We are in a process of re-orientation (yet again) with our Upstream community.
The great thing about constant shifts in direction is that no-one can complain that we ‘change’ too often – change is a way of being for us and a ‘given’. To ‘change’ would be to stay in one place / do the same thing for an extended period of time.
One of the shifts coming up is in our community rhythm. We have been meeting fortnightlyon Monday’s as a closed mission team and also on the other fortnight on Sunday AM as an open community meeting ie. anyone can come. However after 8 months of this we have concluded that it hasn’t been what we had hoped. None of our friends and neighbours have been keen to join this gathering regularly.
There are various reasons for this, but we need to accept that this meeting is not doing what it was intended. So… lets not keep doing it. Let’s change it.
As from next week we will be meeting around lunch in the local park and simply looking to engage with the people who are down there. We are operating on a similar wavelength to what Owen is on with his Hyde Park gig, trying to build community but also support those in need around the place.
Will it ‘work’?
Dunno, but we’re about to find out. Will it be ‘church’? Ah… what do you think?…
There is also the question of how we sustain ourselves as we live and serve here. I find my own life is always being enriched by the people I get to hang around in the course of a week, but for others there is less enrichment and more being sapped out of them.
Does it necessitate a weekly (rather than fortnightly) team meeting?
We have been trying to avoid creating a meeting monster, but it seems that it is very difficult to stay in the loop of each other’s lives, cover all the bases of prayer, engagement with scripture, team dev, formation etc in a once a fortnight meeting.
Of course connections ought to happen outside of meetings – and sometimes they do, but there is also a limit to how often we can see each other as we spend time with new friends in the local area. And lets face it sometimes we are lazy and would rather just watch TV than engage with our friends and really talk about how life is going. (Or is that just me again?…)
To some degree this has been an ongoing ‘blind spot’ for me because I find myself thriving on this kind of life. But others in the team have been floundering and need more support. We are looking at how that shapes up. I’ll keep you posted.
‘What do mission teams do? How do they function?’ Those are the questions we are seeking to answer as we discuss this stuff.
On a different note, in two weeks time there will be an annual wine and food festival happening in the Swan Valley. We have booked a bus and will be heading out to the Swan Valley for a day at ‘Spring in the Valley’. It’ll be a great place to hang out with friends and neighbours and enjoy a day together. Hopefully we will be able to fill the bus and not finish up losing a truckload of cash!
Then in November we have our Brighton celebration day – a kind of annual festival for the locals here. I had no ideas as to what we could do – and in fact said we wouldn’t do anything, then… an idea came…
We have three really nice lakes. How much fun would it be to buy some radio controlled boats and have a small fleet that we could hire out to people at minimal cost?!
So I have been researching the dynamics of RC boats and what we need to do. I think its doable. One boat, three battery packs, one fast charger = no more than $300.00 or as little as $120.00.
Sounds like fun to this big kid 🙂