Stuart Maze will have completed his last ever Moore College assessment task by the time you read this story, but when we spoke to Stuart Maze last month he was still studying for exams in his third and final year of a Bachelor of Theology.
From next year, Stuart will join the parish of Beverly Hills with Kingsgrove staff team and helm a new church plant at Peakhurst South Public School.
Stuart was a member of the parish before studying at Moore, attending the church plant at Beverly Hills Public School, and prior to that St Bede's, Beverly Hills, since 2001.
The rector of Beverly Hills, the Rev Peter Hayward and Stuart have been discussing and planning this church plant for almost three years.
"Very early on we started to talk about it. I raised it as a possibility early in Stuart's first year at College. Since then we have continued to move forward as God continued to open the way," Peter says.
According to Peter, Peakhurst South Primary School was chosen as the location for the parish's new church plant because it suited Stuart's particular gifts.
"Because of Stuart's age and circumstances we had an opportunity of creating a ministry around him and the community he has been part of the for the last four years at Peakhurst South. Stu was uniquely placed to develop this ministry opportunity," he says.
When Stuart commenced study at Moore, starting a church plant was not on his agenda.
"It was not part of our motivation at all but, given I had been part of a church plant prior to going to college, I was open to the idea and aware of the hard work and nature of the ministry that it involves," he says.
"Peter approached my wife, Liana, and I about considering church planting in the Peakhurst area," Stuart explains. "After thinking and praying about it we became very excited about staying in the community we were already a part of to do ministry full time."
College gives planter pointers
Stuart says his time at Moore College has given me a "fantastic foundation' for a life of ministry.
"Specifically related to church planting, it has helped me think through the doctrine of church, and what is an appropriate liturgy and worship style for the church plant."
Stuart says he has also valued speaking to other church planters who have shared their experiences of church planting with students at Moore College.
"Hearing what guys like Stuart Robinson, Andrew Herd and David Sheath have done was useful and encouraging. Bouncing ideas around with other students is always helpful too," he says.
Helping the locals
In planning the church plant Stuart says his team have tried to impact as little as possible on the surrounding churches.
"Our approach has been to try an build a planting team that lives locally and are already part of and have existing relationships with our local community," he says. "This means people are leaving their local churches to join the church plant. However, as we are only a small group and come from different churches, the impact on any particular church is minimal.
Stuart says the church plant will initially focus on reaching the families connected to the primary school. Numerous members on the planting team have children who attend the school and have an existing web of relationships within the community.
"Hopefully that will provide opportunities for evangelism. However, we all have other networks of relationships that we are also part of that we can reach," Stuart says.
The planting team is meeting now planning for the launch in Easter 2008.
"The team is excited about kicking this ministry off and looking forward to reaching their friends with the good news of Jesus in 2008 and beyond."
