As Easter approaches, churches have a perfect opportunity to connect with the community through the most important event on the Christian calendar.
With Connect 09 as a catalyst, churches throughout Sydney Diocese are using new, creative ways to make meaningful connections with the community and bring the gospel to where people are.
In the Campbelltown area, Rosemeadow Anglican Church's new assistant minister, the Rev Dean Reilly, is leading an Easter themed outreach at the local train station.
On the Tuesday and Thursday before Easter Mr Reilly and a team of around 10 parishioners will spend 6:30am to 8:30am handing out free hot cross buns, coffee and information about upcoming church services to commuters.
"Our congregations have been very good at attending church and reading the Bible, but reaching out to the community is something we are really pushing this year," Mr Reilly says.
"We want to get into the community at a first base level and just get the church's name out there."
Mr Reilly says the train station outreach is a way of encouraging church members to become comfortable evangelising their community in the lead-up to Connect 09.
"While evangelism at all levels may be a little scary it is not hard. Our plan is to include as many members as possible in all that we do evangelistically whether it be handing out pamphlets or hampers, doorknocking or assisting in community events," he says.
Mr Reilly regards the train station presence as a visual declaration of his church's love and care for the community and a first-step process of saying to people, "Do you know about Jesus?".
"With this and other events leading up to Connect 09 we hope to succeed in being a visual presence in our community, where at the very least people will soon recognise the name of Jesus as well as our church," Mr Reilly says.
"If we are successful then Connect 09 will work and people will open the Bible."
Connect first; talk business later
Mr Reilly says his experience working as a student minister with the Rev Tim Foster at All Souls', Leichhardt has helped him think of ways to use different events to make impacts in different communities.
However, Mr Reilly says his church's aim is not to start gospel conversations at this early stage.
"If people at the station are happy to talk, great! But our aim is merely to be friendly, loving and gracious and send people to work feeling good," he says.
Mr Reilly has also been dropping information flyers in letterboxes every Saturday morning.
"We are not knocking on doors yet, just preparing people for that next level of contact," he says.
"Connect 09 is the "Grand Final' that we are moving towards. We can't just turn up on the day and expect to have an impact."
Mr Reilly says the rector of Rosemeadow, the Rev David Cole, has put a lot of work over the past seven years into growing the church and getting out into the community.
Mr Cole says preparing 8500 homes for Bibles is what events like the train station outreach is gearing towards.
"The last thing we want is for 8500 Bibles to merely become "bonfire material'," he says.
Rosemeadow parish is also speaking to Anglicare about handing out hampers to the 1200-to-1500 local housing commission residences as part of a larger Christmas outreach.
Mr Reilly's ultimate desire is that the Connect 09 campaign will lead to people opening the Bible.
"Once people receive and read the Bible, then God can do his work. We'll see what happens after that."
Mountains churches combine for Easter mission
The Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen is spearheading an Easter mission in the Blue Mountains which began on Palm Sunday and continues over the upcoming Easter long weekend. He is speaking at nine different events over the four days.
The five Anglican churches in the upper mountains have combined to reach out the local community and they are confident that Archbishop Jensen's presence will give a profile boost to their mission.
The rector of St Hilda's, the Rev Ray Robinson has overseen the coordination of the mission events and advertising material promoting the Archbishop's visit.
Mr Robinson says the Archbishop will speak on "The Future of Jesus' and hopes that the mixture of both church-based and neutral venue-based events for the talks will give locals ample opportunities to hear the Archbishop speak.
"I have been leaning on the Archbishop for a few years to come to the mountains and he is very supportive of the ministry here," Mr Robinson says.
"Finally his diary is cleared so we locked him in for the two weekends and are pulling out all the stops."
Archbishop Jensen is excited by the prospect of being a part of this Easter-time push in the mountains.
"I love the Blue Mountains, where I have family connections, especially in Katoomba," he says.
"I am aware that in this area there is a great deal of interest in spiritual matters. I am hoping to meet people who want to talk about the relevance of Jesus Christ for contemporary human existence."
Mission makes the most of media
Mr Robinson believes the Archbishop's high media profile will likely attract large crowds to the various mission events.
"We want to encourage people to meet the real Peter Jensen. Events like the public meeting in the Carrington Lounge yesterday and the art exhibition at Blue Mountains Grammar on Easter Saturday will bring in a range of people to hear the Archbishop speak who might never come to a church," he says.
Mr Robinson is certain there will be people who are keen to hear what the Archbishop has to say.
"People I know have a whole range of opinions on the Archbishop including negative ones. But I think if people have the chance to hear him in person and dialogue with him, people might well change their minds," he says.
"After these people hear the Archbishop they should see that they do not have to check their brains at the door and that Christianity is a reasoned faith."
The rector of St Alban's, Leura Greg Olliffe is using the mission week as an opportunity to connect with the community through the St Alban's book fair which last year raised $17,000 for the Ibulanku Health Centre And School in Uganda.
He is pleased to have the Archbishop in town to take part in Easter mission activities including the Good Friday morning service at his church.
"Having such a person of high profile in the mountains speaking at such a strategic time in the year of the church's calendar is a great opportunity to connect with the community," Mr Olliffe says.
"Whether the people who come to a church building or a more neutral venue to hear the Archbishop speak, they are going to hear about Jesus coming to earth, dying and rising again to take our away sin."
A gospel blues service on Palm Sunday morning at St Hilda's, where Archbishop Jensen is speaking, is another creative way that Mr Robinson is using to engage with the Blue Mountains community in a way they appreciate.
"The mountains holds the blues festival during Easter, which is attended by a couple of thousand people, so our gospel blues service with accompanying a capella choir is a way of engaging with that crowd," he says.
"We have been working at building bridges with the community and had some success. We are now hoping through these events people will get God-conscious and start thinking that there is something to Christianity and make some enquiries."
