son named Christopher.
• Trained in Business Admin (NUS, 1988), Steven
  responded to Gods call in 1989 and graduated
  from TTC in 1992 (M.Div.). During his sabbatical
  in 2000-2001, he pursued and completed his D.Min.
  program with the Australian College of Theology
  (ACT) majoring in Christian Spirituality.

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Speaker 2Rev Dr Steven Gan

• Steven has a deep passion for discipleship and
  missions, evidenced by the Disciple-Leadership
  Training Program (DLTP) which he started in AGPC
  and is still leading for the last 12 years, as
  well as the Myanmar Mission Partnering Churches
  (MMPC) which he serves as the Chairperson.
• The MMPC, set up in 2004 with the blessings of
  the Synod Missions Council (SMC) and the support
  of the EPMC, is a vibrant overseas missions
  enterprise comprising five English Presbytery
  churches AGPC, All Saints, Living Praise,
  Singapore Life, and Toong Chai, currently
  harvesting in Myanmar and are planning to
  penetrate into Cambodia soon.

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Speaker 2Rev Dr Steven Gan

• At the Synod level, Steven is an incumbent member
  of the Synod Exco, the Convenor of the Synod
  Development (Church Leadership Renewal
  Initiative), as well as the current Chair of the
  Presbyterian Education Council (PEC) which
  oversees and supports our five Presbyterian
  Schools.

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HEALTHY CHURCH GROWTHSYMPOSIUM
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Healthy Church Growth

• A Introduction

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Healthy Church Growth

• The spiritual condition of Israel
• depends very much on the
• spiritual condition of her leaders.

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Healthy Church Growth

• BAD SHEPHERDS

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Healthy Church Growth

• Ezekiel 341-4, 7-11
• 1 Then the word of the LORD came to me saying,
• 2 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of
  Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds,
  Thus says the Lord GOD, Woe, shepherds of
  Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should
  not the shepherds feed the flock?

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Healthy Church Growth

• 3 You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with
  the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without
  feeding the flock.
• 4 Those who are sickly you have not
  strengthened, the diseased you have not healed,
  the broken you have not bound up, the scattered
  you have not brought back, nor have you sought
  for the lost but with force and with severity
  you have dominated them.

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Healthy Church Growth

• 7 Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the
  LORD
• 8 As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely
  because My flock has become a prey, My flock has
  even become food for all the beasts of the field
  for lack of a shepherd, and My shepherds did not
  search for My flock, but rather the shepherds fed
  themselves and did not feed My flock

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Healthy Church Growth

• 9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the
  LORD
• 10 'Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am
  against the shepherds, and I will demand My sheep
  from them and make them cease from feeding sheep.
  So the shepherds will not feed themselves
  anymore, but I will deliver My flock from their
  mouth, so that they will not be food for them.

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Healthy Church Growth

• 11 For thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I Myself
  will search for My sheep and seek them out.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Isaiah 5610-12
• 10 His watchmen are blind, all of them know
  nothing. All of them are mute dogs unable to
  bark, dreamers lying down, who love to slumber
  11 And the dogs are greedy, they are not
  satisfied and they are shepherds who have no
  understanding they have all turned to their own
  way, each one to his unjust gain, to the last
  one.

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Healthy Church Growth

• 12 Come, they say, let us get wine, and let
  us drink heavily of strong drink and tomorrow
  will be like today, only more so.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Malachi 16-8
• 6 A son honors his father, and a servant his
  master. If I am a Father, where is the honor due
  Me? If I am a Master, where is the respect due
  Me? says the LORD Almighty. It is you, O
  priests, who show contempt for My name. But you
  ask, How have we shown contempt for Your name?

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Healthy Church Growth

• 7 You place defiled food on My altar. But you
  ask, How have we defiled you? By saying that
  the LORD's table is contemptible.
• 8 When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is
  that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or
  diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering
  them to your governor! Would he be pleased with
  you? Would he accept you? says the LORD Almighty.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Malachi 27-9
• 7 For the lips of a priest ought to preserve
  knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek
  instructionbecause he is the messenger of the
  LORD Almighty.
• 8 But you have turned from the way and by your
  teaching have caused many to stumble you have
  violated the covenant with Levi, says the LORD
  Almighty.

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Healthy Church Growth

• 9 So I have caused you to be despised and
  humiliated before all the people, because you
  have not followed My ways but have shown
  partiality in matters of the law.

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Healthy Church Growth

• The spiritual condition of Israel
• depends very much on the
• spiritual condition of her leaders

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Healthy Church Growth

• GOOD SHEPHERDS

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Healthy Church Growth

• Ezekiel 3414-16
• 14 I will tend them in a good pasture, and the
  mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing
  land. There they will lie down in good grazing
  land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture
  on the mountains of Israel.

