Want to enjoy 7 Date Nights as a couple and in the process invest significantly in your relationship?

For seven Monday evenings, starting August 3^rd, Bill and Julia Brown are again hosting ‘The Marriage Course’ online and invite you to join them on Zoom.

Here’s what they say,

‘Facilitating and participating in The Marriage Course has been a great opportunity to build our relationship and discover and sharpen tools that help us in every area of our marriage. It is fun, encouraging, challenging and well worth the investment of time.’

Recent participants comment:

‘… great course to improve communication and work at honest interaction and support for each other … great investment even for a healthy marriage … while looking at some big topics it’s gentle in the way it goes about addressing them … great way to nourish your relationship … gives tools to work on issues raised … sit in the comfort of your own lounge room and be guided through conversation and discussions to deal with all the important aspects of your relationship … helpful topics and good balance of instruction and structured discussion … talking about things in the privacy of your own home enabled conversation to go deeper ..  we were more open and vulnerable as it felt completely private … enabled us to participate even though we have young children because we didn’t need to find baby-sitters … great for our kids to see us investing in our relationship.’

The Marriage Course is for any couple who wants to invest in their relationship, whether you have been together 1 or 61 years or whether you have a strong relationship or are struggling. Couples from different cultural or religious backgrounds have all expressed appreciation after participating in the course. Remember too, that perhaps the best way to build relationships for your family and community is to model what you want caught.

The online course provides couples the space to consider the following:

• Strengthening Connection
• The Art of Communication
• Resolving Conflict
• The Power of Forgiveness
• The Impact of Family
• Good Sex
• Love in Action

The course is free. There is never any group work and you will never be asked to share anything about your relationship with anyone other than your partner. There is a downloadable manual for every participant or, if preferred, a participant’s manual can be purchased for around $16 each (i.e. $32 per couple plus postage).

The sessions commence at 7.30 pm and are all over before 9.30 pm. With the course being online you will need to provide the mood lighting and whatever food and drink you would like.

Check the trailer for the course below:

How to register? Send Bill and Julia an email at bill.brown@buv.com.au and they will send you a registration form, the zoom details and a link to download the participant’s manual.

Source: BUV News

Source: BUV News

“The church wanted to do more in hospitality and developed the idea of making community meals for the vulnerable in our local area” says Anne Wilkinson-Hayes, member of Westgate Baptist Church.

In 2018, the opportunity for Westgate Baptist to increase their hospitality reach began with Anne and a team of volunteers initiating collection of food waste from local cafes, greengrocer and more recently, Coles and Woolworths after being alerted to the amount of food being discarded each year.

Anne has had a long-held interest in the social and environmental benefits of food rescue and has been a driving force in helping form Yarraville’s own food rescue group with volunteers from members of Westgate Baptist Church.

“When we realised that a big portion of food collected was edible, we wanted to do more”, Anne said. “We have a great relationship with the local cafes, and they are very supportive of what we are trying to do”.

The group initially received a $15,000 grant from Maribyrnong Council enabling them to buy compost bins to compost the rescued food waste and start a community garden.

A further grant (from Baptcare) along with support from the Council and other NFP’s, enabled them to build a commercial kitchen in the church so that volunteers could use some of the food towards free community meals for Karen refugees. Westgate Baptist is home to more than 300 Karen people who call the church home. The food rescue group works closely with the Karen community in conjunction with Pastor Ner Dah (Pastor of the Westgate Karen Baptist Church) who has a passion to help the refugee community. Many of the volunteers are Karen.  

In March, the group was about to launch their Rescued Food dinners on Monday nights but in light of COVID-19 restrictions, decided instead to cook rescued food into delicious frozen ready meals (soups, curries, stews) that they made available to friends and neighbours who were sick or in isolation. Since March they have provided over 150 meals for the vulnerable in the community.

As restrictions lift, the plan to is to deliver more community meals to the elderly, the struggling and disadvantaged. The social, environmental and community benefits of this venture are obvious, and Anne and the team have a clear sense of God’s hand leading them as they seek to bless their neighbourhood.  

Source: BUV News

This week's hard lockdown of the Kensington and Flemington public housing estates has not stopped the People's Pantry from their mission.  The Flemington People’s Pantry is a food rescue and redistribution project run by, and for members of the Flemington/ Kensington and Ascot Vale public housing estate communities.  The Wednesday program is an activity of the People’s Place: Newmarket, a faith community of Essendon Baptist Community Church who seek to build community connections by initiating and supporting various local food initiatives. The programme has been operating since 2009 and they are committed to being in the community for the long haul, well after the immediacy of the current lockdown situation has passed. 

