Archive | June, 2009

and I quote…

June 26, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

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Church, Jesus

Art Exhibition & Prize

June 24, 2009 by hayleyneal 1 Comment

Art is often seen to be superfluous and not efficient. It takes time, its production is often done in isolation, it can be very expensive and it demands hard work. Such energy could be better spent elsewhere, right? So why paint landscapes, photograph portraits, write poetry, create shapes, compose or play music?

Art is an on-going conversation. Art is an amazing forum for dialogue within our society. Although it is not the only concern for all artists to make bold statements and assert ideologies about humanity, art provides an arena where truth, identity, origins, beauty and behaviour can be explored and celebrated. We live in a complex world full of beauty and brokenness and we all respond differently to these contradictions, of joys and trials, which we are all faced with in life.      Art has the power to affect and awaken people to this world that we temporally inhabit and open up to people their own emotions. In the words of William Blake, it enables us to see ‘a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower.’ Artists and creatives have a unique place in our culture to shape and inform our communities: to tell the stories of its people, to celebrate its achievements, reflect on the anxieties and record the questions of our day. This is reason enough for art.

Church by the Bridge is excited to hold I❤Kirribilli Art Exhibition and Prize, part of its 9-day anniversary celebrations.  This year marks 125 years since the foundation of the church in the Kirribilli community and not only do we want to celebrate our birthday but also the local community we are a part of.  Church by the Bridge loves its many neighbours, its vibrant and beautiful surrounds and its unique history. We are thankful for 125 years here with you.

What better way to celebrate the things we love about our community here in Kirribilli, than through the powerful and evocative means available to us in art?

Arts, Community, Ideas

Art Exhibition & Prize

June 24, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Entries were open to all… we advertised by having posters up outside church, sending promo packs to local art schools and community art groups, libraries, larger art schools, as well as advertising with google ads and facebook ads. Entries details were all completed online by the artists (using wufoo forms) which made it easy for managing the works and doing up an exhibition catalogue and exhibition labels for display. It also reduced the need for any data entry.

We received over 30 entries from the community with the majority living locally in Kirribilli and surrounds.

We stripped the church of the pews and turned it into an art space – hiring exhibition gear to display the artworks.

I Heart Kirribilli Art Exhibition was open to the public 9am-9pm Monday to Thursday. We were so fortunate to have about 3 people each hour to man the exhibition over the 12 hour days. We had a peoples choice award, which acted as a great way to  be able to greet and chat with those who wandered through the exhibition. Over  500 people voted for their favourite work, which is exciting to think that that number and more wandered through the church building that week who normally would not step foot inside our doors.

I think the art exhibition works to tear down the walls – people walked into their local church. It makes it very easy for them to become familiar with the building and the faces of those who go there.

Arts, Community

Free Music

June 17, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Picture 2

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Jesus, Media, Music

REVIEW a_Cross//the_earth :: tear down the walls

June 17, 2009 by hayleyneal 1 Comment

Hillsong United’s New Album ☆☆☆☆

First listen wasn’t won over by it… but since being acquainted with the lyrics, my heart has been moved and feed by the tunes on this album.

I guess the abulm titled song, Tear Down the Walls, acts as an anthem that that challenges us to look at the world from a different perspective:

Tear down the walls see the world
Is there something we have missed
Turn from ourselves
Look beyond
There is so much more than this…

Let love tear down these walls
That all creation would
Come back to You
It’s all for You

This album has some stadium sized songs of celebration ( Your Name High, More than Anything, Freedom is Here) and some beautiful ballad-esque (Oh You Bring, Soon, You Hold me Now) of  prayerful reflection.

The thing that has stood out in this album is the eschatological hope and kingdom longing woven in the lyrics.  So many of the songs encourage us to look ahead to the time soon when our King is coming, robed in righteousness and crowned with love, when creation lives in peace, when there will be no weeping, no hurt or pain, no suffering, no darkness, no sick or lame, no hiding  and where shame is forgotten, for eternity!

But greater than all these things is that it will be a place where Jesus is:

“I will be with the one I love,

with unveiled face I’ll see him,

then my soul will be satisfied,

soon and very soon”

- Soon, Brooke Fraser -

My Favourite Songs:

*** Free Song MP3 Download: No Reason to Hide @ Hillsong United

Arts, Jesus, Music

Cakes ‘n Treats…

June 5, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

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We already have a free lunch ministry that we run at Church by the Bridge. This happens once a month at church. To continue to build this ministry we decided to do a mid-week afternoon tea at a local housing commission unit block to reach some people who may not normally make the effort to walk up to the church.

This is a low fuss way to get to know some locals and have a presence in the community. Those who came along to the afternoon tea really valued the company and time we spent chatting with them. The more you spend time with them the more you find out their needs, wants, desires and hopes. Slowly we are building some friendships that I pray God will use to speak his gospel into their lives.

We took with us some cakes and treats from the local bakery, milk, coffee (yes, in my faviourite new appliance – the airpot), soft drink bottles and few people from church and most of the staff team.

We asked people from church who have afternoons free to come along to help out and enjoy conversations with the locals. We also asked some of the residents we know there to make an effort to come along and bring their friends.

Community, Evangelism, Ideas

Form Management

June 5, 2009 by hayleyneal 1 Comment

Do you have an event that needs entry forms?

