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Ahead of Father's Day (Sunday 4th September), we'll be sharing stories of every day Christian fathers and how the gospel shapes their parenting. In this interview, Pastor Allan Mao shares his initial fears with fatherhood, the joys and challenges of parenting teen boys in a pandemic, and how knowing the perfect Heavenly Father gives him comfort and confidence in parenting.  Photo: Allan Mao and his family 1. Please introduce yourself! My name is Allan Mao. I grew up in China, but Sydney has been my home for over 20 years. I have just turned 55 and my boys are 13 and 11. My wife Christine is an Australian Born Chinese and we have been married for 16 years. We have a family tradition of celebrating our birthdays in our pyjamas. I am the Connect Pastor at Hurstville Presbyterian Church, serving a multi-generational multi-ethnic church. I try to be regular with my early morning bike rides with other MAMILs (middle-aged man in lycra). Sometimes we share our parenting notes over our post-ride coffees. The benefit of being in ministry is that I am working from home most days, so I am around with my family. On weekdays, I am home by 7:30am after my morning ride to take my boys to school. Dinner time is an important time for us, because we talk a lot over the dinner table. I am learning to be a good listener and to ask good questions so that my boys will share their stories and reflect on their days. 2. What have been the joys and challenges of your current season of fatherhood? I simply enjoy watching my boys grow—noticing small changes in their lives, participating with them when they are going through tough times, and celebrating with them over any achievements, big or small. I enjoy riding bikes with my boys. During the pandemic, I rode with my older son into the city which was a big achievement for us. I have promised to do the same with my younger one, but we haven’t found the time to do that yet, but he enjoys any special father-son time. Since the pandemic, I have found it difficult to prevent my boys from spending too many hours in front of their screens. During the lockdowns, we were trying to get connected with others online, my boys did the same with their classmates, and now I have found it hard to wean them off social media. I need to be firm while also enabling them to make their own choices through the giving of guidelines for prioritisiation. Raising boys in their early teenage years comes with a rollercoaster of emotions. I often chat with my senior pastor who is about 10 years ahead of me in fathering. He shares with me that what my boys really need is a firm, consistent and loving father when their emotions are not stable. I am grateful for his advice. 3. How has knowing God the Father shaped the way you father your children? When it comes to fatherhood, I often think about Matthew 7:11(NLT): “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.” This verse tells me two things. Firstly, the bible links the earthly father with the Heavenly Father. Secondly, while I am imperfect and trying hard to give my children the best, my Heavenly Father has already provided the best for them and for me. This verse gives me comfort and confidence. When I look first to my Heavenly Father for provision, I can gain a wealth of resources to meet my own children’s physical, emotional, relational and spiritual needs. When I have an intimate relationship with my Heavenly Father, His mercy and grace will naturally flow through out of my life, and my children then are able to encounter God and their lives will be transformed. 4. What is one piece of advice that you would give to new dads this Father's Day? Each season of life comes with new challenges, and each family has their own unique situations. For me, it was very daunting to become a new dad, even though I was already 42 years old. I remember crying when Christine and I stepped out of the hospital with our brand-new baby boy in the capsule. I realised that I had been given the responsibility to raise him into a man who would one day follow God’s heart. Now 13 years on, I have learned that God is always ahead of me, He is doing the parenting work for me and through me. He provides more than enough for me to be the father for my two boys. Besides this, we are all sons before we become dads. Reflecting on and learning about my own experience of being a son is one of the good gifts I can give to my boys. We are all able to learn from our own dads’ experiences, the good and the bad. I have often wondered how much my father’s influence on me has shaped the way I am a dad. This self-awareness of how I relate to my father is a good starting point to prepare me as a new dad. Ahead of Father's Day (Sunday 4th September), we'll be sharing stories of every day Christian fathers and how the gospel shapes their parenting. In this interview, Glenn Calderwood shares how discovering God the Father through the Scriptures has informed and guided his parenting—both locally in Australia and on the mission field in Papua New Guinea.  Photo: Glenn and Beth Calderwood 1. Please introduce yourself! I’m Glenn and I have been married to Beth for 40 happy years. We have three adult daughters, two sons-in-law, six grandsons and two granddaughters. I was born in Northern Ireland and came to Australia as a 15-year-old. Beth and I met at our church in Tamworth and married a few years later. When our oldest daughter was 6 years old and our youngest just 6 months old, we were commissioned as missionaries to a remote tribal area in Papua New Guinea to commence an evangelistic and bible teaching ministry. For 25 years, we ministered together in the same tribal hamlet until my life was openly threatened by criminal gangs. This triggered our relocation to Newcastle where our daughters were living at the time. Since then, I have continued to teach the believers we left behind via annual retreats in P.N.G. (until 2019) and written material through the mail. Beth and I currently attend All Saints Anew Anglican Church at Lambton in Newcastle. 