Mission

Well as my previous post suggested we have been on college mission. It was a week that went very quickly, but at the end felt like a year!

It was so encouraging to see people with such a love and passion for the people around them that they are doing whatever it takes to try and reach them – even if it means having 10 cups of lovingly brewed coffee every day :)

So, we got a quick snippet of what urban ministry in Sydney looks like. To quickly sum it up - I think it is very relationship driven with a real need to properly understand the people around you. This means it is very long term stuff.

The way churches often do things, such as door knocking and letter box dropping, may actually not at all be effective, so you have to find other ways of getting out there. The best way to do this in urban ministry seems to be to just live out your Christian life wherever you go - smiling to people on the street, talking to the shop attended, the barista etc… Its just basic stuff, but if you are intentional about it, it can be very effective.

We were reminded that the gospel never changes, but the best way to engage with the culture around you is definitely different wherever you go.

Writers Block

Well it seems as though we both have writers block after handing in our assignments! We have now handed in 2 assignments, and both of them on time!!

Next week is mission week for all college students. So, this is where we are assigned to a team which goes to a church & works with the church for a week... I think! We are going to an Anglican church in Newtown, which is close by. Marty is heading up the High School mission, other than that we dont really know what we are doing - but have been told to be prepared to give our testimony at any time...

So it should be fun :)

Columba vs Episcopacy

The race to get our first assignment (a church history essay) in on time has begun! Mine is on the sixth century Irish monk, Columba, & Marty’s is on the development of church government from 0-500AD.

1750 words on events and the people who influenced the church as we know it today!

So we have frequented facebook for research, and searched at the bottom of coffee cups - but that has surprisingly taught us very little!

We have had dreams about priests with pitchforks, although, come to think about it, that was probably more due to procrastinating on Age of Empires then our essays!

We have read and read and read endless amount of words that are meant to be helpful, but just make no sense. As Marty said last night: “another day, another million words”.

So, it definitely feels like a race – probably more like a marathon, with a 50m sprint for the finish line :)

New Church

We are going through the process of finding a new church at the moment. Neither of us have really done this before, & well let’s just say we don’t like it! It’s weird visiting churches & just checking them out. You end up analyzing what they do & therefore trying not to be to critical & judgmental. Ironically the first church we went to had a sermon on “stop dating the church”, so that was a good start in helping us approach this in a healthy way!

One good thing I suppose from this though, is that it makes me realise what it would be like for someone visiting a church.