“Each Xmas I have helped different charities and have managed to get our clients to contribute to give as well each year! This year I personally want to help 3 different families in our area locally that need some help this year. I would like to arrange a hamper for each family and hopefully I can get clients to donate gifts & goods to the chosen families. I was told that your church would know who would benefit from this.” 

This is great on so many levels:

• Partnering together to care for those in need.
• Its a great thing for those in need to receive this Christmas.
• We both cross promote each other, as we let people at church know and they let their clients know about the venture… awareness of both groups grows. Mutually beneficial.
• It’s an encouragement to know that we have a reputation in the community of “doing good” and would know people in need this Christmas.

So this Salon will do up some hampers and then we will distribute it to 3 people we know who would welcome such a gift this Christmas.

Check out post 1 and post 2 in this 3 part series

• Seeking prosperity.
• Raised the profile of the cafe within our church & local community (online & offline)
• Mutually beneficial.

See the first post in this series

Some do’s and don’ts in connecting & serving businesses:

1. Pursue mutually beneficial partnerships - Don’t exploit local businesses. Often churches only approach businesses to get something out of them or assume they ‘should’ help churches out and donate to our cause or allow us to put posters up … but what do they get in return.
2. Seek their prosperity. Think of things that might bless them, help their business to thrive. What things can you do to help them build new connections, clients or customers. (This can still be ‘beneficial’ to your church also – wait for the next post in this series for an example.
   
   
3. Lead the way on important issues. Demonstrate to your community how we ought to repsond to tragedy, disaster or poverty around us. Although our motives my be different, I think it is good for the church to be the leader in mercy activities. Help unbelievers care about other people and perhaps include them in to your already established structures that contribute to those in need

The folk at Christianity Explored are going strength to strength with their resources for evangelism and this new iPhone app is in a league of its own.

• Its clean and fresh, with a contemporary design and format that is accessible to people used to excellence.
• Has all the benefits of their website content on your iphone.
• Answers to the simple question about What Christianity is.
• Videos of people answering tough questions. Really helpful stuff.
• Clips from a wide variety of people who’ve come to know and love Jesus for themselves. Powerful stuff.
• This material is succinct, relevant and most importantly biblical truth!
• PLUS easy access map to see where you can go and sign up to the Christianity Explored course.

This is just another reason why the Christianity Explored course is such a great evangelistic course to run at your church. The support resources are unrivalled. The DVDs are well produced (I like DVDs because I feel it allows people to disagree with content more and really thrash about ideas).

Anyway…

Why not download the app, use it with your friends and family and be sure to rate the app on iTunes. Show a little love to Christianity Explored, they deserve our partnership in the gospel!

Art and About asked Sydney WHAT IF… ?

They have now displayed Sydney’s answers on banners around the City…. Why not use them as stimulus for conversations with your friends, especially banners like this one… Could get you into a great conversation.

At our evening services last week Paul Dale preached a cracker of a sermon on Romans 5:12-21, reminding us that nothing stirs the heart for mission quite like knowing the dire situation for people who are still dead in their sin and are yet to know Christ.

Eight years ago I was dead in my sin, a ‘dead-woman-walking’. Looking back, I am so thankful for those who shared the gospel with me. These people loved me when I didn’t want to be loved; they spoke the gospel into my life when I didn’t want them to; and unbeknown to me they were praying for me. They really invested their time and energy into helping me encounter the super abundant grace of God. My whole world and eternity changed when I met Jesus. Hallelujah!

It is my prayer that God would be pleased to use our Church family mightily to impact eternity during our mission week coming up in October. I Heart Kirribilli provides us with an amazing opportunity to invest a bit more of our prayers, time and energy into making connections with friends and the local community, in hope they too would encounter the gospel of Christ and be brought from death to life.

Will you get involved?

There are lots of different volunteer opportunities. Some might seem a little more mundane, unseen, task-focused, or daunting, while other opportunities seem high energy, public, creative or easy. But each area is significant in how we are to effectively enable meaningful connections between people, and between people and God.

Please take a look at the volunteer opportunities form and prayerfully consider how you can use your gifts/skills and where you are willing to serve.

If you are new to Church by the Bridge or you’re looking for a way to serve or want to try your hand at a new ministry, we welcome you to join us on mission! Volunteering during our mission week is a great way to get involved and belong.

In Christ, Hayley Neal
Community Pastor

*To read more of the weekly newsletters and articles written by the pastoral staff at Church by the Bridge, please check out our blog

She wrote:

Art is extremely personal. I like to think of art as a visual diary. Whether the artist intends it or not, when you see their art in the best possible way, you get to see another dimension of them that you may have not known before. I was surprised to catch myself learning new things about each of the artist involved in this project. In a way, I was experiencing the benefits of doing Art in Community…Through the gift of art, we related to one another in a different way.

This is one of the reasons we (Church by the Bridge) hosts I Heart Kirribilli Art Exhibition and Prize. We want to know our neighbours in Kirribilli. We want to know what our neighbours think about the suburb they live in. More importantly we want to SEE what the visual diary of Kirribilli. What the community loves, experiences and knows about Kirribilli.

This year we are inviting Artists to create “AN INTRODUCTION” to Kirribilli. If you had to explain or introduce to a stranger on the street, the suburb of Kirribilli (her people, character, profile, charm), what would you say?

We are pleased to introduce two new categories this year: Graphic Design & Poetry/Prose. (unfortunately this will mean sketch/drawing and fashion will not be prize categories in 2011)

Check the website for more info (Dates, Terms & Conditions plus the online Entry Form etc)

For more about Art in Community from Jenny – click here.

One of the concerns was the difficulty of obtaining studio and/or gallery space. Partly due to expense, location (many of the ‘places’ are concentrate in the city and displace artists from their communities), and even if you did have such a space no audience (Sydney: GO! VIEW! ART!)

Some of the solutions bandied about were: property owners loan your property/retail space to artists on temporary basis (artists promise they won’t become squatters and never leave); have local artists showcasing in their local communities, and pitching to their local community. Success doesn’t mean 2000 people coming to view your exhibition or piece. Aim to reach people on your street, your neighbours! The panelists in the debate even suggested that more churches need to be transformed into art space.

I thought this was a) a snide comment of the panels opinion that churches are a dying, they are wasted space, only being used on a Sunday and could serve local communities better than just preaching a sermon on Sundays! and b) a great encouragement to the endeavors our church and others like York St Anglican Church are doing with art!

York St recently had a festival in their church. Here is a snapshot comment from Jenny Ihn on using church space as an art space.

Unlike contemporary white gallery spaces, we did not have a space that primarily existed ‘for’ the Art. We had, if you like, a ‘historic space loaded with memories of the past’.

Read more of Jenny’s reflections here

Related articles

• Our Churches Are The Proof Of The Gospel (via Brister & Dever) (mgpcpastor.wordpress.com)
• Artists reveal their private spaces at M Gallery invitational show (charlestoncitypaper.com)