Simon Holt in Perth

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Hamo

There are few books I have raved about as much as Simon Holt’s God Next Door.

It is a brilliant book that articulates a beautiful picture of spirituality in everyday life and that inspired me to see the value in so much of what is taken for granted. It is on the shortlist for Australian book of the year and deservedly so!

Our friends at GIA have Simon in Perth this Friday to speak to pastors and young adults.

The pastor’s gig is on Friday at the Perth Flying Squadron Yacht Club, The Esplanade, Dalkeith from 1.30 to 3.30pm with afternoon tea provided. It costs $10.00 and you need to RSVP if you want to go. Call Pam Gallagher on 94703081. Hope to see you there. Hopefully it will be open to more than just card carrying ‘pastors’!

The young adults gig is Friday night and you need to contact Mim Hosking if you want to be there – mhosking@globalinteraction.org.au Also speaking at that evening will be Pam Kingwell who is part of our Forge WA team here in Oz and who is a brilliant young woman.

I’m a bit old to pass for a young adult these days… otherwise I might have seen you there 🙂

God Next Door II – The Lives of Ordinary Neighbourhood People Actually Do Matter Part II

Posted on January 24, 2008 by Hamo

Ok so the ramble continues…

From Innaloo I got married and moved to Glendalough for a couple of years early in our marriage. We lived in a 2 bed flat and then a 3 bed townhouse. Not quite inner city, but definitely high density living! As I look back it is surprising how close we can live and never connect. Not that I had time or interest anyway…

I was too busy being a pastor and running a church to even notice that there were people living nearby. Those first 4 years of marriage saw us move 3 times, with the final one being a house we built in Karrinyup – the place we intended to live for a loong time… We stayed 11 months before we sensed it was time to head up to Lesmurdie.

As a beachlover this was a very foreign place for me, but also a place I came to love. Big blocks, lots of trees and a sense of detachment from the rest of the city was all very nice. But the big blocks meant neighbourliness was lessened as we didn’t often see each other. Many people saw the hills as their ‘retreat’, so coming home after work they weren’t actually seeking to get involved in the community.

That said, the discrete village like nature of the community meant that there was a sense of community but (I am guessing) based more on shared location than relationship. Hills people are interesting. This was a middle-upper suburb, with plenty of very competent, confident people. They were generally very ‘nice’ people, and normal neighbourhood crime and vandalism was much less in this community.

Again I was way too busy with church to really connect with my neighbours (story here), but this time did propel me to a level of dissatisfaction. I became increasingly conscious that our church was a lovely bunch of people, but that most of us who were ‘seriously committed’ to it were not well connected locally. Ironically it was probably those who we (leaders) regarded as slack and at times uncommitted who were usually better connected.

I imagine there is always a balance with these things, but I was quite frustrated by my own tendency to get consumed with the tasks of church – the jobs I did well that usually brought me kudos. No one ever thought well of me for spending time working in the community or having a neighbour for a meal… but a good sermon!… Well now you’re talking.

I imagine a different person could have stayed in that place and worked thru the issues of disconnection and made some shifts. But I wanted to take a more emphatic approach. I wasn’t convinced that I could shift the centre of gravity of my life while still living in that community and working in that church. The church actually gave me permission to get more involved in the community, but sitting alongside the permission was also the unwritten expectation that nothing I was currently doing would suffer.

I do believe God called us to leave Lesmurdie, but at a much more human level I wanted to leave and experiment with church in a different form and in a different place.

Right up until this time I still don’t think I had paid much attention at all to the neighbourhood I was living in. Maybe there were occasional demographic analyses but there wasn’t a sense of buying in deeply.

So then came the move to Brighton and this is where I started to notice the place in which I was living. My first observation when we visited here 5 1/2 years ago was of a barren soul-less place – of the starkly unimaginative look of suburbia – that despite all the efforts of the developer and the house designers to create a vibe.

The ‘vibe’ was distinctly clean, neat and stark in every way. As much as the ads told us ‘its Brighton – what a community should be!’ I think we knew that it was only the kind of community that we chose to make it.

In those early days when everyone was moving into the street there were many spontaneous connections and more than a few street parties. We were responsible for a fair swathe of them as we sought to reverse the trend we had lived with for so long our whole lives. We were operating from the understanding that we ‘live ourselves into a new way of thinking’ rather than ‘thinking our way into a new way of living’.

