Monday, January 23, 2006

emerging church postcards : Australia2

australiancccready200.jpg

For words about the image : birth : values : music: mission


For Words about the image; see the heading What was your best mission moment in 05 below.

How were you as an emerging community birthed?; In late 1999, four churches took the courageous decision to join together to create Northern Community, agreeing to sell their historical buildings and pool their resources to try something new. In the years since, our church has formed a vision to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. As a church, we recognise that our society is very different from what it once was.

What do you as an emerging community value?; We value our heritage as an established church but also recognize that our missional context requires new models and new ways of connecting with our community. While planting new faith communities that express different styles of worship and operate in different models we continue to recognize and support the traditional style of faith community. Our multi-congregational model allows us to value new models that are urgently needed while at the same time honour the traditional model. It is holding this tension that we value highly as a community.

What music track sums up your year?; The Space Between by Dave Matthews. Lyrics;
“The Space Between
The tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more”

What was your best mission moment in 05?; Earlier in the year, our Tangent congregation began to grapple with just how our church can better connect with people whose life experience is different to ours. We realized that we weren’t really following Jesus’ example of hospitality in eating with tax collectors and sinners. And we wondered how we could share the sort of hospitality and community which Jesus lived out. Out of that meeting we developed a vision to hold an open Christmas Day lunch for members of our community who do not have someone with whom to share this meal. The lunch was provided as a free lunch as a demonstration of the community and hospitality that we wish to engage in. We hope in future to be able to offer this hospitality annually as a part of the ministry of the church. The lunch was supported by our whole church that provided food and money. You can read Dan’s reflection on the lunch here.

Want to e-visit this emerging church group?

Want to see a postcard from your emerging church group?

Want to see the whole set of postcards?

Posted by steve at 03:45 PM

1 Comment

  1. Sweet! I want one!

    Comment by Mike Noakes — January 24, 2006 @ 10:33 am

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