Eucaview

Cricket Match a "six"

Our Community Cricket match was a fun afternoon connecting with neighbors. The weather held off and we had 22 people take part including three families or couples with whom we had not connected before. For two Vietnamese neighbors it was their first every cricket match.

Thanks to our sponsors BuzyKidz and Platypus we were even able to award prizes for the best bowler, batter, catcher etc. And everyone there said it would be great to do it again next school holidays. So well done Tim for organising it.

It wasn't just us connecting with the neighbors either - the event also facilitated the neighbors connecting with each other which I see as another part of our core value of developing community.

Hillcroft Ashes

Announcing the South Morang Missional Team's first communtiy wide event: the Hillcroft Ashes.

Tim Mann is heading up this community cricket match, which we hope will bring together our neighbors for some community building fun.

Under the bonnet

We sometimes say that when we share our hospitality it is in fact us who receive the blessing. I had another example of that this week.

Last Sunday we had a family of neighbors around for lunch. The three kids are often round at our place, but we didn't really know the three adults in the household. So it was a great time of getting to know them.

Conversation turned to us needing to do a minor service on our Mitsubishi Magna before this weekend's State Youth Games. And before I knew it we had agreed to buy our neighbor an oil filter, some new oil and a six pack of bear and he would do it for us, which he did yesterday.

The blessing is not just the 'quid pro quo' of we had them for lunch so he will fix my car:

Firstly, it was a real trust issue to give this guy our car. I don't know if he realised it, but it can't have hurt to say we value you enough to trust you with our car.

Secondly, being unemployed he said it was good to have something specific he could constructively achieved that day.

Thirdly, half way through the exercise one of them came and knocked on our door to ask if we could lend them a different size shifting spanner. Not ground breaking of its own but just five days earlier that wouldn't have happened. It is the fruit of developing community.

Oh yeah, and fourthly we have our car serviced :) thanks Callum.

Sorry Steve, I won't be there.

I wrote here about making time for involvement in the community of our local state primary school.

Since then I have joined the school council. Low and behold the first meeting since I joined is tonight when I would have rather been going to this. It seems I am being put to the test.

Should I go and be missionally engaged in my community or meet to talk about it? Hmmm.

Detail from "Stories from the City of Time" by Amanda Penrose

Parents Group Starts

Our parents group started on Tuesday. Here is how Tash describes it:

On Tuesday the first parents group meeting happened at my home. Two mothers came both of which have two children; Natalia has Jacob (3) and Tayla (6months) and Julie has Matthew (2) and Claudia (4months).

Sooz and Jude joined us for morning tea where the parents had coffee and a chat getting to know each other and the kids got to share fruit which they didn't eat because they wanted to play.

Ashley and Che welcomed the new children with open arms and had a great time, maybe you could ask them what they thought.

Natalia and Julie are very excited about the group and have some of their own ideas for what the group can/will develop into and are also wanting to get involved heavily in the community which is fantastic.

I have had a great response from the letter box drop and believe that the group is going to grow very quickly.

South Morang Parent's Group

Tash of our missional team is starting a parents group at her home for parents of preschoolers in the neighborhood.

We haven't formalised all the disciplines or commitments of being part of the mission team but one thing we have affirmed is choosing an intentional missional activity in the community. And the parents group is a good example of this.

Our parents group will run fortnightly with morning tea, play and socialising and sometimes include input or guests speakers on things like parenting skills, and first aid. It will be an environment in which we can cross cultural barriers between churched and unchurched people, and in sharing life with neighbors in this way, we will also be sharing the light of Christ.

I started distributing fliers with Jude and Che yesterday. Most of the fliers we put in the letterboxes (Che wants to be a postie when he grows up.)

Two times when we saw young kids things at the houses (eg pram, toys) I went to the door to hand them the flier. I met only grandparents whose grandkids were away overseas at the moment and a professional nanny with no kids of her own... never mind we'll keep trying :D

Image of Child's seaside rubber bucket and spade from Making the Modern World.

Council of Christian Education in Schools: Religion in Life

I have done half a day training with the Council for Christian Education in Schools to bring up to date my accreditation to teach Christian Religious Education in State schools. I am signing up to teach one class at week at the local primary school. Hopefully I will start next term.