2. What have been the joys and challenges of fatherhood over the years? It has been a battle to provide a home where our children feel loved, accepted and cherished. Our commitment to our ministry ran the danger of giving our children the impression that work is more important. It was a challenge to provide a safe and happy home environment where the children knew they were cherished and assured that we would give up our ministry to respect their wellbeing. Thankfully, our children did feel loved and cherished, and consequently had the resilience to go through some very difficult and dangerous times with us. 3. How has knowing God the Father shaped the way you father your children? When I think of my own Dad, I rarely think of how he performed as a father and more about what kind of person he was. Similarly, when I think of God as Father, I think about what kind of person He is. Jesus’ invitation to address God as “Father” in prayer, is an invitation for me to remember that God is not an impersonal deity but a person. When I pray, I try to understand my life experiences in light of what God has said about Himself in Scripture. It’s in this process that I have come to know and appreciate God in an intimate way—so that I fear and respect Him on one hand, and delight and have joy in Him on the other. This has had the remarkable effect of changing my character to be more like His. For me, this has been the bedrock of my parenting. The great treasures of what God has taught me from God’s parenting of me, informs and guides my parenting. The whole range of “tools” God has used to change me—in suffering, loss, failure, gladness, fruitfulness, bountiful provisions—will be reflected in how I guide and mature my children. Of course, I’m not always successful at doing this, botching it many times, but it nevertheless remains the intent and trajectory of my parenting. 4. How has God used you in your role as a grandfather? How can grandparents continue serving their family for God's glory? The whole purpose of God saving us is that we no longer live for ourselves but for Him who saved us (2 Corinthians 5:15). Essentially that is what parenting is about—no longer living for ourselves, but for Him in everything we do, and us teaching our children and children’s children to do the same. This is a life-long endeavour. The “hands-off” approach once our children marry is not really a tenable biblical idea. God’s call for parents to train their children to maturity does not end once children become adults or get married. In the church, the young ones are to learn from the older ones, the younger ones are to be willing to be instructed by the older ones, and there isn’t an exclusion if the younger ones are your own children. How you help your adult children mature will be manifestly different as adults, but the intent and trajectory remain the same—to help our children become mature in their knowing of God as a person and in their living for Him in whatever their life’s circumstances are. Having adult children (and their spouses) who are not offended or find it too confronting to have their parents speaking into their lives (including speaking to their parenting) and being encouraged to speak into the lives of their children, is such a blessing for us grandparents. What a concrete way to be counter-cultural! 5. What is one piece of advice that you would give to new dads this Father's Day? God brings a whole range of life experiences—heartache, sadness, gladness and delight—to encourage us to engage with Him, know Him as a person, and to fear and delight in Him. My advice is to genuinely pursue this with all your might. Our children will see through any façade of “niceness” Christianity. Instead, children need to see real engagement with God: real struggle with what He brings to our lives, real knowing Him, and real change. God loves deeply. He disciplines relentlessly. He is kind, self-controlled, generous, worthy of respect, He is good, and much more. Experience God in all aspects of your life and begin to be these things in your own person and character. Do not be afraid of failure or to admit to failure, especially to your children, for this is one of the tools God uses so we and they can experience Him. If you do this, your children will see authentic Christianity, and as you are changed, they will have an example worth following and will have every opportunity to embrace God, our Father and Saviour, for themselves. Ahead of Father's Day (Sunday 4th September), we'll be sharing stories of Christian fathers and how the gospel shapes their parenting. In this interview, Joe Koo shares the joys, challenges, privileges and responsibilities of being a first-time Dad. He also shares how becoming a Christian and being given a new gospel identity has reshaped his views on what it means to be a ‘good’ Dad.  Photo: Joe with his wife and son 1. Tell us a bit about yourself! I'm Joe, a new dad to my son Elijah. I'm married to my beautiful wife Edwina, and we also have a child in heaven called Nathan who we lost during our first pregnancy. I work in Digital Advertising Sales for Google (so you can thank me for the YouTube ads), and spend my free time either playing basketball, reading or playing games. Since becoming a dad, I haven't had much time to do many of those things! I attend Gracepoint Presbyterian Church and have been there since I became a Christian in 2010. 