We did manage to develop a significant feeling of community in our street, but we also observed that after the initial year people ‘settled’ into routines and while we were friendly with each other no one was taking the time to organise the parties, or if they did happen they clashed with other social activities that each of us had on.

For the first few years we were in Brighton the suburb had that new car feel smell about it. Everything was bright and shiny and lawns and gardens hadn’t had the chance to get overgrown. However a growing number of property investors meant that rental properties increased and care of gardens decreased. The kids also grew up and started to want things to do. In the absence of something useful to do they would graffiti or fight. In the last year violence and crime have increased dramatically in this supposedly idyllic little suburb.

For those who stand at a distance I am sure the stunning lakes and parklands are still enticing and seem to speak of a place of beauty and tranquility., but for those of us who live here its just a suburb – a suburb at the end of the line with limited social services and infrastructure – and a growing number of young people who have little to do.

It has also become increasingly transient with around 10% of the houses in the suburb currently up for sale. In our street of 12 houese there have lived 24 different families. I used to know everyone in the street, but a family have lived directly across from us now for 6 months and we have not spoken other than to say a brief hello.

As the street has settled and as neighbours have come and gone there has been a decrease in the desire of all of us to get to know the new people, especially those in short term rental situations. (They are only going to bugger off again!)

As I write there are 4 of left from the originals who bought into the street, but one of those 4 had a real estate agent around yesterday to get a valuation as they have bought closer to the city.

While there is little to get inspired about here, I do feel a strong sense of connection and ownership of this community. I’m sure part of it flows out of my sense of calling, but I’m sure part of it is that I have finally stopped being so busy leading a church and taken the time to really get connected with those we live amongst.

So here I am now in this strange suburb… a disproportionately high number of ‘fly in fly out’ workers, over 50% of the community born outside Oz (mostly UK and SA) and many people working themselves to the bone to make the payments on the enormous mortgage they now have.

Making connections in suburbia is certainly not easy – and its harder for blokes.

The pace of life and the ‘privatopia’ mentality means people may want to connect, but they either lack the time or the desire to get beyond their front door. And then just as you do get to know people they move…

You can understand why many just can’t be bothered.

Anyway, thats a little of my experience of neighbourhood. I could write much more on the current experience, as it the only one I have actually taken the time to reflect on, but if you are interested to know more then you can trawl my archives!

In the next few posts I will return to the book and chew thru some of what Simon has to say…

Inverting the Way We Live

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Hamo

As I mentioned a few posts back I have been re-reading God Next Door by Simon Holt and I have to say that for those of us in neighbourhood mission this is one of the best books I have come across. Simply brilliant and brilliantly simple!

I intend to offer a series of reflections from the book partly because I need to in order to process it, but also because I know many of you won’t read it – even though you should!

Here’s a first thought that began percolating in my head…

Simon mentioned how we now live in privatopia where everyone occupies their own little piece of suburbia and hides behind the rollerdoor on the garage. Neighbours are much like rare animals – sighting are infrequent and when they do occur people aren’t sure what to do.

Simon writes of the days when the front porch was common – when houses had large front porches so people could hang out the front and connect with each other. When the pace of life was slower and people seemed to value the neighbourhood. I’m too young to know if this romanticised, but I like the concept…

Of course, this has now been replaced with the ‘alfresco’ area in the rear for private entertaining. We live in the back yard rather than the front. Privacy has overtaken any kind of engagement.

I started to wonder…

How would it be if houses began to be designed with huge front verandahs? What if building companies and developers started to re-invent the front porch? Or even more amusing… what if a group of us ‘invaded a suburb’ – the same street even – and built houses with big front verandahs and lived ‘out the front’ quite intentionally.

You should know I write this as introvert – but also as one concerned for the diminished quality of community that seems to be rife in suburbia. I’m not sure how I would cope with ‘living out the front’, but I reckon it has some merit.

Last year we built this house

We have since sold it on, but I wonder what it would be like if we built this house?… I have just moved a few bits of the design around so it is far from being workable – more just a concept.

What would it be like we intentionally started inverting the way we live so that most of life was out the front?

Family meals on the front verandah?

A pool in the front yard?

Sandpit out the front?…

Veggie patch?…

I wonder what it would do to communities if this became the norm?

Dante’s definition of hell is ‘proximity without intimacy’. I would say that is a pretty good image of suburbia, but I reckon many people would prefer not to live in ‘hell’.