A dinner people need to sign up and pay for?

Want an easy way for volunteers to sign up to help out with things?

CREATE A FORM @ WUFOO.

What is Wufoo? Wufoo strives to be the easiest way to collect information over the Internet.

Their HTML form builder helps you create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations so you can collect the data, registrations and online payments you need without writing a single line of code.

All the info is stored online for you to access, search and export into .csv or .xls formats. So very convenient if you need to manage volunteers for outreach week or entries into an art exhibition or sign up for fitness morning.

They also have templates you can just copy and adjust for your needs. Use it for your church weekend away rego etc…

Check out some of the forms we used for 125 Year Celebration Week:

Volunteer Form

I HEART Exhibition Entry Form

Fitness Morning Rego

Technology, Tips, Volunteers

Fair Trade Markets

June 5, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

CHECK PHOTOS OUT HERE

We run Fair Trade Markets reasobly regularly but they acted as the launch for our 125 year Anniversary Celebration week @ Church by the Bridge with a whole lot of other activity that normally doesn’t happen at these markets. This post and a few following will detail what events we ran to outreach to our community, how we did it, few handy hits, resources & rationale etc.

Fairtrade Markets

Fairtrade Markets we run out the front of the church building, with doors to church open wide for peopel to wander through. (People love looking a churches and curiosity gets the better of them – so let them in)

Before the day:

  1. Design a flyer to stick in the noticeboard out the front of church.
  2. Order products from Tribes & Nations.
  3. Once order has come in, write prices on little sticky labels and place on products.
  4. Order some groovy paper bags to put purchased items in. (google ‘paper bags’ heaps of shops come up – ring and get a good price)
  5. Get some espresso coffee cups from a catering store, milk, stirrers, and sugars.
  6. Ask people at church to bake cupcakes & to be dropped off on the morning of the markets day.

On the day:

  1. Set up market umbrellas, tables with black table cloth (stretch jersey knit fabric – cheap from spotlight, works really well).
  2. Display products out on the table, neatly.
  3. Play some music through CD player.
  4. Put church flyers in the paper bags, so people get the advertising when they make a purchase.
  5. Get coffee ready. (Airpots work a treat, keep coffee hot and look proffessional – get them from catering supplies stores like Reward Distrubution).
  6. Get people to hand out free coffee & cupcakes. “Want to try a sample of fair trade coffee?” “would you like a free cupcake?”

To pump this up for 125 Celebrations we also added a BBQ, had the  I Heart Kirribilli exhibition on in the hall, I heart Kirribilli Tshirts for sale, live music in the courtyard, free helium balloons, kids facepainting & showbags. Lots of activity and buzz that doesn’t require insane amounts of effort.

Little Effort?

Ask one person to head up each thing.

I asked Suzie to head up Fairtrade.
Chris to do BBQ.
Kids church to look after Kids fun.
Laura to get a friend to play music.
Alex to look after t-shirts.
Nicolie to work out the exhibition.

Hand resposibillity over to them, help them out, give them guidence where needed, and farm out to them people from church who have volunteered to help. This saves you from doing all the hard yards, empowers and equips the church to serve and ensures things get done – plus it creates opportunity for everyone to serve, at different capactities.

Community, Ideas, Tips

If I was a Community Pastor I would… PUT FAITH ON THE AGENDA #10

June 4, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Provide opportunities for people to investigate Christianity & for faith to be put on the agenda.Run Simply Christianity, Introducing God etc. Make sure there is one running often and advertise it. Don’t make people have to wait too long, you want to be able to say there is one starting on….

Two locals in off the street in the last week asking for courses about Christianity – when does that happen? Not that often, but God is gracious and imagine if you said well, the next one is in September!

If you don’t have the people power to run courses back to back, think creatively about how you do it…

  • ask people to be ‘missionaries’ from their bible study groups for 5 weeks to run it.
  • get the same people to run the course continually throughout the year.
  • use DVD courses, that do much of the prep for you.
  • find days of the week that enable people at church to serve in the course… most non-Christians have flexible evening commitments, it is usually only Christians who can’t do a Tuesday or Wednesday night ;

So it is easy to run a course for people who want to sign up, or for those you can coax along, but how do you put faith on the agenda for your community?

This is a hard question and one I haven’t been so great at answering practically. For me the way I get to put faith on the agenda for people, is by aswering the question that lots of people in the commuity ask me:  “what do you do at the church”…. this is a great springboard for conversation… but there should be more ways you can raise faith discussions for locals:

I’ve been thinking about the various was you can do walk up evangelism…

  • “so ah… who do you think Jesus is?”
  • “at church this week the sermon is on being satisfied… what do you reckon it would take to be satisfied?”
  • “what do you expect from your local church?”
  • “what do you expect from God?”
  • “just wondering if there is anything we can pray for you?

Do it – give it a go this week…

The other thing I think would be great is using your marketing team. At Church we have A1 posters in frames (Officeworks are doing a great deal at the moment for $70 odd dollars.) Get some pithy quote or provocative saying that makes people think done up pretty and print it off and lean it against the fence of your church – we use them to advertise events, but I reckon we could use them also for putting faith on peoples agendas.

Community, Evangelism, Ideas, Jesus, People

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