A couple of weeks after the Spring Clean (18 Oct) I spoke to the Waltham School principal Gordon Caddie, and Gordon told me how rapt they were with the work we had done on their playground and edible garden.
The rejuvenated edible garden has inspired the school to find use for the disused buildings surrounding it, and has sprouted an idea for how they might use the area for outdoor learning. This has had such an impact it was reported in the local community newspaper (see notice board).
Now I hear that a group of mothers from the school have decided to meet together once a month to keep working on the garden so that it remains useful and vibrant. Praise God!
It was the Waltham Cottage’s 15th Anniversary earlier this month, and to celebrate it we gave them a card and a dwarf feijoa tree. They made me give a speech and they responded in kind, then I got to put the first spade full of dirt on a tree that will hopefully keep those most in need in our community with a good supply of vitamin C every autumn.
I also hear that at the Sydenham-Addington-Waltham Network Meeting the staff from the Cottage named their deepening relationship with us as the highlight of their year. Now that is certainly something worth celebrating.
Welcome to our Open Home, Open Year service. As a church, we start our year in February. Refreshed by a summer break and inspired by our church annual meeting, we choose one Bible text, which might shape our year and our imaginations.
This year it was the book of Philemon and the phrase “Building the Kingdom.” Philemon is a tiny book buried in the back of the New Testament. It is the story of a broken relationship, a slave in dispute with his master. The slave runs from conflict, only to encounter the unexpected and life changing grace of God. The slave is transformed. He realises he needs to face his past. The letter of Philemon offers us a gracious, practical, relational, honest Christianity, in the real struggles of our life.
To help us focus on the theme, a house was built and placed at the front of the sanctuary. Each week it has stood before us, asking us to examine our priorities. How are we, as a church, building the Kingdom in living a gracious, practical, relational, honest Christianity?
To help you focus on the theme, you were given a house to take home. It was smaller and made of card. You were invited to make the house and to examine ourselves, as individuals, in our homes and workplaces, building the Kingdom in living a gracious, practical, relational, honest Christianity.
Kiwis tend to lose December in a blur of Christmas shopping and end-of-year functions at school and work. So come late November, as a church we pause and reflect on the year past. This is our task today in this Open Home, Open Year service. How has the book of Philemon and the phrase “Building the Kingdom” shaped and challenged our life this year? How has grace been at work among us?
This is my first week back from sabbatical, so it’s been a week of finding my feet and catching up with people. That includes clearing the mail. There was the usual. And there was the exciting.
This included a letter from Thelsia Maffey: “Dear Steve and Opawa Baptist, Thank you for your lovely birthday card and kind thoughts. They were much appreciated. I really enjoy the newsletters that you send me. They are also much appreciated. I wish I could come and visit you all but for health reasons I can’t get there. Thinking of you and praying for you all”. I mention this to name a quiet, perhaps unseen way that we as church staff have put in place systems that provide pastoral care - sending out personalised birthday cards (if we know your birthday!) and church newsletters to older folk unable to attend our services.
And another letter; “Dear Steve, I’m the lady who attended a morning service at your church a few months ago with my new frizzy hair style that you commented upon - saying I looked good. That was comforting as none of the rest of my family even commented!” A reminder that every church service gives us a chance to touch lives.
So do keep an eye out for visitors. And do make time to talk to someone you have not talked to in the last three months. Noticing each other is another quiet way that all of us can show the love of Christ.