The gift was warmly accepted, and the manager was keen to show me around. Summing up what they did she said, “We try to help everyone who comes through the door however we can, even if it is just a little bit.” To that I replied, “Yes, that’s like us [at Opawa Baptist] really.”
In the sense of Luke 10 we have walked into the Special Needs Library and offered peace; that peace has been warmly reciprocated, and the Kingdom of God has come near: people find healing through that library every week.
I am so pleased to be part of a church that wants to thank those who work so hard to help people in need, to help them to know that their work does not go unnoticed, and to give something back to them.
The food bank, community chaplaincy, Mainly Music and Koru are just some of the other community focused mission we are doing. We are also asking people if they want to be part of walks and demographic seminars to get a better picture of Waltham.
If you want to be more involved with community mission, just let me know.
This includes bequests set aside, interest on assets, pledges, gifts, successful trust applications and some interest free loans. This totals 80% of the estimated cost and was the figure we had said we needed to reach in order to start building. It's a fantastic response and thanks to all those who have given in prayer, leadership, finances and faith.
It means we can take the next step - drawing up detailed plans, approaching Council and starting to think about the tender and building process!! This week the architect began work. If things go smoothly, we could be building in the new year.
The building project began in prayer. It needs to continue in prayer. As we move into this new phase, I am calling an all-church prayer meeting for the next two Sunday mornings (June 29 and July 6), 9:30-10:20 am, in the 24/7 prayer room. We follow a God who is just as interested in the detail of plans and consent applications as anything else. The big picture of God's Kingdom come is always made present in the detail of our everyday lives, finances and forward planning. So Opawa Baptist, you are invited to haul yourself out of bed on a frosty winter's morning as together we seek God for smooth processes into the next stage of our building project.
While we start, we still need to continue fundraising. First up is a comedy and dessert evening on July 26. Our hope is that a high-quality comedy night is something we can easily and naturally invite friends to and thus serves as a way of shifting the fundraising away from the pockets of us at Opawa. If all of us can simply find two friends with a sense of humour and needing a cheery laugh in the middle of winter, we could fill the church and raise some $4,000. Tickets and promotional information are available at the door, all individually named. Please take yours.
... anyone is welcome to join them, introduction
href="http://www.emergentkiwi.org.nz/archives/discerning_kingdom_signs_as_
the_practice_of_a_community.php">here, instructions
signs.pdf">here and
For our Kingdom Signs "logo" go to Steve's web site, 16 June entry here
]]>The “disturbance” was to last a month and then to be evaluated. This was done over last weekend and the results crunched by Lynne Taylor, using her Baptist Union Researcher skills. The full results are up on the notice board.
They were discussed at the Board meeting this week and the following actions taken:
1: Given that 64% of people liked and strongly liked the pulpit moved forward (20% neutral and 15% disliked) - keep that change
2: Given that 57% of people liked and strongly liked the screen moved forward (20% neutral and 24% of people disliked) - keep that change
3: Given that 44% of people liked and strongly liked the dome being covered (31% neutral and 26% of people disliked) - keep that change
4: Given that 57% of people disliked the sheets (12% neutral and 31% liked and strongly liked), that we temporarily reverse that change. However, given that the main objections were around “looking shabby” and “hiding musicians,” that we do another experiment in this area later.
5: The multiple images produced sharply different reactions. 47% of people liked and strongly liked the multiple images, while 47% of people disliked and strongly disliked. Only 7% are neutral. This will require us to all walk graciously. In the meantime, we stop the moving images (which we have to do because they are tied to the sheets). But that we do more experimenting, looking for ways to honour our diversity, the 47% who like them and the 47% of those who dislike them.
These decisions best honour the responses from us, the Opawa body of Christ. Thanks to all those who participated in the evaluation.
A special thanks to Peter and Andy for all their hard work. At the beginning I told them the “disturbance” had to be cheap. This was a hard thing to ask. No-one, perhaps especially artists, likes to be told to give of their skills on the cheap and to expose their work to criticism for “looking shabby.” But I made the request because, if the changes cost money, then what is an experiment can look like a compulsory change. So I want to honour the humility with which Peter and Andy offered their gifts among us.
]]>Are you seeing it? I am.
On Tuesday I got the news that after three weeks of Baptism class, led by Paul McMahon, the group wants to keep meeting, because people simply want to keep learning about who Jesus is.
