Stepping inside Balwyn Baptist church (BBC), caressed by her bright and free-flowing space, you will be forgiven for not being able to tell that this is actually a mixed marriage of an ageing wooden hall built over a century ago, a beautiful high ceiling brick worship place built between the two world wars, and a concrete extension built in the eighties of last century when the interest rate reached a crazy 18%. That’s the image you might summon when you think of BBC facing the unprecedented COVID-19 challenge, where her diversity in age, race, culture and traditions turned into amazing and enriching unity by God’s grace. 

The current pandemic has had an effect on everyone, regardless of age, race or religion and everyone’s perceptions and responses have differed. There is no “correct” way to react to the COVID-19 outbreak. The community at Balwyn Baptist Church has always been diverse, with worshippers ranging from Anglo- Aussies, to China, Mauritius and the Middle East. Fellowships that frequent the BBC schedule have assisted in developing strong trust and understanding within the church. Facing the pandemic together has only further highlighted that despite the many differences, there is unity in diversity. 

During this time, it has become even more important to stay close to God and His word. However, with health and safety regulations, Sunday church services were put on hold. Turning to online services like many others, BBC worked hard to keep the congregation connected via Zoom. This drastic change inevitably leads to some challenges within the church; most notably, the use of technology. The BBC community has been blessed with a notable variation in age. Some members of the church less familiar with the usage of technology have struggled with the conversion to online services.

Specifically, we witnessed the love of Jesus reflected in the actions of a member from BBC. Upon hearing that a member of the congregation did not have a device to operate Zoom on, she bought an iPhone 5 online and a 12-gigabyte sim card. This action of love and generosity has been echoed throughout the church with other members lending laptops to those who need it and helping each other learn how to use the program. Although the use of technology is still a challenge, the help that the church has willingly offered to each other has been a direct reflection of how differences have brought us together. 

It is inevitable that the reactions towards COVID-19 will differ. There are members who respond with a greater level of caution, and others who are more relaxed. The church has overcome the many differing viewpoints, and through God has been given the ability to converse in love and understandingly. It has been moving to witness the immense support and empathetic responses during this time. The controversial issues surrounding the pandemic which frequent the media and the perceived cultural stigma’s have not impacted the dynamic within the church, but instead through prayer and praise, the church has united in unwavering faith to provide support to each other. 

Although it is often perceived that diversity and unity are at opposite ends of a spectrum, God has the ability to link our differences. Through Him, BBC has been able to unite in current circumstances and embrace the diversity. It is these differences that have been a blessing to the church.  

By Victoria Li 
Year 11 student, BBC church member

For pastors in Victoria and right around the world, let me just come right out and state the very obvious… Things have changed dramatically in recent times! I know it’s not a new piece of news but it needs to be said.  And for pastors, there have been so many significant changes to the way we minister, that it is important to stop for a moment and acknowledge this.

You can most likely identify with the following…

• I have not been able to meet personally with the people I pastor
• I have had to learn new ways of communicating to the church, and to do it more often
• I have had to change the way I prepare for Sundays in order to adjust to online services
• I have seen what other pastor are doing online & there is the opportunity to compare like never before
• I have been at home more and my routines, disciplines and boundaries have needed to adjust
• I have had to work harder to collaborate and have had to make more decisions on my own
• I have started to think about what I need to do differently when the restrictions are lifted

These changes are real and have left many pastors feeling fatigued as a result of all the decisions they have had to make, emotionally drained as they feel like they are always trying to catch up, and physically tired as they wonder how long they can sustain this level of challenge. This is the reality for many pastors.

So now, perhaps more than ever, we need to hear anew the call of God’s word to us through the writer of the letter to the Hebrews…

“…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

While the events threatening to stop the recipients of the letter from persevering were persecution and the trials of life in their day, we face challenges and changes that can cause us to feel like we are unable to go on. But God wants us to persevere, to keep going, to run the race marked out for us.

Now is the time for pastors to have resilience more than ever. It’s the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, from challenges. Just like the “slinky” toy many of us had when we were growing up, resilient pastors spring back and resume their original form after stretching. They don’t give up, they endure, and they prevail in the midst of adversity. How can we ensure that we are resilient in these times?

Remember – God got you into this!

God has called you to run.

