Orange Evangelical Church has found annual missions an effective strategy to keep evangelism on the agenda.

by Stuart Robinson

In 1977, Martin Morgan came to Christ when attending a Lutheran Church in Lae, Papua New Guinea. Martin recalls that “the evangelist with beetle-nut stained teeth, yelled in Pidgin and spelt out very clearly the consequences of sin.” He was only 13, but he understood with crystal clarity his need for forgiveness through Christ’s finished work on the cross.
Martin is married to Cath and with their three children Caleb (9), Bronte (7) and Isaac (4), live in the central-west town of Orange, NSW. He is one of the pastors at Orange Evangelical Church (OEC). In 2004, the Morgans will move to north-west Sydney for a new church planting assignment.
I asked Martin to outline something of the ‘flavour’, style and history of ministry at OEC.

SR: Why full-time ministry?
MM: Helping to lead Inter-Sschool Christian Fellowship (ISCF) groups at school taught me that the gospel message really is effective. It is relevant, it is powerful and it is needed by all people. Full-time ministry felt like an obvious choice.

SR: How did the move to Orange come about?
MM: In July 1995 I was introduced to a core-group of 15 Christians in Orange who were eager to plant a new church. They wanted a church which was ‘evangelical’ in its theological assumptions and ‘evangelistic’ in its planning and action. In September of that year we started meeting as Orange Evangelical Church with about 50 people.

SR: Have you experienced growth?
GM: Yes. We have developed into three distinct gatherings of about 400 people. We have three other fully trained ministry workers: Jim French, Greg Blanch and Cath Read. We also employ an administrator, MTS workers, and lots of volunteers.

SR: What then is the stated Mission of OEC?
MM: It took the best part of our first year to come up with the following: “OEC is established to build up the Christian Church by presenting God’s word, the Bible, in God’s world through:
- Evangelism: presenting God’s word clearly to enable people to become Christians;
- Encouragement: presenting God’s word to build-up Christian knowledge and attitudes;
- Equipping: build up skills and experience in Christian service and training Christian leaders.”
Each ministry group at OEC is asked to set their specific goals and objectives in the light of this mission and to carry out regular evaluation.

SR: What is the place of small groups at OEC?
MM: We actually encourage our people to see their small group as equally deserving of the ‘church’ title. That said, the larger gatherings and the smaller groups are both required for a healthy experience of church and for service opportunities.
Quite a few of our regular attenders came to make OEC their church home via a small group. In that sense, small groups can operate as a conduit into the larger congregational gatherings. With limited success we have also tried to encourage each small group to multiply itself within the course of a year. Our mission statement also applies to small groups and they come up with their own applications and strategies.

SR: You’ve invited Christians in the Media (CIM) to partner you in a pre-Christmas mission.
MM: We run a mission each year. Psychologically, it is very helpful as it gets a critical mass of our people talking about and thinking through how they might invite friends and associates to events. It also gives us a real context to practice the skills in personal evangelism that we have been teaching and learning. If this does not happen, then we’ll never move from theory to actually doing evangelism.
People in our congregations are also really encouraged when they see others becoming Christians or when they’ve had a part to play in the gospeling process. We’ve invited CIM twice before, and we really like working with them.
In 2004, we’ve asked a team from SMBC to help with a mission. Whatever our evangelism looks like, a set time of focused mission has always helped OEC in objective, measurable ways: more people becoming Christians, more people inviting others along, and a real sense of direction which increases commitment in all our congregations.

SR: Church planting has figured significantly in your ministry to date, Martin.
MM: I think church planting should be the primary item on any church’s agenda for the future. For example, we have a new church gathering planned to compliment our work at the University of Sydney, Orange Campus. Cath Read and Greg Blanch have already done an excellent job in establishing Bible-teaching and evangelism there.

SR: Is it that easy?
MM: No. When we started our second and third church plants there was a fair degree of resistance. People thought that resources would be really stretched – which is quite true, but only in the immediate short-term. We’ve now reached the point where many members are keenly looking for opportunities to plant more churches in and around Orange!

SR: How might we pray for you?
MM: Pray that we’ll continue to work well with churches from different traditions without buying into a bland kind of ecumenism.
Also, please pray for us a family as we leave OEC for our new work in Sydney. And pray that the Lord will raise up another ministry worker for OEC in 2004.