Men Meeting the Challenge Conference 2019
Graham Clark

Graham Clark, a 10am church member, recaps the Men Meeting the Challenge conference, which a group of Grove Church St Aidan’s men attended on 23 March 2019.

Well, the Men Meeting the Challenge conference is done for another year and what an event it was!

The day started with the ride over, which to me is one of the highlights as you get to know other guys in the church! And the ride home is a chance to discuss the day’s sessions, especially what you heard in the workshop you attended and what the other workshops were like. This whets your appetite for downloading the talks online—more on this later.

Dominic Steele and Ray Galea took the main sessions with everyone together first up, punctuated by morning tea. These were a lot to do with exploring where we’re at here and now, more so in society, but also in the church. Of course, holding up God’s word as a mirror is very helpful in this regard!

A basic but tasty lunch followed (the catering was very good this year), and a busy time looking at the lunchtime activities—cars on display x6, attempting to post the fastest lap on the slot car track, entering the virtual reality room for a game or two, talking to the stallholders about the work of the Gideons, or browsing the books—all this meant the longer lunch went by in a flash!

Splitting into workshops after lunch saw the choice of: Rebuilding the Foundation of Manhood with Craig Hamilton, from Glenmore Park Anglican (I personally took this talk and it was full of rock solid truth and very inspirational); Stephen Chavura on Relating to the Re-imagined Woman; Hope in Darkness, a session to encourage and equip those who’ve fallen into sexual temptation and to help them turn their lives around; and Building Another Man of Courage, a workshop on mentoring and evangelism. There were only four workshops this year as the conference was shorter due to election day.

After the workshops, we gathered in the main hall to hear from Dominic again, on “How Shall We Then Live?” This session wrapped all the themes together and brought the message home.

Another great highlight was seeing Ivan Lee, who opened the conference in prayer. To quote – “I know that God is in control; which is easy to say as a pat statement, but in an extremity like this [undergoing cancer treatment], I’ve proved it time and again. I know it’s true. (And thanks for your prayers!).”

So, it’s over till next year—but you don’t have to wait that long! Keep an eye on the church Facebook page and we’ll let you know when talks are available to download from the Men for Christ website. It was a blast!

–Graham ☺