2. What are the joys and challenges of being a first-time dad? There is nothing that prepares you for being a dad. Despite people saying I would be “great” or “ready” because of my terrible Dad jokes and love for kids, I felt overwhelmed. Imagine hunting for your first job, and the requirement is for previous job experience, but you have none. This is 100% like parenting—learning on the job as you go. There are innumerable joys in being a first-time dad. Watching Elijah grow up and learning a new skill each week has been incredible. Nothing makes my day more than seeing him smile and laugh at random things. I am also humbled to see the growth and amazing servant heart of my wife as she embraces motherhood. Equally humbling are the challenges of being a first-time dad. It has been eye-opening and a shock to the system discovering how selfish I am. Having the internet is both helpful and unhelpful—with so many people sharing different advice, must-do's, must haves, and every ailment under the sun seems to have the same symptoms! For this reason, it's been easy to become overwhelmed with information, and with minimal sleep, to become cranky, short tempered and frustrated at my son and wife. 3. You did not grow up in a Christian family. How does knowing God the Father shape the way you parent, and how is this different to your own experience of a childhood without God? Knowing God and my new identity in Christ has completely reshaped and challenged my thought process in relation to how to be a good parent. I grew up in a household where independence, competence, and excelling at academics were always first priority. From learning a musical instrument, to going to tutoring and attending a Selective School, all aspects of my childhood were geared towards making me a "well rounded" person with a matching resume to earn a good job, good pay and have financial security. In my home, failure was not an option, and a hierarchy was established where parents had to be listened to and questions were not allowed. My preconceived notions and expectations of Elijah have already been challenged as I strive to raise him in the faith. Societal values change according to cultural trends, but the Bible provides an unchanging foundation of truth to use as a framework. Being grounded in my faith and knowing God's love for me frees me from the pressure of needing my son to be a high achiever. Because our security is found in Christ, we don’t need to find it in worldly possessions or achievements. Knowing that I am a sinful human also means that I will inevitably fail as a parent. I don’t need to be the perfect Dad because there is grace and forgiveness in the gospel. I know without a doubt that I will not get this right all the time, and there will be times that I fall back on the values that I was brought up with, assuming that this is how children are to be raised, but I trust that together with Edwina, we will strive to teach Elijah God's unfailing love for him despite the fact he is a sinner, and that there is abundant grace, forgiveness and mercy found at the cross. 4. What is something God has taught you since you've become a parent? I have been struck with the weight and responsibility that comes with being a dad and being called to account not only for my sins, but also the faith and sin of my household. It's daunting and humbling to think that God will call me to account one day as head of the household. In the Bible, there are many examples where God's wrath and judgement extends from generation to generation, but on the flip side, so too does his mercy and grace. While the world and culture will impact our children's upbringing, the responsibility and largest impact will come from the family. From the home, Elijah will pick up on what is most important to me and any hypocrisies relating to how we live and what we teach. We recently presented Elijah for baptism and as part of the preparation, Edwina and I read through the book Bringing the Gospel to Covenant Children, which took us through the importance of and the reasons for baptising our children. One quote that stood out to me was how Charles Spurgeon's mother prayed; "Lord, Thou knowest if these prayers are not answered in Charles' conversion, these very petitions will have to bear witness against him in the day of judgement". This was such an incredibly confronting yet humbling reminder of my primary duty as a father: to steward my family and point them to the far greater Father who is deserving of all praise and worship. Enjoyed this read? Follow KCC for more!
5 books recommended by the OneLove team and available for sale from The Wandering Bookseller.  The theme for OneLove women's conference this August is "Running on Empty: How God Works Through Our Emptiness, Not in Spite of It". To help our delegates further explore how God works through emptiness, we have partnered with The Wandering Bookseller to offer some of our top reads on the topic.
To purchase these titles or to see the entire OneLove 22 range of recommended books, visit The Wandering Bookseller website. 
Pastoral Counsellor, Jeremy Ward, will join the BASECAMP: Mountains platform this Saturday to address the struggle of busyness.
We are pleased to announce that Pastoral Counsellor, Jeremy Ward, will be joining the BASECAMP: Mountains platform this Saturday. Addressing the topic of busyness and its pervasiveness in our time-poor culture of hustle and hurry, Jeremy will help us to develop spiritual disciplines enabling us to slow down and rest in the Lord.
