Not perfect yet…

I have been encouraged by all the resources and discussions on pastor2pastor as a newbie to full-time ministry and am just starting to get fired up in getting ourselves noticed in town and getting people thinking about what it means to be a Christian thru their lives.

It came as a surprise to me that our session clerk suggested we start a Twitter page for church and a Facebook page to see if we can reach out to the younger people. Having no younger people than us in church, it took me back a bit but it does show that people are looking at how young people interact and socialise thru social networking. Maybe I’ll start with a church web page and see how it goes from there.

Also in working out what our church is about, I found a couple of church brochures that I got while on mission during my college years. One brochure advertising this particular Presbyterian Church had a lot of information ranging from ‘What we believe,‘ which is all fine and well until you read on and get to a part explaining about the Westminster Confession & Shorter Catechism and then encouraging people to get involved in doing a certificate in theology and train as lay preachers. I’m not sure how people who are looking for the meaning of life would take to receiving a brochure like this in the mail or given by hand.

Here I am pondering whether social networking is the way to go in a town where young people are limited (unlike the scope in a big city or town with a decent population), and whether you should keep everything short and simple in explaining what our church is about. I’ll keep thinking about it I reckon and see….

Not being a very technological person, I was wondering if maybe the iPad would be a viable tool for ministry purposes in terms of using it to read sermons from the pulpit, visual presentations (if able to be linked to a big screen or TV), photo’s or whatever else you use it for.

I guess I’m always afraid of using technology in a service cause I know something’s bound to go wrong but could it be worth exploring??

We had the opportunity of starting up a new church service yesterday which is currently run once a month. It’s out at a church, which had been previously closed for a couple of years, 20 minutes out of town and it was a big talking point when I arrived here as an appointment.

We held a meeting a couple of months ago with some of the locals who wanted to see the church revived again and weren’t too sure what their expectations were. They had all grown up at that church, seen a heap load of Sunday skool kids go thru and it obviously held memories for all of them. I told it to them straight up that it wasn’t about tradition or people numbers that would make the difference but it was their passion to see the gospel preached and for new people to come to Jesus. It also meant they had to make an effort to travel into Corowa to church on the other Sundays. Time would tell how the people reacted to that.

Last nite by God’s grace, we got 26 adults and kids along to church who all heard the gospel, who were all encouraged by each other and who want to be built up in God’s Word with a great dinner together afterwards. I think it’s important to treat it as a separate church from Corowa, different sermon, new songs and an informal family feel. It’s not only invigorated the people out there but it’s also given the Corowa congregation a new spirit to see things happening and growing already.

Our series for the year is called “The farmer chooses life” and isn’t some second rate reality TV show, but a chance for farmers and country people to hear some parables that country people can relate to. Exciting stuff and I’m already thinking if this takes off, it mite turn into a fortnitely service in the not too distant future.

Having just started up at a new church and getting to know not only the people but also a bit about the history of the church, I couldn’t help but notice all the memorial stones and plaques anywhere and everywhere around the premises. I decided to go around the other day the church building, our 2 halls, the manse and the units we have at the back of the church and there are at least 9 plaques/memorial stones around the place. There is a great sense of history in this church and seeing we’re celebrating 125 years of beloved Presbyterian worship in 2010, we thought it would be another great reason to celebrate.

I have realised though it’s not very hard to get people talking about the past history of the church seeing we have an extremely elderly congregation who have lived and grown up here and often talk about the many ministers who have served this parish and what they have brought to God’s people over the decades (I almost said centuries). God willing we’ll have our first centurion next year.

Reflecting on the past is an easy thing people do but to get them focused on the future is a much harder task. They want to see the church grow and bring in new Christian people, but the past seems almost too important to change. There are many now embracing change and it’s great to see people starting to be outward looking now rather than at focusing on what we already have. God is doing a great work amongst his people here and bit by bit, we will hopefully grow a new generation of believers and expand so we can find more places to lay more plaques to the ‘Glory of God.’