Opawa Baptist Church :: a resting place

kids art

Are kids allowed to enjoy learning? View image: 70K

Season of prayer

I have added the following online season of prayer resources to the website:

1. 10 day Season of prayer resource booklet given to all participants: Download file

2. More online description at my own personal website (www.emergentkiwi.org.nz) here

3. Prayer advertising. Download file

You're welcome to use or modify any of this stuff. If you do, why not exercise the gift of encouragement by dropping us an email to let us know what happened and/or how you changed anything.

A wider word of explanation:
A number have people have asked for more info on what happened with the Opawa season of prayer.

While at Graceway Baptist Church, we had run a season of prayer three times, keen to get the community praying together, in different ways, and keen to expand people's ideas on what prayer was.

Moving to a new ministry at Opawa, it seemed to me that there were many links between Opawa as a church facing a new future, and the Acts narrative, with the disciples facing a new future as Jesus ascends. They gathered, waited and prayed. Why could we not gather, wait and pray? Why could we not pause before God, create some space in our lives, to wait and listen?

I wanted us as a community at Opawa (and Graceway) to live in the Biblical story, to let it shape our lives and our dreams. So I divided the Acts chapters 1, 2 into "bits"; and isolated a theme;

Day ::: Biblical Text ::: Theme ::: Focus of prayer

Thu ::: Acts 1:1-5 ::: Fresh excitement ::: Mission
Fri ::: Acts 1:6-11 ::: Repentance ::: Confession
Sat ::: Luke 4:16-21 ::: Mission ::: Ministries, missionaries of church

Sun ::: Prayer in worship services.

Mon ::: Acts 1:15-26 ::: Leader ::: Leaders and new leaders
Tues ::: Acts 2:1-4 ::: Ministry for all ::: Everyone in church
Wed ::: Genesis 2:2-4 ::: Day of rest
Thu ::: Acts 2:5-12 ::: Many voices ::: Our community
Fri ::: Acts 2:14-37 ::: Preaching ::: Preaching, teaching, people saved
Sat ::: Acts 2:43-47 ::: Healthy community ::: Small groups, community building occasions, radical lifestyle discipleship.

methodist newspaper features side door and easter journey

The April Methodist Touchstone denominational magazine features an article on Side Door and the Easter Journey, complete with pictures. To read the whole article go here.

PS. There's also an interview with Steve Taylor here.

PSS OK, OK, so you really just want the photo.

Photos of Easter and Christmas journey

Each year Side door and Opawa Baptist work together to run art installations for Easter and Christmas. It's a fairly major exercise for both groups. Shipping containers arrive, or a garden gets built in a church. It involves about 60 people from Opawa and huge amounts of creativity from Peter and Joyce Majendie. It serves about 1000 people from around Christchurch to turn up. Download here my written reflections on the most recent Easter Journey (2005).

Print media articles are here and here.

Photos of Easter 2005 are here. Photos of Christmas 2005 are here. (Nate Cull took the photos.)

opawa bloggers

Good to see Andrew, an Opawa-ite blogging away at what the flock. Good stuff.

Other Opawa bloggers:
Steve
Lynne
Paul

breath of God

In John 20; post-Easter, Jesus, in the name of the Father, and for the sake of mission, breathes on the disciples to "Recieve the Spirit." This links with Genesis 2:7, God breathes life into the human. Life, creativity, vitality, passion are breathed. The Resurrection hope is for Spirit infilled, enthused, creative, vital, life-giving, sent into our cities in the name of God.

On Sunday evening at Digestion, people were invited to reflect on these texts, by making origami balloons. Fold brightly coloured paper just right, and blow, and up pops a paper balloon. People were invited to place this onto a map of Christchurch, as their prayer for their lives to be creative, vital, Spirit-enthused in their homes and workplaces.