Bulletin

A Sampling of true stories from Victoria's rural Baptist churches

The time for the renewal of rural churches throughout the Western world appears to have arrived. Many good things are happening. Changes are afoot. Newness is emerging. In small ways, sometimes overlookable, God starts a stirring in some quiet rural water that suggests a hopeful future.

It is apparent that many little churches that sprang up a century ago between paddocks and on crossroads are struggling for survival. While they have a beauty of their own, rooted in history, with fascinating traditions and a wonderful capacity to nurture the young and respect the old, they are dying out like the bilby, the windmill, the Upper Booligal cricket team, the consolidated school. Killed by fast cars, good roads, competition, efficiency, bigger farms with big machines ' all the usual suspects ' the hitmen of the post-modern world.

In some parts of the bush, however, the churches are looking different: more alive, more willing to try new ideas, aware of their community and open to being involved with it. That's what the stories in this book are about. Churches trying things that appear risky or strange; opening new doorways into the fellowship, and along with the extra people or dollars they were hoping for, the Spirit blew in as well.

For the Holy Spirit is not the old god of the country who insisted on clean shoes, punctuality, hard pews and hard preaching. God is ahead, moving and stirring, eroding and recreating, more modern than next year's fashions. Some of us are finally looking ahead planning how to catch up.

No one tells stories as a blueprint for others to try. There are distillable principles that make some ideas work better than others. These stories are meant to give readers a feel for the right motivation, the assured tone of voice, the ardour for community that will be the ticket to board God's train headed for rural revitalisation

Good News Stories About Children

When you are at the stage where children cluster around your feet everywhere you go, it is a good time of life for making friends, finding acceptance and common ground with others, and assisting in great children's ministries.

Churches can capitalise on the hunger families feel for programs and activities that will benefit their children.

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Warrnambool

At Warrnambool, they call it Families for God. After observing that their Kid's Church, which operated on Sunday morning concurrently with one of their three church services, was only averaging 10 children, those involved decided to move to a Friday night. They discovered that the excellent curriculum ' Power Tool Box ' which had failed to attract children on Sundays, worked splendidly at the Friday night program called FFG (Families For God).

It is important to conserve energy for busy leaders, to share the workload and to train up younger leaders. These issues have been addressed by the team of FFG. Setting-up is minimised by using the church sanctuary. The team has grown to approximately 20 leaders, and Youth Group members are being trained as Junior Leaders.

Meeting from 7.00- 8.30 so as to avoid the need to provide meals or refreshments, FFG has been a great success with 130 children being reached. Approximately 80 turn up each week and efforts are made to encourage parents to stay and be part of it.

One important idea has been to bus kids in from a housing commission area and the bus crowd usually make up about half the attenders.

When asked what was learnt from the experience, the leaders feel that God used the frustration of failure to force them to try something new. They struck upon a program and a timeslot that met the community's needs and the children's needs rather than expecting them to adapt to the convenience of the church.

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Rokeby

Other churches might consider running a Friday night children's ministry because the same time slot has worked for the little Gippsland church of Rokeby, where they call it CASPAR - Children's After School Program At Rokeby. Nothing could be less similar than the big coastal city of Warrnambool and this small Gippsland town based on saw milling and agriculture. Yet the Rokeby church also found their attempts at a Sunday morning children's program were of limited value. Observing that a school holiday program conducted in the '80's with Westernport church was very popular and well attended, they knew that children's work held great potential.

CASPAR invites Primary School aged children to a two-hour program commencing at 5pm each Friday. The format consists of four half-hour segments: outside games, light tea, Sunday School-type lesson, and a craft activity. Parents driving their children to CASPAR get to know the leaders and soon shed feelings of uncertainty about the church. So much so that one community member whose children attend CASPAR approached the leaders they had come to know when a funeral service was required. This was a great opportunity to build contact with a family that would otherwise have remained distant from the church.

The problem of conserving the energy of the leaders is dealt with differently at Rokeby. They limit themselves to a 6 to 8 week term, and often take the Winter term off altogether. (In rural areas, continuity is less insistent because competition for people's attention is less than in urban settings, and relationships and involvements tend to be deeper and easier to maintain.)

A separate problem the CASPAR leaders face is keeping the craft ideas fresh. This calls for endless invention which their creative art director has so far managed to keep up.
One surprising discovery from the program is that some of the children who attend are brought along by parents who attended children's programs the church ran years ago, such as Girls' Brigade. The church is only 40 years old, but its multi-generational impact is a credit to the inspiration and goodness of God.

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Corryong

The beautiful town of Corryong, holding 1,500 people in the mountains of the North-East, has a Baptist church which took advantage of a partnership with the Benalla church to put on a children's Holiday Club last January.

When the two churches were discussing what joint venture they could undertake, the thought occurred that although Corryong's Sunday School is currently lively and well-attended, in just a few short years a 'child vacuum' can easily arise. Corryong pastor Trevor Walmsley knew from other experiences that a Holiday Club using the American Gospel Light material could be very successful. So they allocated tasks and activities between the two churches: Benalla had some gifted people who could cover the music, drama and games, while Corryong would provide the group leaders, refreshments, the director and the main organising.

