You could not accuse Sandy Grant of lacking energy, guts or passion when it comes to proclaiming the gospel to the people of Wollongong. This Christmas, he was up again at the crack of dawn to hand out tracts to commuters.
For the past two years at Christmas and Easter, Sandy and a team from St Michael's, Wollongong, have handed out "sample bags' to train commuters including items like a fair trade teabag, a candy cane or Easter egg, a postcard advertising their service times and a Matthias Media evangelistic tract.
"This year it's the "Bethlehem's Got Talent' tract, with the service times and a Fantale lolly attached in keeping the tract's showbiz theme," he said.
However, Sandy Grant, who says he "stole' the showbag idea from Forestville's Drive-thru Church, says this initiative is "entry-level awareness raising" and does not develop the connections imagined by Connect 09.
"Someone may read the tract and be converted, or at least be spiritually aroused. However in the normal manner of things, that is a less common outcome."
"I presume that Connect 09 is supposed to be more than awareness raising or cold-contact evangelism. My concern is that I do not see clear ideas of how this will occur on a mass scale yet and am very keen to have more ideas or greater clarity about that."
Sandy Grant is far from alone. SC has found that a number of senior ministers are unsure how Connect 09 can be more than a Bible-distribution program.
"That would be worthwhile itself," says Sandy. "But I don't have a picture for how the extra connections might occur. And I'm not a very original thinker about such things."
People making it work
The parish of Eastgardens which contains three churches - Wild Street Church, St Edmund's, Maroubra and St Matthew's, Botany - is using Maroubra Public School as a point for community connection.
Late last year, Maroubra Public School held a community event to celebrate the opening of new school premises.
The parish, which has a good relationship with the school through SRE, approached the principal to see if there were any ways they could help out.
"We ended up running all their children's programs for the day," says minister Rod Cocking. "These were free, fun activities for kids, with no strings attached."
The parish merely used the occasion to advertise their Christmas carol service, which was pre-planned to include a pageant involving children from the school.
Mr Cocking says it is important to back up the initial contact with further opportunities to engage with the same people.
"I have found that it takes two or three contacts with us before people will turn up to church," Mr Cocking says.
Mr Cocking says the church's efforts have resulted in a massively increased profile amongst the parents of the school.
"People now know I am the minister, and when I have picked up my kids from school, it has really increased the number of conversations I have had," he says.
Bishop of South Sydney Robert Forsyth says many parishes in South Sydney region like Eastgardens are already engaging in community connection.
"The best examples reflect the nature of their own local suburb: a carnivale for Annandale's dual-income families; a community garden for the urban poor of Glebe," he says.
"For such parishes, Connect 09 will be an intensification of the ministries they are already doing."
Bishop Forsyth admits that other parishes may feel unsure where to start.
"The key issue is to identify your nodes of contact. For Wild Street this has been ministry to parents through their existing partnership with Maroubra Junction primary school," he says.
"However, we do also need to be patient. Building relationships takes time. In this first stage, we need to remember that "connection' is about listening to the community, not just talking at them. It's important to note that Wild Street has won the respect of the school community by helping them with their needs."
The Berkeley connection
The Berkeley Local Mission Base, a joint project of Church Army and the parishes of Dapto and Port Kembla, is also making unique connections into its community.
As a result of the Berkeley Adopt-a-Block strategy church pastor Wayne Pickford befriended the local publican at the Berkeley Hotel.
They discovered they shared a vision to see Berkeley transformed into a healthier community.
To help this aim, the publican wanted his hotel to be more "family friendly', so Wayne volunteered to run a regular BBQ in the beer garden, as the pub provided no food.
While a number of Anglican churches already run church services and evangelistic events inside hotel properties, the critical difference at Berkeley is that the premises isn't merely being used as a more "welcoming' venue to invite people into.
Rather the pub ministry is a genuine attempt to engage with the existing, regular hotel patrons.
For example, at Christmas, Wayne's team handed out hampers to the patrons.
Wayne has seen the pub's most colourful characters drop in on his church service (the pub is literally across the road) and then go back and repeat the sermon to their mates at the bar.
"Most patrons now know Wayne and about the ministry. This means there are many opportunities to talk openly with them about the gospel," says Tim Scheuer from Church Army.
Wollongong's new bishop Al Stewart admits he made key errors at St Matthias', Centennial Park and says Berkeley's Adopt-a-Block initiative has taught him a lot.
"Apart from prayer, the task of parishes in this first phase is to identify… what points of contact do your church members have with the local community?" Bishop Stewart says.
"In some places the needs are obvious. In other places we will need to look harder, to identify the needs. There are two or three similar initiatives [to Berkeley] on the drawing board that I hope to announce soon."
