There's been talk for years now about the need for leadership training and initiatives within PIPC. We had the fantastic opportunity to receive training from four Godly men who are experts in leadership.
What a day! In one day - beginning at 9am - ending at 5pm we had the opportunity to listen and learn from Bishop Glorious Shoo (Tanzania), Pastor Warren Retzlaff, Nick Tuitasi and Willie Iosia. The speaker I will share about in this post is Nick Tuitasi, an old boy of Newton PIPC. He's worked for a number of years in the Police and in community projects that care for the youth of Auckland and further. He is now based at CCF. I know that there is much more to add to this list of work he has done over the years.
On this day Nick spoke to us about experiences in which God taught him about getting to the 'Next level' of being used for God's work. He begun with asking the youth and leaders present of the three levels to the life of a Christian. We were able to respond with '1st - Hard, 2nd difficult, 3rd - IMPOSSIBLE!' This is something Nick always reminds his listeners about.
Nick shared with us for approxiamately an hour. He is a gifted speaker, sharing his experiences to highlight his teaching points. One such point was that of us 'tolerating' people rather than 'loving' people. He challenged us and put it plainly, God cannot take us to the next level of serving if we cannot 'love' who we are dealing with now. The video posted here will show you what Nick shared as he highlighted this important part of loving our neighbour to be able to move to the next level in God's work. I used this part of the video to share with my own youth group in Tamaki. We were in the middle of preparing for the Scripture Union exams, one lesson being the parable of the Good Samaritan.
To Nick - thank you so much. You are an inspirational speaker. As a child of Newton PIC, I was of the age to learn from the likes of you, your siblings and peers when you would return from missions and share in Bible Class. You and your peers had God inspired experiences and teachings that you would graciously pass on to us. If not in front of BC then as part of our monthly youth services. You were all so good at telling us your stories, the places my imagination would go! I know in many ways this was unique to our parish, and they are teachings I now share with the youth that I work with. Thanks also to John Tuitama and the team at Newton who organised this day event, you ensured we received God's blessings - you put everything in place for us. Our job - simply to turn up and enjoy what you had organised. I hope that in time to come, brothers and sisters who were present this day will post something here to encourage others who work with youth in our region and further. A valuable day that I am so glad I was a part of. God willing this will be something we can work towards having again. May God allow many fruits to grow from the seeds planted on this day.
Andrea (Tamaki PIPC)