Delegates will be presented with a 6-step framework which Jeremy has developed for the church context. This unique resource will enable delegates to identify and handle the pressures and heart issues that keep them stuck and distracted by busyness. 
Pastoral Counsellor Jeremy Ward will be interviewed at BASECAMP
Hosted by Katoomba Christian Convention, BASECAMP is an annual conference for men who want to know God better. Each year, men from all generations and across denominations have taken the time to hear God speak. This year, guest speakers Malcolm Gill (Associate Minister, St Andrews Cathedral Sydney) and Jonathan Andrews (Clinical Psychologist, Heart in Mind) will speak on the topic “Called to be Sons: Living Under God Our Father”, inviting men to consider their calling to Sonship and what it truly mans to be a man who is confident in his God-given identity and purpose. Join us at BASECAMP this Saturday!
There is still time to join us for BASECAMP: Mountains, either in-person in Katoomba or via livestream from your location of choice. Visit our website for tickets and more info: basecampmen.com
Stay up to date with BASECAMP!
7 ways to prepare your head and heart for BASECAMP men’s conference this August.  1. Tune your heart for worship with the BASECAMP Spotify playlist Familiarise yourself with the BASECAMP song list by following our Spotify playlist here. Whether you’re looking for a playlist for relaxing, study or the commute to work, the BASECAMP playlist is filled with hymns that will tune your heart for worship. 2. Grab your BASECAMP merch We have a fresh drop of BASECAMP merch for 2022 including a classic long sleeve polo, black or navy BASECAMP socks, as well as a limited-edition BASECAMP beanie! These items will be sold exclusively on-site at our 2022 City and Mountains events, or you can order after BASECAMP on our website.  3. Secure your Online Conference Pack If you can’t join us in-person this year, you can join us for the BASECAMP Livestreamed event at a convenient location of your choice! Registrations will give you access to BASECAMP 2022 live and on-demand until 12 September 2022. Make sure you register before Thursday 4 August to secure your Online Conference Pack including a printed booklet and pen. Register now.  4. Pray for BASECAMP Please join us in praying for BASECAMP men’s conference!
5. Familiarise yourself with Scripture that will be preached on the day Prepare your hearts and heads for the topic of Sonship by reading the following passages that will be covered at BASECAMP 22:
6. Download the KCC One App to access FREE content after BASECAMP Download the KCC One App to access BASECAMP Local, a free 4-part video series that you can use to further reflect on the topic of Sonship, either by yourself or with your brothers at church. Download now. 7. Grab your last-minute tickets!
There’s still time for you and your friends to join us for a fantastic day, hearing powerful preaching with 1,300+ brothers! Grab your last-minute tickets here: https://basecampmen.com/registration/#rego
Nancy Guthrie to share how we can find life, love and joy at OneLove women's conference.
Lifeless. Loveless. Joyless. Empty. How can something that doesn’t exist feel so heavy, and take up so much space in our souls? Isn’t it amazing how much pain can be caused by something that isn’t there? While the world tells us that the empty places of our lives are our greatest problem, the Bible shows us that God doesn’t see it this way. In fact, Scripture is filled with stories of God transforming emptiness into opportunities. At OneLovewomen’s conference, Author and International Speaker, Nancy Guthrie will show us the ways in which God’s people experienced emptiness—the insatiable cravings of the Israelities in the wilderness, the thirst in the Woman at the well, and the rich young ruler in search of the one thing that money can’t buy. By unpacking these well-known stories, Nancy will show us the ways God filled their emptiness with grace and kindness; presence and purpose.
Nancy’s three talks are titled:
1. The Life We’re Hungry For 2. The Love We’re Thirsty For 3. The Joy We’re Looking For To learn more about Nancy and the program for the day, visit our website: onelovewomen.com/speakers Welcome to OneLove22 | Nancy Guthrie from kcc on Vimeo.
Only 5 Days Left to Grab Your Standard Tickets!
OneLove is back in-person in 2022! Join us on Saturday 20th August live at Sydney Town Hall for a wonderful day of encouragement and fellowship, or if you can’t make it there, join us online.
In-person tickets include access to the full-day conference plus a special OneLove attendee gift. Livestream tickets include access to the full-day conference livestreamed, On-Demand access for 30 days, and a OneLove online pack* posted to you. To grab your tickets, visit our website: onelovewomen.com/register *Australian addresses only. You will receive a digital pack if you reside outside of Australia.
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