Restructure for Kingdom Growth
A good friend recently said this:
“We are perfectly structured to accomplish the present results we achieve.”
It’s one of those sticky phrases you remember. It doesn’t need translation. It removes excuses and call us to intentionality. Focusing on Kingdom business is akin to growing tomato plants; laterals suck energy and don’t produce tomatoes! We must use our resources to be effective in Kingdom business. In worshipping God and being an authentic community where we support, love and grow in Jesus, we also must be about a redemptive call as God’s people to ‘make disciples’, to reach our communities with our one hope, Jesus.
One of the realities we find is that most churches (greater than 90%) spend most of their resources (greater than 90%) on post-conversion ministry. In other words, on ministry and worship within their congregations, and very little on engaging people who don’t yet know Christ.
Here at St Christopher’s, the parishioners and I are working on being intentional and structuring our parish to engage with people from across our community. So in a context where the programme or vehicle of outreach is mere opportunity, we strive to build meaningful (redemptive) relationships, and share life.
It’s simple really. We began brainstorming how to create events and programmes to engage people in our community! It can be for any generation, and be a one-off taster event, a short-duration course, or ongoing. It gets people engaging and finding God, Church and Christians relevant. If this Church, the people, that is, disappeared, we would hope the community would rise up and demand our return.
So we’re intentionally structuring for a different result. We connect with the community through…
Movement and Music: Fun, fitness, and fellowship all in one. This targets seniors and people with limitations. They gather and have fun being healthy and safe for their situation, developing physically, mentally, and relationally. We ran this for five weeks and it was so popular, it’s now a regular weekly event. Having two instructors who know body and brain, balance and toning safely, they facilitate a great time with music and dancing and then we host an equally important morning tea. The success of this model is that forty per cent of the attendees are from within our congregation, but the other sixty per cent are invited by them, and they come together.
Mainly music: It’s a great preschool families programme standing the test of past decades. It can be a popular programme, plus a relationship incubator, where people in the community share life with Christians (mums and team running it), beginning meaningful redemptive relationships. It can be a ‘stepping stone’ on the road to meeting God and coming to trust Jesus.
Little Dove: A place to belong, community, some nice conversation and play games together. This happens each Friday afternoon. More than half have no other connection to St Christopher’s. Be they retired, or special needs, several dozen gather around the place and enjoy the afternoon, an afternoon tea and safe space where they are accepted.
ESOL Classes: Having a significant immigrant population, this has proven very popular, with 57 enrolled in either morning or evening classes each week. Both the educators and the small group leaders are parishioners. We’re already seeing people assimilate into our church and people coming to faith as a result. Praise God.
Uni-chef, Life After Noodles: This is for young adults bored with ramen noodles and spag-on-toast. They came for a fun night, eating and making affordable, healthy and, critical for them, fast-to-prepare meals. We ran this for four weeks during Uni term time.
Parenting in 20/20: three evenings over three weeks, parents experienced an interactive conversation on parenting. Our parish is in an area populated with a significant number of immigrants who feel isolated from family support and mentoring, so there was a lot of interest. We plan to follow this up in early 2021 with a parenting teens seminar.
Community Food Pantry: Along with two additional churches in our suburb, we formed a food pantry for the growing economic situation we now find ourselves in—COVID-19. Previously the people in our neighbourhoods would not have been classed as food vulnerable, but the situation is bringing this challenge to our doorstep. It’s all about the relationships this generates, not the food. We sought funds from the Crown and other local avenues to create and supply the food pantry. We’re amazed at the local and congregational support for this, and we are still sustaining our usual support for St Ambrose Anglican Mission in Aranui. At this time, we expect it to be a temporal mission for this current economic season (1-2 years).
School Holiday Programme: Providing quality fun holiday activities is highly sought after today in working- or single-parent homes. We don’t hide or apologise for including God in our programmes, yet they are grounded in fun and a great investment in the kids. Effectively, we’re re-growing what was an important ministry in the past. Making it affordable has caused great interest.
We don’t run short of ideas and opportunity, only time and people, and yes, those resources are critical. Funding for a good chunk of this has come from external sources—using city and government funds and Trusts has been terrific. We’re not shy about learning from each funding application we submit what works and applying that to other applications. It’s a skill we are developing.
So what have we learned? While early days, we’re already seeing people coming to faith, assimilating into the life of our church and many more on a journey. Our upcoming challenge will be working on how we provide ‘next stepping stones’. We find ourselves needing more life group leaders – a great challenge to solve! The latest Alpha material, excellent when done well in the context of redemptive relationships, is definitely part of our plan. We’re discerning if we need a ‘pre-Alpha’ element where people can ask questions that come before Alpha, like “is there a god at all and if so, which one?” We’re not experts, but any success in these programmes comes from our people loving those right in front of us and becoming intentional in engaging and journeying with them. We hope this encourages you to give some ideas a go in your own context.
Rev’d Michael Brantley, Vicar of St Christopher’s Church in Avonhead.