Around the church this week included the following:
On Sunday, a great celebration of the launch of ICONZ, with bouncy castle, go-kart races and lots of sausages sold to fund-raise. Congratulations to the ICONZ leaders.
On Tuesday afternoon, a baptism explained class continued, with Paul McMahon exploring the question “Will you follow Jesus?”
On Tuesday evening, our espresso congregation met, enjoying each other’s company over a social night.
On Wednesday morning, the church hosted a Community Demographics Seminar, led by Lynne Taylor (sponsored by Baptist Union, Vision New Zealand and Life Resources). About 60 church and community leaders from around Christchurch gathered in the auditorium to pore over the 2006 census data for their communities. This included six people from Opawa Baptist, dreaming, talking, praying over what it means for us to be earthed in Waltham.
On Wednesday evening good feedback continued to emerge with Craig Fairhall’s leadership of the How to Read the New Testament for all it’s Worth (Term 2) evening block course. It’s great to be part of a church which offers places to go deeper Biblically.
On Thursday, planning for the Re-Launch of our youth ministry gathered pace. Three teams have begun to form: a team to disciple, a team to encourage relating and a team to enhance our whanau feeling. Over dinner they worked on expectations and sought to clarify a way forward. Good numbers, good energy.
On Friday, mainly music met, encouraged by new faces and good numbers.
Lots to give thanks to God for!
Last Sunday we commissioned Bob and Dianne Jaeger as Youth Ministry Leaders. The news was greeted with spontaneous applause and many gathered around (at both at 10:30am and 7pm services), to support them in prayer.
There was also joy at the news that over the last month, 11 people have offered to help in various ways with our youth ministries. This includes Brigades, OBY and Koru. It also includes a new whanau times ministry that we are looking to develop, that will allow relational times across all our children, youth and adults, with generations joining together.
This is the result of a process that included two forums, several phone calls to our youth and a focus group on growing boys spiritually. I want to say a big thank you to all who participated and for the clarity, direction and energy it has given to our youth and family ministry.
Pray for Bob and Dianne as they settle. Pray that the direction agreed through the forums can become reality. Pray that new volunteers will be blended seamlessly with the existing volunteers and for the formation of three teams - to disciple, to have fun and to create whanau times. Pray for the young people currently going through baptism explained. Pray for the young teenage girls currently drifting because of the breaking of the deep bonds they shared with Amy.
Pray for the two morning church services, this Sunday May 25 and Sunday June 8, that through them we at Opawa will grow in our ability to grow boys and girls spiritually.
This Sunday’s service includes the rebranding of Boys Brigade as ICONZ. Enjoy their passion and energy! Stay for the ICONZ Community Launch at 12 noon.
Last week was Pentecost Sunday, the celebration of the activity of the Spirit, and offered some real encouragements:
· the Spirit disturbed the church, and so a “disturbed” auditorium. We will continue the experiment of visuals, a closer pulpit and a floor to ceiling frost cloth over the next weeks
· the Spirit challenging and convicting, and so someone saying yes to baptism
· the Spirit sending the church out in mission (1), and so a prayer walk around our Waltham community, which included the most practical prayer I have ever seen, “Your Kingdom come on earth,” as we picked up broken glass in the Waltham Primary School playground
· the Spirit sending the church out in mission (2), and so JM meeting with AC, our Missions Leader, and Jamie Wood, from Pioneers, seeking to discern together what God is saying about her returning longer term to Puerto Rico
· the Spirit sending the church out in mission (3), and so 6 people giving out flowers into our local community during our Sunday morning service. They were received with gratitude and warmth. A further encouragement was meeting a woman living in a garage, who pointed to a bowl of tomatoes. “They are from the vegetable plants that your church gave out last year [in the Spring Clean].” It was great to see evidence of our church making a practical difference in our community.
So much of the activity of the Spirit to thank and praise God for.