Just a thought!

In Jesus Love has won.

Posted on November 28, 2007 by Jarrod McKenna

Jarrod McKenna

Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.” –Mohandas Gandhi

I’m off to Indonesia this Friday (forgive me my carbon debts) to the Historic Peace Church Gathering on behalf of AAANZ and Quakers (It will be a bunch of very respectable, intelegent and impressive people from around the world… and this dreadlocked kid from Perth!). So this will be my last ‘Wednesday with Gandhi’ for the year. It’s funny I set out to write about a bunch of stuff that I didn’t get round to but I trust the Spirit will take what I have done and use it to invite and inspire people to know in deeper ways for themselves this Jesus that Gandhi said was the greatest practitioner of nonviolence in history, central to his revolution in India, and the one through whom, I believe, God’s dream for creation has broken into history.

I thought I’d end by letting you in on a little of the life of our community. Us Peace Tree mob can say with our hero Dorothy Day “We have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” As a community we seek to ‘serve in silence’ and not make a big deal of what we do but since the gang fights and the subsequent killing in the street behind ours was so public and made the news overseas, we thought we’d let our light shine in the hope that it doesn’t glorify us but the God who is transforming our world not through force but through a love seen fully in Jesus.

As Eastern Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware writes (I love this quote);

“The Cross, understood as victory, sets before us the paradox of love’s omnipotence. Dostoevsky comes near to the true meaning of Christ’s victory in some statements which he puts into the mouth of Starets Zosmia:

“At some thoughts a man stands perplexed, above all at the sight of human sin, and he wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide: “I will combat it by humble love.” If you resolve on that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.” “

We witnessed something of this humble love and healing on Saturday with our ‘Peace and Pizza’ event in response to the gang killing in our streets. As Nick Cave might put it “God was in the house” (well… garden). The family of the 18 year old kid who was killed bravely join us as well as many indigenous people and white fellas like me. We had yummy wood fired pizzas, great music, and Maori, Noogar and Wajalla (as well as people from Malaysia, Iran, Indonesia, Kenya and elsewhere) came together for a time of silence to honour the life of John[ston] the young man who was killed and tree planting and prayer for an end to violence in our neighbourhood and our world. Thanks for all who have supported us Peace Tree crew over this time. Please keep the families involved, and our neighbourhood in your prayers.

These photos were taken by our good friend and brother Tom Day who is an amazing photographer now in Perth. (his website is worth bookmarking: http://www.thomasdayphotography.com/ )

the guy with the dog in this photo is classic 🙂

Prayer with the family that have lost their loved one on our streets.

…love.

This was one of the most moving parts of the day when Noogar elders, parents and children helped to plant a tree to honour the life of a Maori boy killed by a Noogar gang. It was truly beautiful and touched the family and the community gathered deeply.

…love.

Youth Worker, Community gardener, co-chaplain at Hampton High and Peace Tree brother Josh Hobby, helps plant the tree with one of the family members.

…love.

Thanks to all who have journeyed with me and Gandhi this year. I can still be found at http://paceebene.org/blog/jarrod-mckenna. Thanks more so to all who don’t put out PR releases but quietly go about living the decision “I will combat it by humble love.”

You inspire me to know Christ more, to walk in the resurrection more. You witness to the reality that in Jesus love has won… and not even violence’s ultimate threat of death can stop resurrection power.

Grace and peace of the new world breaking in be with you,

Jarrod

Essential Components of a Missionary Community

Posted on October 9, 2007 by Hamo

Here’s a dot point summary of a talk I did over the weekend for anyone who is interested. It is a simple reflection on the desires, knowledge and actions that a missionary community requires.

I’d be interested in your reflections and what you would add to the lists.

Missionary Desires rush hour 3 dvdrip

1. For people to know Jesus and experience his salvation in its fullness – kinda obvious?…

2. For the kingdom of God to take root in an area – to seek the welfare of the city as Jeremiah 29 puts it.

3. For people’s dignity to be upheld in the middle of the process – we are not conquerors and colonisers.

Missionary Knowledge

You need to help people learn these things

1. ‘Sentness’ is everything – we are sent by God, so we go where he leads and we stay till he says ‘move’. No exceptions.

