G’day Church,
If you weren’t able to be at church last Sunday you missed an update on some of our mission and outreach activities:
The Last Daughter film screening on Friday 20th: This was a great night! In addition to a bunch of our church members, we had 14 guests, many of whom don’t know Jesus or attend a church. This event grew out of an idea from a couple of our members and it was wonderful to see it come to fruition, so well hosted by a great team. Most of all it was a great way to introduce friends and neighbours to our church. One guest who hadn’t been at church for years felt comfortable to check us out last Sunday, and I’ve heard of various conversations with guests who want to find out more about “the church that put this event on”. Please pray for those conversations to raise sufficient curiosity that they’d come and see why we love Jesus. And ask God to give us more creative ideas for simple ways to introduce our neighbours to our church family as a stepping stone towards introducing them to Jesus.
Taste And See: It’s been great to hear the buzz around church about Taste and See, however recent illness in the Marshman household means we’re postponing it. We’re convinced that Taste and See will be a great tool for sharing the gospel, and all the prep done for it will still be just as useful for doing it at a later date. There is a great team who have come together to help host the course, and in future years we’d be able to go ahead even without the senior pastor being at full capacity. But we’re keen to make sure that the first time we run it is a really positive experience for everyone: guests, team members, and church as a whole. So we’ll push it through to early next year. Thank God for the flexibility of those who are serving in this ministry, and lets start praying that this would provide an excellent opportunity to invite people who come at Christmas to then check out Taste and See.
Christmas: Speaking of Christmas, it’s only a couple of months away! Church will be at 9am on Christmas Day and it’ll be a great chance to gather friends and family to celebrate together and to hear the message of Christmas. We’ve been thinking creatively about the best ways to connect with our neighbourhood, and given Christmas falls on a Monday this year so we’ve decided to do something quite different on Sunday 24th – Christmas Eve. Instead of meeting for Sunday morning church as usual, we’re going to host a Community Lunch at the Holdfast Bay Community Centre. We hope that this will be an excellent event to invite neighbours who might otherwise feel quite isolated at Christmas time to come and join our church family for a delicious meal and some festive cheer. Details are yet to be finalised, but there are lots of ways to get involved: letterboxing the neighbourhood or making some Christmas gifts that we can share with the guests who join us for lunch. Of course, it’ll take a team of people to cook and host, and if you know a local a butcher, baker or grocer who might like to support a community event like this then please let us know and we’ll get in touch with them about it. All aiming to bless our community, while giving us the chance to invite them to join us for the 25th and beyond as we seek to point them to Jesus.
In all of this we are reminded of the tremendous privilege that it is to be part of God’s family on mission together. Bound together as brothers and sisters in Christ, delighting in our own experience of his grace and joyfully sharing it with the world around us. You’ll hear more about all of this in coming weeks, but let’s keep praying that God would keep forming us in his grace, for his great glory.
Cheers,
Simon