Hearts on the same page

SU Australia and SU Vietnam team up to encourage local Vietnamese churches in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane

Our shared heart at SU Australia is to see more and more children, young people and families welcomed into God’s big story, a mission that is only strengthened by partnership with like-hearted people to reach all the corners of our culturally diverse nation.

A brilliant embodiment of this is the recent relationship formed with our neighbours in SU Vietnam, a thriving SU hub in South-East Asia, who made a special trip to visit us in August.

“The purpose of this visit was to enable SU Australia to serve the Vietnamese churches of Australia,” explains Culture Team head Tim.

“Through Vietnamese key leaders, we started to learn about a gap that exists between the local Vietnamese churches and our predominantly white or European cultural representation in SU Australia. There are around 70 Vietnamese heritage churches in Australia of different denominations who largely didn’t know about the work of SU.”

SU Vietnam Ministry Coordinator Esther and Staff Team Leader Elizabeth, along with an amazing collection of Vietnamese Bible and ministry resources produced in-house by SU Vietnam, visited three of our capital cities: Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, making valuable connections with the network of Vietnamese churches in Australia. Through contact with around 20 churches, they ended up reaching even more.

While news of the visit spread quickly, the planning to make this happen took place over a couple of years in the spirit of building relationships and trust.

“One of SU’s hearts is to bring unity, unity between us and another SU movement in another country, but also we’re drawing churches together who are hungry for God and his Word and resources. It’s been a kingdom-of-God building process,” explains Tim.

“They did things that we couldn’t do, and we did things they couldn’t do. It was a real, genuine partnership; and that’s one of the real highlights of this.”

In bringing not only themselves, but their resources with them, Esther and Elizabeth were able to offer invaluable assistance in discipleship and children’s ministry to the local Vietnamese churches.

“We discovered that SU Vietnam is a real powerhouse in the middle of South-East Asia and one of their main strengths is that they produce great material. They have this incredible set of resources about the Bible, family and children,” says Tim.

“One of the hopes of this is that local Vietnamese-background kids grow in their faith and that Vietnamese families are encouraged in their discipleship of their kids.

“I think we all share a desire for Vietnamese people living in Australia to come to faith through their Vietnamese church. A big prayer is that we see Vietnamese Australians discovering life in God’s big story,” says Tim.

The feedback from the local churches was overwhelmingly positive and can be summed up by a comment by Pastor Tri Nguyen:

“Tonight our church (50 or so, young and old) was moved to tears with joy and amazement and inspired by Esther and Elizabeth. Their heart and passion light up the room. Thanks for bringing them over. It was a wonderful gift for our church and a blessing we didn’t anticipate.”

May blessings continue to flow as an outpouring of this landmark visit.