A diverse group of local volunteers experiencing under/unemployment, order, collect and redistribute 1 to 1.5 tonnes of food to 75-100 households each Wednesday, in a festive, multi-cultural, multi-faith, ‘food swap’ environment.

Participants register over tea and coffee from 12.30pm in the old Newmarket Baptist Church Sanctuary in Flemington.  After the ballot is drawn at 2pm, participants choose a hamper of food from fresh fruit and vegetables, fridge and frozen, dry goods, milk and bread between 2 -3.30pm.

The People's Pantry partners with other agencies to provide volunteer work for asylum seekers; people experiencing mental illness or intellectual disability, and under/unemployment.  The Pantry exists to redeem waste, share food and work, dispel loneliness, reconnect neighbours, celebrate difference and subvert the status quo! The People's Pantry is also a registered charity agency of Foodbank Victoria.

Although most of the volunteers and participants and are in lockdown, and they cannot deliver food to the estates, Rev Marcus Curnow, Pastor of the Newmarket campus of Essendon Baptist Community Church, says those who are still able to, will continue to deliver food door to door to the vulnerable who are in immediate and surrounding suburbs that are currently under the Government's Stage 3 stay at home restrictions. 

During the emergency lockdown this week, Marcus reveals that Foodbank Victoria were delivering bulk hampers through the night and that two of the agencies partnering with The People’s Pantry (Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and STR-EAT), have been contracted to provide catering for those in hard lockdown. “Although this immediate need is being funded by the Government, these agencies are both not for profits who we work with in ongoing ways to deliver food locally.”

Another of our churches, West Melbourne Baptist, is in partnership with the Hotham Mission and well before this emergency, has had food going into high rise towers every week.  Rev Geoff Pound, Pastor at West Melbourne Baptist Church, says “Our focus during COVID-19 has been supplying food to 60-70+ asylum seeker families as they have been hit the hardest. Their casual work dried up fast and they are not eligible for JobKeeper or any Centrelink payment. Many have gone hungry.”

Geoff points out that during this sudden lockdown, the high-rise towers in Kensington and Flemington are getting lots of media attention and plenty of help.  “The Sikhs are cooking each day and with the help of police and DHHS, are delivering 1325 meals.  The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre are delivering hot meals. There are long lines of cars on Boundary Road with people delivering supermarket bags of food.” According to Geoff, right now, they are getting overwhelmed with too many groups helping. What will be important is the ongoing support of the many vulnerable people living in these areas after the media attention has diminished.

If you would like to help, here are some practical things you can do:   

1. Prayer – First and foremost please Pray:
   1. Pray for the pantry volunteers and participants who are locked in… and out  
   2. Pray for those who have contracted COVID-19 in the community – for speedy recovery, health and safety
   3. Pray for Essendon Baptist Community Church members and leaders – those who are locked in, those who are police and those who are part of the welfare response; that they may be able to bear witness to Christ’s love
   4. Pray that the Government and agencies can provide food and emergency relief quickly and efficiently
   5. Pray for peace and unity – that the people in lockdown can move beyond outrage, fear and criticism.
   6. Pray for a deeper spiritual awareness and transformation of the painful systemic issues of race, human rights, economic poverty and the need for accessible affordable and adequate housing that this moment exposes.

2. Give
   1. For immediate donations of food, please contact Foodbank Victoria or make a donation here
       
   2. The People’s Pantry (run by Essendon Baptist Community Church Newmarket campus) has been and will continue to be committed to this community for the long term.  If you would like to support the  ongoing weekly local work of delivering  1.5 tonnes of food to 100 local families from the estates as things open back up after the immediate emergency, you can donate to The People’s Pantry, through Essendon Baptist Community Church.  Bank details are as follows.

      Bank: Baptist Financial Services
      Account Name: Essendon Baptist Community Church
      BSB: 704922
      Account Number: 100005342
      Reference: The Peoples Pantry
       

   3. The West Melbourne Baptist Church will also distribute food – you can donate for this specific group. Bank details are:

The West Melbourne Baptist Church
BSB: 033132
Account: 960004
Reference: Hard lockdown donation

Source: BUV News

Here at the Baptist Union Support Hub we believe that together, in prayer and listening to His voice, we can be the voice others need to hear through these unprecedented times.

Please join us in daily prayers, especially for our churches, leaders and communities, in the lockdown suburbs in Victoria:

• Brimbank New Life Baptist Church
• Church Location postcode within range
• Glenroy Oak Park Baptist Church 
• Hume Community Baptist Church
• Kingsville Zotung Baptist Church
• Lutuv Baptist Church
• Melbourne Matu Baptist Church Inc.
• North Church
• Sion Church
• The Terminal Baptist Church
• Tottenham Bilingual Baptist Church (Evangelica)
• Western New Community Baptist Church

Download July Prayer Calendar

Source: BUV News