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Healthy Church Growth

• 15 I Myself will tend My sheep and have them lie
  down, declares the Sovereign LORD.
• 16 I will search for the lost and bring back
  the strays. I will bind up the injured and
  strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong
  I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with
  justice.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Psalm 7870-72
• 70 He God chose David His servant and took him
  from the sheep pens
• 71 from tending the sheep He brought him to be
  the shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His
  inheritance.
• 72 And David shepherded them with integrity of
  heart with skillful hands he led them.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Zechariah 37
• This is what the LORD Almighty says If you
  will walk in My ways and keep My requirements,
  then you will govern My house and have charge of
  My courts, and I will give you a place among
  these standing here.

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Healthy Church Growth

• B Analysis of the Reports
• (L.E.A.D.)

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Healthy Church Growth

• First Major Construct
• LEAD WITH DILIGENCE

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Healthy Church Growth

• Rom 126-8 (NASB)
• 6 Since we have gifts that differ according to
  the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise
  them accordingly if prophecy, according to the
  proportion of his faith
• 7 if service, in his serving or he who teaches,
  in his teaching 

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Healthy Church Growth

• 8 or he who exhorts, in his exhortation he who
  gives, with liberality he who leads, with
  diligence he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
  

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Healthy Church Growth

• The Message If you're put in charge, don't
  manipulate.
• The New Living Translation Bible If God has
  given you leadership ability, take the
  responsibility seriously.
• The Contemporary English Version Bible If we
  are leaders, we should do our best.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Samples of AGPC Church Handbooks 2006, 2007, 2008

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Healthy Church Growth

• Second Major Construct
• EQUIP THE SAINTS

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Healthy Church Growth

• Ephesians 411-12 (NASB)
• 11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as
  prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as
  pastors and teachers,
• 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work
  of service, to the building up of the body of
  Christ

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Healthy Church Growth

• AGPC Church Handbook 2008
• Every Christian must grow in spiritual maturity
  and in the knowledge of the LORD. With the Bible
  as our standard and the Holy Spirit as our Guide,
  AGPCs Equipping Ministry serves to develop Every
  Christian into A Minister of Christ through these
  classes and programs.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Third Major Construct
• ANOINTED MINISTRY

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Healthy Church Growth

• What is an ANOINTED MINISTRY?
• To have an anointed ministry
• is to have a ministry
• that is empowered
• by the Spirit of God.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Micah 38
• But as for me, I am filled with
• power, with the Spirit of the
• LORD, and with justice and
• might, to declare to Jacob his
• transgression, to Israel his sin.

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Healthy Church Growth

• God does not call
• the equipped.
• He equips the called.

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Healthy Church Growth

• 2 Timothy 417
• But the Lord stood at my side and gave me
  strength, so that through me the message might be
  fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear
  it. And I was delivered from the lions mouth.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Haggai 24-5
• Be strong, all you people of the land,
  declares the LORD, and work. For I am with you,
  declares the LORD Almighty. This is what I
  covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt.
  And My Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Zechariah 46
• Not by might nor by power,
• but by My Spirit, says the
• LORD Almighty.

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Healthy Church Growth

• What I yearn for the non-Christians to say about
  ALL our Presbyterian members
• Let us go with you,
• because we have heard that
• God is with you.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Zechariah 823
• This is what the LORD Almighty says In those
  days, ten men from all languages and nations will
  take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe
  and say,
• Let us go with you, because we have heard that
  God is with you.

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Healthy Church Growth

• 3 Ds of the Christian life
• - a Dedicated Life
• - an unDefeated Life
• - a Dependent Life

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Healthy Church Growth

• Fourth Major Construct
• DISCIPLINING
• OF THE SPIRIT

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Healthy Church Growth

• Examples of our Lord Jesus
• -- Mk 135 Very early in the morning, while it
  was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and
  went off to a solitary place, where He prayed.
• -- Lk 516 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely
  places and prayed.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Malachi 215-16
• 15 Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and
  spirit they are His. And why one? Because He was
  seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in
  your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife
  of your youth.

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Healthy Church Growth

• 16 I hate divorce, says the LORD God of
  Israel, and I hate a man's covering himself with
  violence as well as with his garment, says the
  LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit,
  and do not break faith.

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Healthy Church Growth

• I Corinthians 924-27
• 24 Do you not know that in a race all the
  runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in
  such a way as to get the prize.
• 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into
  strict training. They do it to get a crown that
  will not last but we do it to get a crown that
  will last forever.

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Healthy Church Growth

• 26 Therefore I do not run like a man running
  aimlessly I do not fight like a man beating the
  air.
• 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so
  that after I have preached to others, I myself
  will not be disqualified for the prize.

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Healthy Church Growth

• C Concluding Remarks

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Healthy Church Growth

• I Corinthians 36-7 (NASB)
• I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing
  the growth.
• So then neither the one who plants nor the one
  who waters is anything, but God who causes the
  growth.

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Healthy Church Growth

• Our TASK is to PLANT and WATER by
• - Leading our flock diligently
• - Equipping the saints systematically
• - seeking an Anointed Ministry, and
• - practising the Disciplined Life.

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Healthy Church Growth

• THANK YOU
• for your
• KIND ATTENTION.