It is God who got you running this race. You believed the gospel, you responded by faith and began the journey as a follower of Jesus. You surrendered your life to him. And now you are a pastor and you are running this race. People are looking to you. God called you and has equipped you. You must persevere. Until God makes it clear you have completed the race, keep running.

You have a call and a sense of purpose, so remember that “the one who called you is faithful and he will do it.” (1 Thess. 5:24) It might just be the right time to retreat and spend a half or full day in prayer. On this day, why not reflect on how God called you initially into pastoral ministry, give thanks and praise for all that he has helped you through in the past, and ask God to help you, to strengthen you, to give you wisdom, to empower you and to fill you in the light of this current challenge. Remember that God’s grace is sufficient, and that when you are weak, you are strong in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 12:9-10). 

Remember – Comparison Kills

God’s has marked out the race for you.

“…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

As churches have started streaming their weekend services online, many pastors have had their very first opportunity for a long time to see what other churches are doing and to compare themselves with other pastors & churches. It’s possible to see the sermons other pastors are preaching, how they pray, how they lead. We can end up feeling all kinds of regret, inferiority and inadequacy. But the writer to the Hebrews says that we are all in a race, but it is one that he has marked out for each of us. We don’t run the race in the same way as someone else does. Run your own way in this race, the way marked out for you. Run with the unique gifts, skills and experiences he has given you. Craig Groeschel has said, “The fastest way to kill something special is to compare it with something else.” Don’t waste time comparing yourself or your church with others. If you keep looking around, you’ll run off course. Run your race with all that you have for God’s glory. Be yourself, everyone else is taken!

What are your strengths? Build on them. What gives you joy? Work toward those things. What are the unique needs in your church and your community? Ask God to help you meet them. The race is before you. Run your unique way. You have something special as a pastor to offer the people God has entrusted to you. We’re cheering for you!

Remember – Look to Jesus

“…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

Look to the One who called you to run.

When we fix our eyes on Jesus, we can experience the fullness of God’s grace poured out on us. We may have failed, stumbled and fallen so far short of our hopes and expectations, but at the cross as we see Jesus, we can declare with boldness, “I am forgiven, I am accepted, I am redeemed, I am called.” This fills us with joy.

When we fix our eyes on Jesus we see his example of how to persevere. The cross of Christ reminds us of the terrible suffering Jesus faced which was not only experienced physically but also in taking upon himself the sin of the world. Still, the promise of future joy provided Jesus with the strength to suffer. We are called to help pastor flourishing churches. What a joy it will be to see lives changed and communities impacted. Keep your eyes on Jesus as you run and don’t give up!

Resilience Resources

We need resilient pastors who persevere in the face of great challenge. Now is the time to build your resilience. The BUV has great resources to help you and I want to point you to a number of them.

1. Rev David Devine has presented a Professional Standards Workshop that can be completed online for maintaining your accreditation. It is called Resilience for Pastoral Leaders and is very helpful.

2. Maintaining supportive relationships is a key to building resilience, and the most significant relationship that many pastors have is that with their spouse. That is why the Marriage Course is being offered to pastoral leaders with Rev Dr Bill and Julia Brown hosting the course. This course started last Wednesday (6th May) but if you are quick you can still join in and catch up on the first episode. Sign up here…

3. Pastoral Clusters are operating right across Victoria using ZOOM to connect, encourage and offer peer support. Contact your regional pastor for information about when the next one is happening near you.

4. I attended the online The Resilience Webinar hosted by Partners in Ministry with Mark Connor and Psychologist Dr Grant Bickerton as guest speakers, the full webinar is available here on demand. I found the webinar very helpful and would recommend it to you.
    
5. Life Therapies Victoria, an organisation founded by psychologists and members of New Community Ringwood Baptist Church, has a number of video and PDF resources on wellbeing and resilience – http://www.lifetherapiesvictoria.com.au
    

Together as Baptists on mission we can not only persevere through this time but I believe we can prevail. Remember that God got you into this, that comparison kills and that Jesus is the one to keep looking to at every step of our race. There will be great joy when we meet Jesus face to face one day and we celebrate together! 

There’s nothing quite like coming home to a loving family. Having a place where you are known, loved and encouraged to fulfil your purpose. At Mill Park Baptist Church (MPBC), our members and our community are experiencing exactly that

Nestled in a multi-cultural suburb, north of Melbourne, MPBC welcomes people of all ages, races and socio-economic backgrounds to the family of God. Through the personal testimonies of many, we are seeing the fruit of our church embracing multi-ethnicity where over 30 different ethnic groups of people come together to worship and serve every week.