The session was lead by a very skilled teacher who filled us with practical ideas for communicating the Easter story and its meaning to primary aged kids. I'm using some at our church's all age service this Passion Sunday.

At the training, another teacher was complaining that the agreed syllabus we follow "Religion in Life" was too detached or objective. She said it you wouldn't even have to have faith to teach it.

I can't agree with her concern that the whole process is soulless. CCES only appoints people of faith, one of our roles is to commend the Christian faith to the kids, and the examples of how to teach the Easter material were certainly conveying the meaning of Easter. Sure the focus was on the impact on the historical disciples but there were hints of what it means for us today. It wasn't a denial of faith but making the most of an opportunity to cultivate an environment in which faith can grow.

I suspect the teacher was confusing the roles of say a Sunday School teacher who is discipling kids in the faith, and a CCES teacher who is introducing children to the religious dimension of life, giving some understanding of the Christian faith and respecting children's rights to hold their own opinions.

I wonder if others with more experience with the syllabus have any thoughts on how subjective, engaging, faith-valuing the curriculum is.

Time for Community Involvement

This week we went to a community barbecue put on by my daughter's school. Community barbecues are something we want to be doing as a mission team - so all the better if it is organised by someone else :)

It was an opportunity to meet more parents, and to get to know those parents and teachers we have already met a little better. One thing that came up was a nomination for me to join the school council, which I am in the process of accepting.

As a kid, my parents were not really involved in parent activities at my primary school, although later on my mum did become a piano teacher there. I remember my dad lamenting that because he was so involved in church (Sunday school superintendent, member of the church board etc) he didn't have time to do things like serve on the school council.

Its funny what little things stick with you through all the years but this is something I always hoped to do differently. We'll see what comes of it.

The image is from www.typogenerator.net

Why have a Missional Team Covenant

My first post about our South Morang Missional Team mentioned the bare bones of a team covenant. We have started this process but are not there yet. Before we put all the meat on it I wanted to do a bit more research. What team covenants do others out there use?

My idea of a covenant is not so much a legal contract that we could use to sue each other when something failed, or beat ourselves with if we made a mistake. I hope it will be more a description of our relationship and an agreement of what we want to put into and get out of this venture together.

Surfing the web I found a similar comparison of covenants at John Mark Ministries:

Covenant is an important ingredient in building community. A covenant is more than a contract. Covenants bind us together by voluntary intent, and the 'penalties' for breaking the covenant are relational. Contracts carry legal obligations and penalties, and the consequences of breaking the contract involve specific monetary or judicial punishments.

This image of The Covenant with Noah (the first covenant in the Bible) is from Christ Chrurch, Pompton, USA

South Morang Missional Team begins

Our church has formed a missional team to focus on being the hands and feet of Jesus in South Morang, a new suburb on the Northern fringe of Melbourne. At this stage the team is my wife Sooz, my brother Tim, his wife Tash and me. We see the strong family links as both an advantage and a disadvantage and are looking for others to join the team.

On Saturday, Andrew Hamilton (Hamo) (left) led our team in a day retreat / planning day. After looking forward to doing this for over a year, Saturday marked the beginning for our team. In his sessions Hamo told the story of his similar church plant in Western Australia, led us in an overview of biblical foundations for mission, and shared some of the key learnings and mistakes (which often lead to more learnings) from their first year.

For lunch we joined our kids and Grandma Joyce (who had been baby sitting for us) and hiked to the top of the quarry hills. There overlooking the many new housing estates we had a wind-swept picnic and prayed about the suburb.

I led an overview of Northern Community's story including how this missional team would fit into our multi-congregational model. We brain stormed ways the team could develop community, deepen spirituality and demonstrate compassion, and put together the bare bones of what we expect will be come our team covenant - describing what we agree together to put into this venture.

Along the way we also shared our dreams (ie how long till we can form a parents group or new church congregation with our neighbors?), fears (ie what will it be like working so closely with family members?), challenges (ie how will we manage shift work hours?) and specific gifts (ie Sooz is great at one on one personal conversations, Tash has no qualms about talking to strangers, Tim is even handed and insightful).

We have a great team already and I hope this is the start of something big significant for God's Kingdom.