2. Orientation is everything – outward and downward (missional incarnational) rather than inward and extractional.

3. Initiative is everything – no one is going to walk across the road to your house and ask you to tell them about Jesus. Its pretty obvious…

4. Context is everything – the way mission happens in Hobart will be very different to the way it happens in Brighton or even across town. We must pay attention to the communities we live in.

5. Our own authentic connection to Jesus is everything – otherwise it will be dry labour and lack integrity. Too much missionary endeavour is done because we ‘have to’.

6. Everything is everything – we will function in accordance with the degree to which these things are present in us.

What Missionaries do

Knowledge is useless if we don’t act on it

1. Discover & learn about a context – we must exegete our culture as well as our Bibles. Hang out – listen – tune in – ask questions

2. Create space in life – busyness is the death of mission. Miss this and we miss the point.

3. Indigenize ecclesiology rather than importing & franchising – think for yourself and let church flow from mission. We are not in the franchise business.

4. Theologise carefully – Hold core stuff tightly and non core loosely and are able to tell the difference between the two. Don’t be shy to take risks. You can always come back from the edge if you fall off.

5. A missionary community demonstrates an alternative way to live. Its the ‘Upstream’ concept we speak of.

6. Work patiently and trust God – God makes things grow

More ‘non-rocket-science’ stuff, but still enough to keep us going for a lifetime…

10 Ways to Live More Intentionally in the Suburbs

Posted on October 9, 2007 by Hamo

Here

Its well worth a read. Its not rocket science, but most of us aren’t tripped up by how complex things are. Usually its because they are simple in concept but difficult to practice.

Blasphemy & Missional Solidarity

Posted on October 3, 2007 by Jarrod McKenna

Jarrod McKenna

Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:

“My experience tells me that the Kingdom of God is within us, and that we can realise it not by saying, “Lord, Lord,” but by doing God’s will and God’s work… Do you know that there are thousands of villages where people are starving and are on the brink of ruin? If we would listen to the voice of God, I assure you we would hear God say we are taking God’s name in vain if we do not think of the poor and help them. If you cannot render the help that they need, it is no use talking of service of God and service of the poor. Try to identify yourself with the poor by actually helping them.”

–Mohandas Gandhi, (March 31, 1927) from “Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings” by John Dear, p. 81

I don’t think there would be many who would argue that as Christians we can affirm with Gandhi that “we are taking God’s name in vain if we do not think of the poor and help them.”

And while Radiohead’s fans are excited the bands been thinking creatively about questions of economics and how they distribute there next album, what does that look like in our lives as God’s people? (economics and justice that is, not so much our next album distribution) Does it look different from the bands PR exercise (not that I’m not stoked Radiohead are letting me decide what to pay for their next album!)

What does it look like to move from ‘church charity’ run by some sweet old ladies, to being ecclesia of missional solidarity? (not to disrespect radical nannas everywhere doing awesome stuff!)

For you or your community what does ‘doing God’s will’ when it comes to ‘the least of these’ look like? What are you inspired by, that it might look like? What do you long for it to look like?

Our crew have really struggled with this stuff. I don’t mean struggle in the noble sense. I mean struggle in the sense of it being bloody hard! Nearly as hard as living with each other 🙂 And like much of our life as community, it’s left us with not much to show other than some colourful (and painful) stories and a burning desire for God, for healing, for justice, for the kingdom and an awareness of our own brokenness and sin. Should we all move overseas to the slums we have only visited with our expensive cameras? Should we all just join UNOH? What does it mean to practice hospitality when you’re continually stolen from, physically threatened and taken advantage of? When all you’re left with is their used needles, hardcore porn, broken promises, and debt. When you show up in court to support them but they dont. When you’re dumped with other people’s toddlers for days on end while they get high and you have to decided do you ring DCD and your only comfort is the lament of the Psalmist and your sisters and brothers prayers. Only to find out that our parts of the body of Christ are bagging you out without praying for you or seeking to correct or encourage you. Please don’t hear me writting these things out of bitterness. I write as a brother struggling with what “actually helping them” (as Gandhi put it) looks like (anybody else?). Sometimes I come out of visiting in prison and just feel like crying for a day. Maybe these are the stories we need to tell too aswell as the times we come out feeling totally inspired.

Recently I was contacted by a pastor (of what most would consider a successful mainstream church), who had opened up his home to someone who had lived on the streets for years. This Pastor wanted to talk through the heart ache of seeing someone throw away the opportunities offered to him because he was stuck in cycles he couldn’t break out of. Maybe these stories are as important to share as the “success stories”? Maybe these are the stories that can ween us of the quick fixes and easy answers that we can so often hear to our worlds deepest problems. Maybe if we told these ones too we’d celebrate God’s transforming grace all the more! And real joy would truely be our strength.