Mariam, one of our dedicated members, is a great example of this. Mariam migrated to Australia from Egypt and felt lost in a new country. She began attending MPBC with her family and soon found a sense of belonging and value within our community. Mariam knew that she was not alone and dreamt of people from all ethnic and cultural backgrounds feeling welcomed, loved, and accepted for who they are, and being empowered as tomorrow's leaders in a multi-ethnic context.

We encouraged her to take up a leadership role and supported her team to launch an “International Expo” event, celebrating ethnic diversity.  Using her own experience and story, Mariam offered all she had to the Lord. And faithfully, He has used it mightily! Through a showcase of diverse food and cultural performances, the International Expo, now in its 5^th year, is an event that our community looks forward to participating in and celebrating. It is a beautiful demonstration of Revelation 7:9,

‘After this I looked and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.’

And then, there’s SHAK! Whispering in the hearts of Siew-Peng and two sisters, Joanna and Sonya, God united their vision to Share His Almighty Kingdom through a community kitchen. The SHAK was birthed in 2015 to share God’s love through a hot meal and warm conversations. Today, this incredible ministry feeds 20-25 people each week, impacting many who are lonely and struggling with issues such as mental health.

Theresa, was one of the many individuals, captivated by this ministry. Having been diagnosed with Cancer and sitting with questions of faith, Theresa saw how the SHAK was a reconciling community of Christ where all can belong. She was deeply moved and started volunteering at the SHAK. On her last birthday before passing, she asked that all her gifts be a contribution to the SHAK and provided new equipment for the kitchen. We are thankful that Theresa left a legacy that continues to transform lives within our community.

There are also stories from people whose lives have been changed through the process of counselling. Mill Park Community Care, our professional counselling service, was established back in 2013 through two church members with counselling training and experience. This more publicly accessible form of counselling is quite different to traditional pastoral care and has helped many outside the church four walls, to work through issues and deal with emotions. One of our clients shared with us her story below:

 “If you were to tell me six months ago that I would be currently living addiction free and full of purpose – I would have literally thought you were downright crazy. It was three words that changed my life forever… "By His grace." It was the grace of God that met me from the very first counselling session at Mill Park (Community Care) with my counsellor or "Doc" as I refer to her at times. I knew in that room, on that very first session, that God was in that place. Don't get me wrong it wasn't easy by any means and I had to go to some dark places but… (it) was so easy to talk… and I could literally share everything… I have by no means arrived, but I do know that generational curses, habits and addictions are forever broken off my life – wrong ways of thinking have also completely been rectified (this is a continual process) and I have gained a greater clarity of the "big picture" of my life and how I best fit in that by God's strength, through His will and by the power of His Holy Spirit. Let me finish by saying that even if you're not spiritual or religious in any way – the counselling team is still right for you to gain good quality, world-class counselling in my humble opinion.”

We also have ministries across every generation, that share the love of Jesus and good news of the gospel to the community – from kids to youth to young adults and beyond. Thanks to volunteers like Kat Stokes, our church provides playgroup twice weekly as a wonderful way to connect with parents and their young children. The ZONE is another outreach program available to primary school children. Through fun activities once a month, children in the community have the opportunity to make friends with believing children their age and establish connections with faith-filled mentors to help them grow.

At MPBC, we believe there’s a place for everyone at His table and it’s something we find engrained throughout the DNA of all our ministries. With so many unique gifts and callings working together as one family in Christ, 1 Corinthians 12:7 and 11 so perfectly sum up what we are seeing at MPBC:

‘To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good… All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.’

I have been thinking, over the last few weeks, about the term ‘essential’. It has become part of our vernacular in a previously unseen way. I used to say ‘essential’ when I was speaking about getting something important or urgent like “It is essential I get chocolate today”. Now, the word has become synonymous with restrictions. Am I an essential worker? Is this task essential so I can leave the house?  We have been forced to consider every area of our life, every action that we take to determine if they are within the requirements and restrictions of the current time. It has impacted every area of our life in a way that has not been known before.  

By its definition essential means “absolutely necessary, extremely important.”

