Togetherness: The camp was a great place to experience togetherness, but I sometimes wonder “how do we cultivate togetherness week-in and week-out?”. I guess you could call it fellowship...I wonder whether we need to be more intentional as a Church in en-couraging and giving opportunity for people to be involved in small groups of various kinds. Whether it be a life group, a bible study, a prayer group, or a social gathering— there is nothing that beats the togetherness of spending time with one another. Let’s keep nurturing this part of our Church life.
Webb-Ellis: From 3-5pm on Monday, Hawera was the centre of the Rugby World… and nobody much seemed to notice. We parked 10m away and walked straight up to the “REAL” Webb-Ellis Cup...as well as the Bledisloe Cup; Ranfurly Sheild and many others. As a Rugby fan that is just too awesome! I’m not sure about the promotion of the event though, surely more people would have gone along if they knew about it… I’ve talked to people who were gutted that they missed out because they didn’t know. It reminds me of some-thing Paul says in Romans 10:14, “But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?”. Worth thinking about aye.
Building Bridges: In the Church life survey we took last year almost half responded that they find it difficult to share their faith with others. That’s significant! My hope is that at least half of us will make the effort to be at the Bridge Builders course which will give us great tools to make a significant step forward in addressing this. We’ve got skilled trainers here to spend time with us on building bridges into the others lives, it would be so sad if we missed out simply because we didn’t see it as a priority.