A young minister just out of theological college has been hand-picked by an internationally renowned church planter speaker and author to receive coaching and mentorship – some of it in the United States.

 As reported in the October edition of The Pulse magazine, Steve Chong, who with his wife Naomi is heading up the revitalisaton of the formerly named Kogarah Presbyterian Church in Sydney – now Kirkplace – is looking forward to an ongoing relationship with Pastor Mark Driscoll following a series of meetings in Sydney last month.

The pastor of the Mars Hill mega-church in Seattle, Mr Driscoll was on his first speaking tour of Australia which included addressing the Katoomba Christian Convention and RICErally 2008, of which Mr Chong is Director.

“I see that God has his hand on Steve and that he is well supported by his denomination,” he said. “I just want to be of additional service as he needs, through coaching him and introducing him to other young pastors who are doing what he is doing for mutual learning.”

Mr Driscoll, who co-founded the Acts 29 Network, helped start The Resurgence, a repository of missional theology resources, spent more than five hours with Mr Chong at their first meeting and was hugely impressed with the development of Kirkplace, which will comprise a new church in a tower of medical suites.

“It was all a bit of a surprise, really,” Mr Chong said. “When we met up I thought we would be chatting about the RICE movement, in particular, the youth event coming up that weekend but he told me he has been trying to connect with young movement leaders around the world, so he has been preaching in different cities and seeking out young men, and investing time into them.

“I thought ‘investing time’ meant we would meet for an hour coffee but the thing that struck me was that he is incredibly, overwhelmingly generous. He spent five hours with me then wanted his wife Grace to meet with Naomi a couple of days later and both of us have learnt so much through talking with them both.”

While the pair got together initially to discuss RICE, Mr Driscoll soon became particularly interesting in what was happening at Kirkplace.

“His heart is for seeing church growth happening through new church ventures like ours ,” Mr Chong said. “He told me that he hadn’t seen anything like it before and said it is an incredible blessing and that the Presbyterian Church obviously has great vision.”

After 10 minutes of conversation, Mr Driscoll said he was interested in coaching a somewhat taken aback Mr Chong.

“He said he was keen to be involved in an ongoing way in advising and mentoring me as our church project gets underway and he proposed that we put in our diaries regular times where he’ll be coaching me via video chats over the internet.  He is hoping to teach me some of what he learnt when he did something similar as a younger man. As if that wasn’t enough, he then offered to fly Naomi and I out to America!  Apparently we are going to the states to meet with a few other young movement leaders from around the world with whom he has had simliar conversations with.  He wants us to come together to share our stories, and to spend some time away with John Piper as well as learning from some of their own church planting and church growth models.  I was simply blown away by his genorisity and very thankful and humbled that God had provided us and our church with such great and generous help.”

Mr Chong said the American pastor spent a lot of the time with him just asking about Naomi and his marriage, saying it needs to be strong before a minister does anything. “This really surprised me as I was all ready to talk ‘church strategy’ but by the end of this surreal conersation I felt genuinely cared for and pastored.  His wife grace has since contacted Naomi and they also will be keeping in contact regularly.”

On the Kirkplace development, Mr Driscoll said he had been all over the world looking at new church opportunities and had not ever seen anything like the opportunity at Kirkplace.

“It is such an incredible combination of a great bunch of people involved, the ministry facilities being built, the denominational backing of a young man and Kirkplace's strategic location, making it a real blessing from God.”

Mars Hill executive pastor AJ Hamilton, travelling with Mr Driscoll, attended a service at Kirkplace during the visit.

“There was a small growing gathering of about 50-60 people, they were friendly toward each other, ranged in ages from young children to very elderly folks, and their ethnicities were diverse as well,” he said.

“They prayed to Jesus often during the service and sang loudly. They were excited too about what they felt called to do for Kogarah and this reminded me of MH in the earlier days when we were a community of about 100 strong. Pastor Mark would cast a vision of someday worshiping with tens of thousands in Seattle and there was no doubt in my mind or in the mind of the other members that this would someday happen and become a reality. Seeing such a small congregation at Kirkplace, blessed with incredible resources by the Presbyterian denomination, a gifted and gentle pastor in Steve Chong and a deep love for Jesus impacted me with the belief that though currently quite small, Kirkplace will become an even greater blessing to Kogarah and the greater Sydney area.”