The Wednesday night before last the church car park was full. The activities in and around the church that night make an interesting snapshot of our life at Opawa.
Side Door is one of our five congregations and they were at worship. Challenged by the minor prophets, they had brought a whole lot of plates and were going to smash them at the cross as a means of exploring the place of anger in Christian faith.
In the foyer a block course was starting. How to read the Old Testament for all it's worth will spend 7 weeks exploring tools to help read the Bible better. I have wanted to see this type of Biblical discipling offered in our life for a long time now, part of our 07 goals of building disciples. We are looking to run a How to read the New Testament for all it's worth in Term 1, 2008.
Across the road OBY (Opawa Baptist Youth) were meeting. A good number are local community kids from unchurched families. They were just back from a weekend camp and on Wednesday they were going to be reading prayer postcards, handwritten personally to them from our Sunday morning congregation.
Meanwhile, a planning group are gathering in a nearby home to start talking about our church camp, the weekend of February 29-2 March, 2008.
Now as a pastor, I am at none of these. We have good staff and good leaders. Instead, I am at church and in my office starting four weeks of pre-marriage preparation with a couple. Not regular Opawa church goers, I've walked with their family through some hard time and now they have asked me to marry them.
So this is a snapshot of Opawa on a Wednesday night: worshipping, growing in Bible depth, hearing our prayers, planning into the future, wanting to build strong marriages.
The Wednesday night before last the church car park was full. The activities in and around the church that night make an interesting snapshot of our life at Opawa.
Side Door is one of our five congregations and they were at worship. Challenged by the minor prophets, they had brought a whole lot of plates and were going to smash them at the cross as a means of exploring the place of anger in Christian faith.
In the foyer a block course was starting. How to read the Old Testament for all it's worth will spend 7 weeks exploring tools to help read the Bible better. I have wanted to see this type of Biblical discipling offered in our life for a long time now, part of our 07 goals of building disciples. We are looking to run a How to read the New Testament for all it's worth in Term 1, 2008.
Across the road OBY (Opawa Baptist Youth) were meeting. A good number are local community kids from unchurched families. They were just back from a weekend camp and on Wednesday they were going to be reading prayer postcards, handwritten personally to them from our Sunday morning congregation.
Meanwhile, a planning group are gathering in a nearby home to start talking about our church camp, the weekend of February 29-2 March, 2008.
Now as a pastor, I am at none of these. We have good staff and good leaders. Instead, I am at church and in my office starting four weeks of pre-marriage preparation with a couple. Not regular Opawa church goers, I've walked with their family through some hard time and now they have asked me to marry them.
So this is a snapshot of Opawa on a Wednesday night: worshipping, growing in Bible depth, hearing our prayers, planning into the future, wanting to build strong marriages.
From the church meeting on Thursday, 11 October.
The motion to proceed with the building project was passed, by unanimous vote, as was the motion to seek funding through a mix of existing money, pledges and no-interest loans, with the project commencing upon appropriate pledges and monies to $400,000.
At this point there was delighted silence followed by spontaneous applause, as no-one could remember being part of a unanimous decision to embark on a building project. There was also thankfulness from the floor for the amount of work put into the consultative and communication process.
The motion to proceed with staff appointments, Missional resourcing pastor and Discipling pastor (part-time for 2008); young generations (for 2009) and church manager (into 2009), was also passed.
The motion as to how these appointments be made led to considerable discussion. The motion that an interview panel bring a recommendation to the Board was passed by 29 votes to 13 (69% of those who voted). From my perspective as a pastor I wonder if we need a find a way to continue to listen to each other about the best processes for decision making to flow between leaders, Board and church body.
Next steps: From next Sunday, 21st October , an information pack regarding the building project will be given out, with the invitation for all of us to pray and consider how we might be involved in the building project. Then on November 24th at our Open Home Open Year services, we will take up a second offering at our church services, with people invited to indicate their involvement. It is over 20 years since the church was involved in major building changes, so we are all in for a very exciting time as we put into practise Hebrews 11:6. “And without faith it is impossible to please God …”