On Wednesday evening I was at the How to Read the New Testament, led by Craig Fairhall. Fifteen people in the room, a really nice mix of long, medium and new timers. And those new to the church, why are they there? Well, because they don't know much about the Bible and want to understand more.
Read that sentence again.
Hearing that for me is like being in heaven - to be part of a church that is enabling people to walk and grow.
We offer other ways for people to walk and grow. These include:
a. Growth Coaching - 1-1 whole of life coaching that starts where people are at and walk alongside them at their pace. For more, talk to Craig Fairhall.
b. Evening Block Courses - this term, How to Read the Bible. Next term, God at Work - juggling the work-life balance and mid-life career planning. For more, talk to Craig Fairhall.
c. Seven Practices of Faith - an introduction to following Jesus. For more, talk to Paul McMahon.
d. Walking Waltham - a guided prayer tour of our local community. For more, talk to Paul.
e. God at Work group - meets monthly to challenge each other to be salt and light in their workplaces.
Yours in our shared vision: Enabling people to walk and grow with Jesus and reflecting his love in our communities and beyond.
]]>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!
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.
]]>
· 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.
]]>
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
]]>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.
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.
As part of the evangelism paper that I am doing this semester through Bible College of New Zealand, a recent assignment was to look at the Antioch church in Acts 11 and what it modelled for us, as a church that God uses in evangelism. I had to reflect on how well, or not, my Opawa church was doing. Here is what I wrote:
Open to outreach - in my church I can see two of the three aspects of outreach, modelled in the Antioch church, happening. Each year recently there has been teaching, either through sermons or small group courses, on evangelism, where people have been shown conversational evangelism, Biblical pictures of witness, process versus event evangelism, etc. There is a monthly missionary focus as part of the morning service and also people in overseas and home mission who are supported financially and prayerfully by my church.
I was really encouraged by what I discovered as I spent time looking behind the scenes and reflecting on the current practices of Opawa and its vision for growth. There are lots of good things happening and God is at work in the life of our church. I also had to assess myself personally using this criteria of Open to outreach. It was a challenge to me and so I'd like to challenge you to reflect on how you personally are involved in helping Opawa Baptist be a church that God uses in spreading the Gospel message.
]]>Our Sunday morning service will allow time for us to pray together in the light of the events of this week. We will explore the question that must be on many lips - "where is God?" by using the Psalms of the Bible. We will have two large cards, for any who want to sign, and to send to John and Jeanette McClean and to Elim Christian School.
On Sunday evening, when more of our teenagers are present, we will allow time to pray together for the family of Marie Davis. Similarly, we will have a large card for any who want to sign, and to send to her family.
Our newsletter carries this cartoon. View it here
Steve Taylor
for Opawa Pastoral team
Church members
Appoint the Board and (senior) pastor
Affirm the vision, approve the budget
Make major directional, staffing and property decisions
Board 3-5 people of mature godly character
Develop and protect mission and vision of the Church.
Accountable to the Church members
Comprises Sylvia, Gavin, Lucy, Kevin, Lawrence.
The (Senior) Pastor Sets the vision with the Board;
Selects ministry leaders (with Board)
Leads the ministry team and holds them accountable for the agreed goals
Develops leaders who develop leaders
Answers to Board
Ministry leaders Head up a variety of core ministry areas
Authority to function within goal and budget guidelines
Accountable to the Pastor
Some of these are voluntary. Others are paid, with more regular get-togethers with the pastor and involvement in the on-going decision making and vision. Comprises Noelene (administration), Emma (children´s ministry), Paul (community ministries), Neville (facilities), Alan (missions), Stephen (worship), Hugh (outreach and evangelism), Craig (pastoral care), Amanda (small groups), and Steve (spiritual growth). Youth is currently vacant.
It seeks to be a global movement sharing a common confession of faith in Jesus Christ, bonded together by God’s love to support, encourage and strengthen one another, while proclaiming and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to a lost world. Coming together as a whole enables us, for example to advocate on behalf of persecuted Baptists.
The Baptist World Alliance has five stated goals:
1. To unite Baptists worldwide.
2. To lead in world evangelism.
3. To respond to people in need.
4. To defend human rights.
5. To promote theological reflection.
It was great to meet this learned and gracious Jamaican and hear a little about the work of the BWA, as well as to be encouraged in the work that we are undertaking down under in Aotearoa New Zealand.