Some of our crew were recently hanging out with a similar community to us in the States called ‘The Simple Way’. The Simple Way have a huge public influence through the success of Shane Claiborne’s wonderful book “The Irresistible Revolution” (which I highly recommend!!) But we were joking if we were to write a book it would be “A how [not] to” (shout outs to Pete Rollins who I also highly recommend!!!!). Maybe our book would be called ‘The Resistible Revolution’ or ‘The Very Resistible Revolution’. 🙂

So for those of us who believe James 2:15-16 is part of the inspired Scriptures what does this look like in a world where 3 billion of God’s children live on less than 2 dollars a day?

Who are a good example of an alternative? Is Gandhi a good example? Is St. Francis of Assisi? Is our Lord? (Seriously!) If we say they are (or if we say ‘Jesus is Lord’) what does that look like for us as the church practically? Who are the communities or people who inspiring you to see Christ glorified in the churches response to poverty and ‘affluenza’? What churches in your city have encouraged you in the journey by their witness?

Anybody else need to voice failed efforts 🙂 Prayerfully reading the quote from Gandhi, what does God stir in you?

Missional Inspirations II – ‘The Joondalup Thing’

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Hamo

I haven’t been inundated with stuff, so this thing may not fly after all… But I did hear from Scott! So here goes…

The Joondalup Thing, Perth, Western Australia

1. Who is the community you are interacting with? ie what is your context and where have you seen a need? (The more specific the better here. divx nympha )

Our context is similar to Hamo’s in Brighton, predominantly white middle class Aussie suburbanites.

OUr group are people mostly all living within a 5 minute drive of one another in the city of Joondalup, WA.

Who we are serving? Well we serve people we interact with essentially. Mainly our own neighborhood.

The need… well, that’s just it. It is the suburban perception of a lack of need that is the very need that exists. Meaning – consumerism has so dulled the senses of most middle class Aussies that they feel they have no needs other than their next purchase.

2. What is the heart of the project? What are you doing and how are you doing it?

Some of these questions make me uneasy, not because they are bad questions, but they force me to think about things that make me a little uncomfortable!

The heart of the project… I would say it began with a group of believers disillusioned with large traditional, structured church and all that went with it. We began meeting as an alternative to this. We wanted to reframe and rethink issues of – Leadership, Giving, Teaching, Structure, Mission, Lifestyle and more.

We meet mostly weekly, sometimes more. We meet every Wed night for a meal, conversation and most often optional group discussion and/or bible study and prayer in the lounge. Aside from that we meet on some Sundays for a more interactive/alt-worship style experience that includes the kids.

As well as these formal meetings we have a fairly high weekly/daily interactivity with many in the group. So to us ‘church’ consists of Wed nights, some Sundays, some people gathering for prayer/accountability triplets, random meetings and interaction during the week.

One other interesting thing to note, is that although I (Scott Vawser) am often seen as the spokesperson for the group, I have no official role, position or responsibility for the group. We have no ‘leader’ or ‘pastor’. We are trying to manage our way through the maze of consensus and all that means… not an easy path for some! This whole area presents many challenges for me personally, too many to enter into right here.

For me…simply put, I love Neil Cole’s Organic/Simple Church concept, and would love to be part of a team of people passionately embracing the need to reach out to a lost and hurting world introducing these people and their environments to a new way of living and being…a new kingdom! I would like to plant many more small church communities… maybe one day!

3. How is the gospel expressed in what you are doing?

We have many discussions on environmental issues (a gospel issue to us!), some actively seek to live in more sustainable ways, we have studies on social justice issues and encourage individuals to act in ways according to their own conscience and conviction with regards to this, and the same goes for sharing the Jesus story – people engage in proclamation to the degree they are comfortable with this.

Some are reframing their theologies and would like less “mission” talk and action, some would like much more! As a group we feel passionate about equipping each other to engage in mission, however that looks for each person, rather than making ‘group projects’ and ‘activities’ that all are expected to attend.