It got me thinking about the ways in which church is essential, particularly in the lead up to Easter when our Prime Minister indicated that ministers of religion were essential workers for the purpose of Easter services.

Is church essential?

According to McCrindle research the percentage of the Australian population who identify Christianity as their religion has declined over the last decade from 68% to 61.1%[1]. It should be noted that the number of people identifying as Christian does not necessarily translate into people attending church or being an active part of a faith community with National Church Life Survey data from 2011 suggesting that about 7% of the Australian population attend church on a Sunday[2].  On numbers alone, the data does not seem positive.

However, what the COVID-19 restrictions have shown us is an interesting dynamic, with research suggesting that many churches are reporting higher numbers of people linking in through online services than those who previously have attended church services. We have seen many encouraging and inspiring examples of churches adapting to the changing environment with the current situation providing many different opportunities for mission.  Carey Nieuwhof gives some great thoughts about how to press into the digital space for growing our churches.[3]

It still, though, doesn't answer the question about whether church is essential?

To me it is! As a member of a church community I love belonging to a faith community. They encourage me, challenge me to grow, support me when I am feeling wobbly – generally they are the hands and feet of Jesus to me.  Now I recognise that while there is the deeper ontological question about the essential nature of church, there is also the way in which the church is functionally essential for us today.

The essential nature of church is not just about how many people come through our doors but more importantly is being a flourishing community of believers who love God, love each other and love the world (or just our neighbourhood) around us.

Here are some suggestions to help your church prove itself to be essential at this time:

Loving God:

• Develop a church spotify list with your church most sung worship songs to help people sing along at home.
• Explore spiritual disciplines that you don’t normally use.
• Encourage people to pray in smaller groups online during the week
• Point people to a bible reading program.
• Encourage people to recognise God’s presence with them throughout their day.

Loving each other:

• Encourage your members to pray for five other people in your church each day and text them a word of encouragement.
• Suggest people meet online for lunch or dinner (smaller groups work better in this environment) and just hangout.
• Use online games for some fun interaction. There are some great Pictionary/card/game apps and websites.
• For families with kids, share schooling resources or organise appropriate help for each other.
• Drop off a meal on someone’s doorstep.

Loving our neighbourhoods:

• Check in with our neighbour to see if they are ok.
• Drop off a meal if you can.
• Watch a movie at the same time and chat via text or messenger during the movie.
• If you live next door to each other, have a coffee in your driveway with each other.
• Say hello to people that we pass when we are out for walks.
• Check in with local neighbourhood houses/centres to see if they need emergency food.

Being an essential church includes finding ways to deepen our love of God, each other and our neighbour. My guess is, if we encourage every single person in our church to do something in each of the three areas, we will have flourishing churches whether we are meeting in person or not.

Sources:

In lieu of being able to physically gather for our biannual Members Dinner tonight, we've create a Members Update Video for you. In this video, you will hear from Jo-Anne Bradshaw, Union Council Chair, from Daniel Bullock, Director of Mission and Ministries, on the year so far and strategic direction, and from Debbie Uy, Director of Finance and Administration on the Financial info. In addition, we will welcome some new churches and faith communities to the BUV and will hear briefly from our 3 Ordinands.

Its a great 30 minute video update and we encourage you to make time to watch it sometime over the weekend.

Please click here to view the May Members' Update video

The 2019 BUV Annual Report is now also available  – Click here 

In the face of coronavirus meeting restrictions, Bacchus Marsh Baptist gave prayerful consideration as to how church should look for them. While they were grateful for the many online worship services being made available from other churches, in Pastor Jeremy Van Langenberg’s words, “we were concerned to maintain a sense of ‘us’ –   our local church community”.  

They began by placing all church attendees including children, youth and young adults into cluster groups. For the first time ever, everyone in the church is in a small group! So far this is working well with groups meeting digitally or by phone.

Sunday sermons are pre-recorded online in a fairly simple fashion and for those without digital access, sermon notes and orders of service are hand delivered (with careful thought to hygiene). A weekly prayer guide is also being provided for the church to pray at the same time each Wednesday.

While church finances were initially struggling in the absence of physically meeting on Sundays, in recent days more church members than ever before have signed on to direct debit giving. While these last few weeks have been challenging and stretching, Jeremy reports the church community are encouraged, thankful and in good spirits.