This excellent short course starts this Wednesday, 7:30-9 pm, in church foyer and runs for the remainder of Term 2. It is designed for anyone wanting to grow in understanding the Bible and will cover how to interpret gospels, parables, letters, Revelation.
Lead by the pastoral team.
A practical eight week course on reading and understanding the New Testament
Aim: to provide some interpretation tools, introduce some of the major characters and themes and to give a general overview of different topics.
Wednesday evenings, 7.30 – 9.00pm from May 14th
Wednesday 14th May: Skills for interpreting
Wednesday 21st May: New Testament overview and background
Wednesday 28th May: Following Acts
Wednesday 4th June: Reading the Letters
Wednesday 11th June: Appreciating the Gospels
Wednesday 18th June: Probing the Parables
Wednesday 25th June:Hearing Revelation
Wednesday 2nd July: Drawing threads together - “Celebration”
Each night will include an opportunity for questions and answers.
No prior biblical knowledge needed
For more information or to register your interest please contact the Opawa Church office on 379-7680 or office@opawa.org.nz
This week is Pentecost Sunday.
In Acts 2 we find the story of the first Pentecost. It is the story of a group of dispirited and scared Jesus followers. Touched by the Spirit they find them-selves disturbed. Such a disturbance becomes a profound reorientation, as they find themselves outdoors, in God’s mission outside the church walls.
We celebrate both these dimensions over the next weeks.
Our worship space has been disturbed – both in the Pentecost art installation and in the new screens making a new front. It is part of a month long experiment. In the disturbance of these physical changes, you are invited, like the first followers of Jesus, to let God profoundly reorientate you.
We are providing 3 practical ways to reorientate ourselves:
1. Join us at 4 pm this Sunday either for a seminar on Mission trends in the 21st Century OR to Prayer Walk our community.
2. Join us at 7 pm this Sunday for a prayer concert, an evening of song and prayer for God’s mission.
3. Participate in self-denial. Take home a globe as a practical way of considering your place in God’s mission outside the church walls. This will then become the focus of our 7pm evening services, Grow through Colliding Worlds, on May 18 and 25.
Yours in the work of the Pentecost Spirit.
On Wednesday night about 35 people gathered to hear a potential next step for our youth ministry. We heard about young people who want good solid Christian input. We heard about young people who want to hang around us. We want a type of youth ministry that involves adults and families. Some concrete ways to achieve this were presented. Again it was a blessing to have a range of generations present. People spoke with passion and challenge.
What became clear
Agreement to a model which gives clear places to relate, to learn, and to
worship.
Desire to have a more intergenerational ministry, practically a once a term
family day.
Move toward Junior (5-10); Middle (11-14); Senior (15-18); Young adult (18+)
That our current youth team feels overstretched and requires support.
That we need an overall team leader/s, for whom youth ministry is a passion,
not a job.
We might have to pay them, but we proceed in this direction with caution.
What remains unclear and needs further talking:
Timing. Are mid-week best time for greatest majority?
Timing. Danger of over-committing kids and leaders.
Relationship between Boys' and Girls' Brigade and OBY.
Relationship between intermediate age kids on Sunday morning and Koru.
Next steps:
Clarify what is unclear from the above by talking with specific people involved.
Build a discipling team, a relationship team and a family fun day team.
Find an overall team leader. They need passion for young people. They need
to build, coach and encourage leaders. They need to put in place discipling
structures to grow young people at varied ages and stages. It would be great
if this was a married couple in order to be a model for males and females. Do
you think you know this person?
Pastor's para continued...
So we need your help? We need (and the "we" includes Girls' Brigade, Boys'
Brigade, OBY and Koru) the following:
adults willing to be an on-call pool of drivers
adults willing to regularly help young people grow
adults willing to irrregularly help young people grow
adults willing to regularly help our young people have fun
adults willing to irregularly help our young people have fun
adults willing to be part of a youth prayer chain.
See Steve Taylor or Paul McMahon if any one of these is you, or if you think
it's the person sitting beside you as you read this.