4. How is it going and what have you been learning?

It depends on who you speak to! I think there is a new freedom for many people to express themselves in new ways. Some have found that worship can look different every week… every day! Others have discovered that being told what to do, how to behave, what to believe and when to stand up, sit down, clap etc is far easier that ‘making it all up as you go’, they are frequently found sitting in a traditional worship services at a local church building.

Leadership is needed to actually move anywhere. Just what form that leadership takes is a whole other discussion, but I have discovered “a whole bunch of people eating together” is not a mission statement that gets you much more than… a whole bunch of people eating together! Albeit a great bunch of people, and a great time had together in so many ways.

In the words of Neil Cole, our DNA (Dynamic Truth, Nurturing Relationships and Apostolic Mission) is not divided neatly into thirds. I think we have it like this right now; Divine Truth (15%) Nurturing Relationships (80%) and Apostolic Mission (5%). (Cole – Organic Church)

Al Hirsch put it well when he said of our group recently, “Oh you have an emerging church, not an emerging missional church!”

Obviously these percentages are just my interpretation of the group as a whole, a kind of average. Individual percentages/opinions may look vastly different.

There are some lessons, very valuable lessons I have been learning about the way we think of church and the way we ‘do’ church. I have not one regret for having launched into this experiment and affirmed recently to my Mum 🙂 that I was not returning to “church as we knew it Jim”! (yes, God, still open if u so desire!!) What we have may morph and not stay as it is, but the adventure of it all is captivating and challenging!

5. What would you do differently if you could?

I think all the ‘mistakes’ (if you want to call them this) we have made have been part of the learning for us. Maybe the biggest one I would like to go back and change is that the first year or so, there was a lot of hurt and detoxing from past experiences of pain from traditional church.

This tended to result in some cynical, gossipy conversations at times (all from me of course, no one else is a sinner like me!!! ha). We are pretty much over that now and have moved on, but it did not help the way some others viewed us and it did not set a great tone to start out on this adventure of rediscovering CHURCH 🙂

Thanks Scotty! If anyone else wants to offer their reflections then we’d love to hear it 🙂

Still Not Rocket Science

Posted on September 2, 2007 by Hamo

Here’s a little missional idea that isn’t rocket science for all those established churches out there who want a few ideas of how to connect with the community in simple, practical and Jesus like ways.

As some of you would know we are regularly involved with Scarborough Baptist Church, the church where I grew up, where I served as a youth pastor for 5 years and where Danelle and I met & got married. My folks are still there and its a bunch of people we really enjoy being with.

This weekend instead of connecting with their morning crew we decided to visit their evening gathering. Being in a beachside suburb with lots of backpackers nearby, the crew at Scarbs decided to set up an evening ‘service’ around a meal with the intention of connecting with the backpacking crew.

Backpackers are often travelling on the smell of an oily rag and could use a decent feed. Backpackers are also often on more than a ‘physical’ journey and ‘seeing the world’ can be a way of finding their bearings spiritually. So, recognising this unique people group in their community, the SBC crew have been looking for ways to serve them and help them.

‘Sunday at Six’ is a great idea and it meets the needs of both backpackers and local people who could use a feed but can’t afford one.

I like the idea because it is simple and it taps into the specific context that is Scarborough. Its missionary thinking…

Here’s the crew having a feed – sausages, potatoes and peas – simple.

Big Dazza is an old mate and he is the overseer of this event. Daz works for Disability services as a carer and he has a great heart for people, especially those who could use a hand.

The Veggie Patch

Posted on September 2, 2007 by Hamo

Back in March we went to the Forge National Summit and one of the things God biffed me with was the need to pay attention to the way we live in relation to issues of sustainability and creation care. It had never been really high on the agenda for me – just another thing to think about… and it had gone thru to the keeper.

However I rocked along to Geoff & Sherry’s elective session – simply because I like these guys – but in the middle of their sessions on creation care I sensed God really asking me to get onto this issue. We have taken a few initiatives, but this weekend it was time to create the much awaited veggie patch.

I picked up some huge limestone blocks for free recently and then got another heap for $50.00 so we set about creating a new garden bed in our backyard. It was our ‘Sunday Service’ weekend and one of our planned projects didn’t come thru so the guys suggested we attend to our own backyard instead. That felt a little odd, as we have got used to helping others, but we were happy to accept the offer of help – there’s no way I could lift those blocks into place on my own!

It helps to have a good mate who owns a bob-cat and a few friends who are prepared to bend their backs. So this week for church we dug in and created the ‘patch’.

Here’s what happened…