In my last post I mentioned that I was a very busy boy last weekend. We had a Christmas in July where a lot of people from the soup kitchen we run came along.

We were blessed to have many of them visit with us the next Sunday morning, this happend to be a day that I was preaching.

It was a great privellege to have these people who have never darkend the door of a church before to come come and hear me speak about God and the wonderful gift of life he has for us all, and as promised I have published the text of the sermon on the website for you to read and critique.

The message is The Holy Spirit, God within us.

My prayer for it was that it would be words of hope and words of life for those who need it.

Appreciate your feedback.

As I've said before, my church has seriously beefed up it's commitment to the disenfranchised in our community. We run an outreach to prostitutes on the Great Western Highway as well as a soup kitchen to a group of housing commission flats down the road along with various other ministries that offer practical help to people.

I'm not directly involved in either of the major ministry focuses although I do have a great deal of ancillary contact with the ones that have started visiting or attending our church.

This weekend we invited a whole heap of them over to our place to have lunch with us, Christmas in July. Most of these people had never darkened the door of our church before so it was an important time for us and one I was asked to be involved in.

The close contact I was blessed to have with these people from our local community has changed forever my perceptions of the expectations of the needy in our community.

The people I met and had lunch with this Saturday are hungry for hope.

This was a very exciting weekend for me, I had the honour of performing two baptism's. The first was my grandmother who I've mentioned previously. It was a very emotional experience for the both of us, and I will admit I was a little nervous in doing it. I'm not exactly sure why I was nervous, public speaking isn't an issue for me, but I did use an unfortunate word, I announced that we had three "victims" who were being baptized, definitely poor phrasing and a couple of people mentioned it to me afterwards.  

Here's an action shot of Gran going into the drink :)

There were three people being baptized, the second was John, a man who has come into our church through the soup kitchen (well it's really a BBQ) that we run every fortnight in a block of housing commission flats. Although I wasn't doing the baptizing I had an indirect hand in it. My dad was the one to baptize John! I had the pleasure of baptizing my dad a couple of years back and to see him growing in God like this is just amazing!!!

Here is the two of them before it happened. (Dad's on the left :)

Just over a year ago Sally and I made some new friends, Gary and Rhiannon. They started coming to our church and soon after to our bible study. We have been blessed to know them and travel with them in their Spiritual journeys as well as seeing their family begin to grow with a beautiful little boy. I'm usually someone who has a lot of acquaintances but not many close friends, Gary and Rhiannon were fast friends and we love them a lot.

Rhiannon expressed her desire for baptism some time ago and after a little electronic cajoling (I love email) she hopped in to be buried with Christ and identify publicly with his resurrection.

Here's some before and afters.

Join with me in praying for all three of them as they continue their Spiritual journey in Christ.

I found this poster on another blog (along with a few other really great posters) and it really helps to describe where I am at at the moment.

For me, ministry is all about the good news, the good news that there is hope for this life as well as the next. But saying that doesn't just bring about hope into the lives of others, and trying to apply a formula to every person just doesn't cut it (anymore? did it ever).

Relevance is critical to those we minister to. We need to think beyond simply attempting to bring the news of hope as a set peice and instead being the news of hope in peoples lives. I believe it was St. Fransis of Assisi who said: "Preach the gospel to all people and if necessary use words".

How can I bring the good news to a person who feels backed into the corner, who cant or wont turn their heads to see what God has for their lives? I can go to them, understand them, and minister to them.

My chuch is seeing the fruit of this approach, it really works. With concern for our neighbours we go to whats best described as an enclave of hopelessness. A cul-de-sac of housing commision flat filled with those who have lost hope, have no one to talk with and feel backed into a corner. And guess what, by going, listening and experiencing a little part of their lives with them there is flesh starting to grow on their dry bones.