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Message & Audience #2: Bubble Boy…

October 20, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Do you know Christians, who are so Christian, they only know Christians and speak Christian lingo?

Bubble Boy | Pronunciation: \ˈbə-bəl\ ˈboi\ | Function: noun

1. Anyone who person protects themselves in the bubble wrap of Christian community. They only have Christian friends. He is morally pure, loves Jesus, generous and has a willing Spirit, involved in lots of ministries.

2. He is pleasant and polite to his work colleagues, super efficient at work, never goes to after-work drinks for its too hard work and just can’t get his head around their desire to drink so much. She never engages with her colleagues on a personal level- the closest he comes to in doing this is when he tells them they should come to church.

3. He is often heard saying: ‘I don’t like hanging out with the people from work, I have nothing in common with them’.

4. He backs up her lifestyle with the bible verse: 1 Cor 15:33 “Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

5. In doing this, He has a message to share but has no audience of non-Christians with which to share because he avoids relationships with them. He is ineffective in his witness not to mention unlike Christ in his compassion for the non-Christian: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” Mark 6:34.

READ ALSO: Message & Audience #1: Immersionist

Community, Culture, Evangelism

How alike are you and the Apostle Paul?

September 10, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Picture 18

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is not at all alike and 10 is very much alike, rate how alike you and the Apostle Paul are when he says in Romans 10:1 “it is my heart’s desire and prayer to God that they are saved”?
Wherever you sit on this scale, we all could be more passionate and personal in the way we pray for our local communities:

LIST all the different demographics unique to your community and pray without ceasing and without growing weary.

LEARN about each demographics best interests, perceived hurdles to the gospel and pray! Ask God for new relationships & depth in existing ones, for opportunities to love, serve, get to know and care for each demographic.

KNOW what is going on in the local community: events and activities that are run by locals for locals. Pray for the success of the events and for your own time to invest in local relationships through these events.

WALK and pray for the residents of each house you pass. Stop at street signs and pray for entire streets.

NAME all the people individually who you have met and come to know in your local area – be faithful for years in prayer for them.

Church, Community, Evangelism, prayer

Do you charge for church?

September 9, 2009 by hayleyneal 4 Comments

Picture 23

Should churches place a cost on the supper table for – after-service-dinner/supper/morning tea?

What do the added costs like this communicate to outsiders?

Is this a good expression of Christian generosity? Is it fair to ask people to pay their way?

Church, Community

Two Thousand

September 3, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

TWO THOUSAND This is a blog that tells you whats hip in funky Sydney town! It is a subcultural guide to Sydney. TwoThousand is a weekly snapshot of Sydney’s subculture – a Sydney guide to film, music, design, books, art, goods and links for people who realise that the best things in life are often hard to find. It tells you what is good to:

WATCH

EATDRINK

READ

SHOP

GOODS


I subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date with what voices are being listened to, what is sparking interest in Sydney, what is gathering others together other than Jesus!

There is also a: [ThreeThousand - Melbourne] [FourThousand - Brisbane] [FiveThousand - Adelaide] [SixThousand - Perth]

Community, Culture

Who Are Your Neighbours?

August 11, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

There are lots of demographic resources, such as your Local Council’s website or Informed Decisions (www.id.com.au) which have community snapshots available, which can help you build a better picture of your parish or church suburb. I have blogged about them before however I have been recently convicted about how much time I spend researching outreach opportunities and/or getting to know my community via the web. (helpful thing to do, but shouldn’t be the only way it happens)

My encouragement to you is instead of sitting behind a computer to work out who your neighbours are, check out the demographics for yourself. Wander around your local community and see with your own eyes the people you are trying to reach.

Take off every couple of weeks to sit on a park bench, in a café or to just stroll the streets – and watch your community walk by. Go at different times and days in the week and as you scan the faces, shops, business and activity ask these questions:

  • What are the businesses that thrive?
  • Are there lots of the same services available?
  • What does your local council focus efforts on?
  • What other community services cater for people in your area?
  • Where do the people spend most of their leisure time?
  • How strong is the sense of common identity?
  • Are they young, old, workers, wealthy, unemployed?
  • What do they value?
  • What is my church doing to reach them with the good news of Jesus?
Church, Community, Jesus, People

From the web…

August 7, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Churches that fit their community
Archie Poulos
August 6th, 2009

Church By the Bridge at Kirribilli recently ran an Art competition for depictions of the suburb. They offered a $1000 prize to the winner. It was a huge success at raising the profile of the church and engaging with the local community.

That made me wonder about how should a church fit into a community. After all, our efforts in Connect 09 revolve around contacting our community.

Gary Bully is a denominational church planting theorist from the USA.

Martin Morgan gave me one of his papers called “Developing a Contextualized Church Planting Strategy”. In it he says there are four possible relationships between a church and the community, two corporate and two personal. They are:

1. The church as the centre of community life
2. The church as part of the community
3. Church people loved as an important part of the community
4. Church people not really noticed in the community

My thoughts on this are that the first two are not necessarily alternatives to the second two; they may feed each other. A much more important reality however would be that God is at the centre of the community. Bully is insightful though, because he helps us to see that people identified as Christians, and Christians as a group being known and appreciated is very helpful as we work toward God being the centre of our community.

So a couple of questions come to mind about my congregation. They are:

1. How do I perceive my place in the community?
2. How do I perceive the church’s place in the community
3. How does my community perceive my place in it?
4. How does my community perceive the place of our church?

The difference between the answers to questions 1 and 2 compared to questions 3 and 4 will keep us honest. I have found Peter Bolt’s Mission Minded book a great help in thinking through how to better place ourselves and our church in the community.

from SydneyAnglicans.net

Community, Evangelism

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

Cakes ‘n Treats…

June 5, 2009 by hayleyneal 0 Comments

Slide1

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

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
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