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.

Crossway LifeCare is a community services organisation passionate about helping people in tough places flourish. Although some of their services have been suspended due to COVID-19, LifeCare has found ways to fulfil its vision during this time.

Prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, Crossway LifeCare delivered about 30 food hampers a month. In the last 11 weeks, LifeCare's Community Pantry has distributed 613 hampers!

One client said, "To your wonderful volunteers, and the kind people who donate, please pass on my heartfelt thanks". And another, "I wanted to say thank you again for the generosity you have shown my family today. The kids have already picked out a movie to watch tonight to have the popcorn with! They were over the moon to unpack everything and spent some time together figuring out potential meal ideas. It was so lovely to watch! I felt like they were on a game show. Please know that we are so grateful."

Many volunteers help pack and sort the food hampers. On April 27 this included three of the Essendon Football Club Staff, Gregor, Luke and Andrew. These three men had been stood down from their jobs indefinitely due to financial challenges arising from COVID-19 restrictions, but they wanted to give back despite their personal struggles and were grateful for the opportunity to help.

Every year, Crossway LifeCare's Women’s Centre puts on a pamper morning to celebrate the women who attend the Centre for Mother’s Day. Most of the women who attend the Women’s Centre are mothers, and all of them have experienced family violence. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this year’s pamper morning was unable to go ahead, so instead, the Centre delivered flowers to all the participants. After receiving her flowers, one woman said, "It's been a long, long time since I received anything for Mother's Day. They are beautiful, thank you ".

There are many more ‘good news’ stories and photos on Crossway Lifecare’s facebook page, demonstrating that even a pandemic cannot stand in the way of God’s love in action!

Crossway LifeCare Facebook

In the middle of January his year, as part of a discussion about how to use for mission, the musical talents and gifts of church members, the Melbourne Bangjoo Church Leaders had the idea of conducting a praise school.

Since February, Byungsuk Lee has undertaken general planning, and been in charge of the proceedings and publicity to prepare the praise school. In March, he was able to promote the school of praise through various routes. 

The Praise School was aimed at children who had no experience of faith, or those who had been brought up in Christian families but were not living in faith. The intent was to make it possible for the children who participated to meet God naturally through praise and music.

The children participated in one of four Praise School programs:

Praise and dance Class for Prep

Rhythm Class for grade 1 ~ 3

Band Class for Grade 4 ~ 5

Choir Class for all children combined

Byungsuk Lee shared his excitement that he couldn't believe they could do so much in such a short time, '' but God was finally praised through the lips of the children. Hallelujah!"