When Covid hit Molong, many people couldn’t put food on the table. A phone call from a community person to Julie Spencer was all it took and the church flew into action! Julie and her husband Wayne are the pastors at Molong Baptist. Have a listen to this humble servant of God share His love. God has blessed this little community with big hearts!

At Belair Baptist Church, most people are back in the building, but there has been a significant change. The children’s teaching is now part of the main service, and everyone’s loving it!

Gordon Baptist has gone through some significant changes as they have responded to Covid19. In January this year there were 5 congregations that met in 3 languages – Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Each of those congregations was between 50 and 120 people.

When Gordon could not meet in person, they went through a process of discernment to ask how should they gather and express being together in the new covid world. The process took place over three months – including focus groups surveys and one on one conversations. In August the 5 congregations were dis-banded and life groups were suspended. Instead the people of Gordon have been meeting in groups of 10-50 people, instead of meeting in larger congregations or very small groups.

This has required additional leadership development and training for facilitators and hosts.

This move has multiple positives:

• Gatherings can take place in homes, parks or other spaces such as the church building
• Gatherings can be hosted and facilitated by trained people who are not pastors
• They can utilise shared pre-recorded teaching as well as a shared order of service which makes facilitation sustainable
• Gatherings are small enough that people can know each other’s names and that people can participate in those gatherings together.
• Gatherings are large enough that they can be intergenerational and intercultural.
• These groups are can grow and be reproducible.
• This is a way Gordon can express itself as one local church body that gathers in multiform gatherings.

Two of these gatherings at Gordon Baptist held at the church building and are specifically intergenerational with simple English. These gatherings are more informal, with a short gospel focussed message, and spaces for people to creatively reflect individually or with others, including discussion and prayer. These gatherings are a great way to open things up a little more for people might previously have not come to their traditional church gatherings. These gatherings provide a space for children and young people to be connected to people of other generations and for families to engage the bible alongside others.

In this video, Yvette interviews Russell Mathews – check it out to see and hear what their intergenerational gatherings look like in practice.

When a handful of faithful servants at Helensburgh Baptist Church called Brad Blacker to be their pastor, they probably never expected what would happen next! They started a coffee shop in their local community as a pop-up cafe, and have since made a huge impact from so humble beginnings. Listen to Brad as he talks about why they decided to do Lego Church on a weeknight.

The Night Outline:

A story from the bible is read out by anyone, then Brad or someone else suggests ideas on how you could relate that to lego. The families have 20-30 mins to build their idea. Then everyone takes a turn in explaining how it relates to the Bible story. They then share prayer points and if they are in the cafe, Brad makes hot chocolates for everyone, then it’s home time for PJ’s and bed. 

Check out how Thornleigh Baptist Church have been modifying their Kids Club so that it can still operate through Covid!

Here’s a simple strategy to equip parents to disciple their children.

Georges River Kids send out an encouragement letter to families, and add an extra empty postcard and name of family for them to pass on the love! What a great idea!