With Jesus our Saviour on board, it's always the right season to celebrate.
This was the prophetic theme adopted by the women of Toongabbie Anglican Church for their sell-out "Christmas in Winter' event, the first major community event planned by their new Women's Action Group.
They originally expected 60 people at the June 21 dinner. But as interest skyrocketed, they were forced to move from their hall into their much larger church building.
"In the end we sold just over 100 tickets," said one of the event organisers, Cathy Forsyth.
Lesley Ramsay from Evangelism Ministries gave the after-dinner talk, explaining that while Australians hold Christmas in December, the life we have in Christ means we can celebrate throughout the year.
Around 25 per cent of guests were community visitors, with some indicating in feedback forms that they wanted to find out more about Jesus.
Rector of Toongabbie, the Rev Raj Gupta says the success of the event was built on the fact that it was entirely driven by the women themselves, and that a wide diversity of women was involved.
"Someone from each congregation was involved in "selling' the event to their own congregation and in their own way. They were excited about it, and their excitement quickly became infectious."
When the action group started a year ago, eight women representing the church's various congregations looked at different ways they could meet a community need and proclaim the gospel.
"In winter there are people who find themselves more isolated due to the weather," said Cathy, "while Christmas is often busy with lots of socialising".
Raj Gupta's secret to successful events
Having been involved in the organisation of several evangelistic and other church-based events over the years, I have been repeatedly struck that the key to a "successful' event does not lie in the event itself.
During my time ministering at Engadine, some young people from our evening congregation came up with the "left field' idea of holding a "mocktail' (non-alcoholic cocktail) night.
Given the level of enthusiasm, I took a bit of a risk, and gave my full encouragement to the idea.
After that event exceeded all expectations, a number of people probed, hoping to find out what it was about the "mocktail' idea that made it so successful. That event proved to be a catalyst for a dynamic period for Engadine's evening church during which the congregation grew strongly.
Of course, "God made it successful'.
That said, humanly speaking, I have now observed an important dynamic at work many times, both at Engadine and Toongabbie, as well as elsewhere.
The events that tend to be "successful', in my experience, have almost always enjoyed a large degree of ownership among the congregation. Usually the idea has sprung from individuals within the congregation, rather than being imposed from the top down.
I must also emphasise that sometimes attempts to repeat the specifics of the "successful' event fail because they cannot recreate the same level of ownership. Sometimes it's best to start again from scratch.
In the case of our recent women's "Christmas in Winter' dinner at Toongabbie Anglican, the idea came out of a newly formed Women's Action Group. Their broad brief is to initiate women's ministries across our church, both to encourage our regulars and to reach their friends in the community. They have developed the program from there.
Upon reflection, I can see that this group has excellent representation from each of our congregations.
The result was a high and wide degree of ownership across the parish. Someone from each congregation was involved in "selling' the event to their own congregation and in their own way. They were excited about it, and their excitement quickly became infectious. When the number of tickets sold exceeded expectations, even a number of men were very happy to help by being waiters and washing up.
1 Corinthians 12 kept coming to mind. During the whole process, I saw people with different gifts working together for the common good.
Other than God, the key thing was not the event, but the process.
