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2018: The Year of Being "Generations Together"

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As each new year begins, I usually receive a series of phone calls in my office, each of which goes something like this: Caller: Hi Jonathan, it’s Father Fred from St Swithin’s here. We’ve just had a parish visioning day and we’ve identified youth and children’s ministry as one of our top three strategic priorities. We’ve looked around and realised we need to start a youth group and a kids club ASAP, so how do we do that? Me: This is all good to hear but let me ask you this: how often in your church do you have different generations doing something together at the same time? Caller: Basically never, because people wouldn’t enjoy it. Each generation wants to do what it likes doing. Kids want to run around, oldies want to sit and chat. You know how it is – they all have their own needs! Me: Do you remember doing good things at church a long time ago where all the generations were together? Caller: Sure, we used to do all kinds of things – all-age Mothering Sunday services, p
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Doing Small Sized Ministry Well

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"From Little Things Big Things Grow" ~ Paul Kelly 1.  Embrace the Blessings It's easy to get caught up in the numbers because numbers are important for a range of reasons. If we focus too much on this though, we can easily miss the blessings in the numbers we already have. It can be far too easy sometimes to get caught in the gap between reality and our hopes or expectations. A small ministry doesn't always mean a bad ministry, in fact, a small ministry has big opportunities. So cultivate the art of recognising the blessings in what you have in your Parish or ministry at this very moment. Who are their names? What are their stories? How can you invest into their faith journey? Being small means you have abilities that quickly become out of reach for those who are in larger ministries. You have the Ability to connect personally to each person who comes along, Ability to truly listen and tailor the program to the needs of your group,  Ability to play
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3 Things for Churches to Consider about the Containers for Change Scheme!

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Exciting news came my way back in October last year (2018): Queensland was bringing back a beverage container refund scheme!   When I was a lad, way back when, you could take bottles back to your local corner shop and get a whole five cents each for them. Then you could go to the Ekka or a big sporting event, and literally climb into the rubbish bins with a big Glad bag to fill up with aluminium cans, making millions… or maybe a couple of dollars anyway. The message back then was pretty simple: if you could make the time and effort to go around and find bottles and cans to collect, you could make decent money out of the exercise, keep the environment free of rubbish, and good luck to you. So now the hands on the clock have gone full circle and people like you and I have the opportunity to generate a small income stream from beverage containers in Queensland once again. But is it worth doing? What follows are my thoughts on what I have discovered so far. 1. Opportunities t
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