Organising was thorough as was the prayer coverage. Time-tables were prepared, all contingencies thought through, the materials obtained and publicity swung into action. It all went wonderfully. The Baptist church became known and respected to many more families as a result of this marvellous week. Six groups of children met with leaders during each session and the culmination was a fantastic family night on the last Friday in January. Parents who never attend any church came for a family BBQ and then stayed for a mini musicale that was presented by the children with an appropriate address to sum up the theme of the week. The results are many. The wonderful prayer times each morning before the 9 o'clock start spun deep bonds between the workers on the team, as prayer in the midst of ministry always has that extra urgency and relevance. The two churches benefited from the joint project ' something neither could accomplish on their own, and the sense of connection continues. Most importantly, some youth have since begun attending the weekly Youth club at the church.

Trevor Walmsley concludes, "We found it a very valuable means by which we could reach out to the community and we will be doing it again next year."

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Longwarry

Another church that capitalised on children's ministry is Longwarry on the edge of Gippsland before Warragul where 700 people live in an agricultural town. For Longwarry's pastors Sandra and Brian Hogan, the demise of a Kids' Club a few years ago was inexplicable, but in its place they began a fortnightly craft group for young girls.

Limiting and focusing the target group has worked well, and fortnightly on Fridays a group will be found enjoying craft activities and then a meal together. There are Bible stories, songs and memory verses, even homework sheets which earn rewards.

Through the girls attending, an effort is made to reach the whole family: family nights are held three times a year ' one near Mothers' Day, one in August and one near Christmas. Targeted giving of gifts is one way to share helpful materials with the families, including the Children's Jesus Video and books.

The candid assessment of the work the Hogans offer is that through the program and follow-up visitation, great friendships with girls and their families have been built, but they struggle with translating that into discipleship or church attendance.

Like so much ministry, we sow in hope, then trust God to turn the seed into abundance.

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Good News Stories:

Raising money raises hopesThe struggle of raising the finances to run the church sometimes drains congregations of all energy and mission. These stories are not about that. It is better to look at what a church can do, how it can bless its community and leave survival up to God. These stories tell of raising funds for special purposes and projects ' yet they rippled benefits out to the whole church.

Kangaroo Flat

It began with a switch from World Vision's 40-hour famine to sponsoring a well for fresh water in the Philippines through Australian Baptist World Aid. No clearly packaged method of fund-raising existed for this and the target of $1000 loomed large for a small youth group in this suburb of Bendigo.

Someone suggested a sponsored hike and they decided to hike the Federation Trail from Daylesford to Ballarat. The full story of what came to be known as the Hike for Hope can be read at "http://www.deeper.com.au/site/articles.htm" www.deeper.com.au/site/articles.htm where pastor Greg Carle tells of the effect of this project on the whole church. The joy of planning, the diligent completion of preparatory tasks by young people, the support of the church in eagerly taking prayer cards to pray for the hikers, and a wonderful celebration concert at the end were all times when the church was aware of God's special presence.

The hike took 3 days. They camped in the Mollongghip hall the first night and at the Eastern Hill Camp site in Creswick the second ' beautiful cabins and facilities offered free of charge. Gear was carted in a trailer along with food by a support crew. Although the young hikers got blistered, hungry, tired and sore, no injuries or mishaps occurred.

The goal of raising a thousand dollars for a well was exceeded. When the giant cheque was handed over at the celebration concert, it came to enough for four wells. But the ripple effect of positive impact was just as important.

Ripple One was the sense of vitality, harmony and enthusiasm the youth group found in achieving the project. 'There was never a word of complaint or criticism or negative talk for the whole of the hike,' says Greg Ripple Two was the involvement of the church people in prayer, support and encouragement.

Ripple Three was the way so many others were touched ' media (many town newspapers wrote about it, though the Bendigo TV news reports were disappointingly scanty), Ballarat North Baptist church and youth group who welcomed them, the Mollongghip and Eastern Hill folk who accommodated them.
Ripple Four was Baptist World Aid Australia who were so encouraged they have set a staff member the task of designing a Hike for Hope pack to encourage other churches to duplicate the effort.

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Sale

Dave's Dollar Diner began as a simple fundraiser but it has had some great roll-on benefits.
A group of young people who wished to attend the Hillsong conference in Sydney in July began selling drinks and snacks to church attenders at the conclusion of the Sale Baptist evening service as a way of raising the money. Everything was cheap 'a dollar for a bowl of hot food such as muffins, hot dogs, burritos or spaghetti, or a dollar for a chocolate bar or can of drink. The main result was to enrich the church's fellowship following the service. It changed the atmosphere in this Gippsland church that often has people from the military or the energy industry in its number as well as the agricultural sector. More people began to attend night service, and the sense of community increased. People enjoyed working on the Diner, and customers felt they were contributing to a worthy cause.

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