28/08/2026
The story recounted in Matthew 14:13-21 of Jesus feeding the 5,000 carries a powerful message of what God can do. The five loaves and the two fish became a satisfying meal for so many people, ‘about five thousand men, besides women and children’. When we engage in God’s work whether through prayer, financial giving, practical service or full-time engagement, there is no knowing how abundantly God may bless that work. Done in His Name, God uses our little to advance His kingdom. As has been said many times, ‘Little is much when God is in it’.
The story of Pat Nixon is a powerful testimony to this. Pat was a disruptive child who, in Sunday school, had to be taken aside for individual attention which included the colouring in of a picture with the Bible text, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.’ As a teenager, in a moment of despair and anguish when he was considering taking his own life, that verse came back to his mind and distracted him from his intention. He came to know Jesus as his Saviour and Lord, ultimately founding and managing The Mustard Seed, a Canadian organisation that has aided thousands of homeless people – and still does so – in a Christian environment.
Did that Sunday school teacher ever think that the act of teaching a boy a Scripture verse would ultimately produce so much good for so many people?
HTC exists to train and equip ‘workers for the vineyard’, people of faith who feel called to serve God throughout the world. We are committed to a biblical focus on service that trains people to think biblically, to understand the historical context in which the Scriptures are set, to understand the relationship that exists between different parts of Scripture and above all, to encourage a living faith in Jesus, God’s Son, as the only way of salvation. It gives the HTC staff much pleasure and satisfaction to see the students go out into the world carrying the Good News of the Kingdom and multiplying ‘the loaves and the fishes’.
God is the same faithful God as He was yesterday and will be tomorrow and so we look to Him for the increase under the Holy Spirit’s blessing. In 1 Corinthians 3:6 the Apostle Paul writes, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but it is God who has made it grow”. We look to God for His abundant blessing on our work.
- Dugald MacPherson
Chair of the Board of Governors
