church planting story
We began with 6 people 8 years ago (under the Uniting Church in SA) in 2018. We weren’t sent from a larger church and we began in a classroom at a school. During covid when we couldn’t meet at the school we met on an oval in a park for 2 months. We have received no funding from outside groups and we have now a number of people who come by ‘giving church one last go’.
Our structure is different as we have no lead pastor but a core team that serves as pastor and leads the church. We are collaborative and not hierarchical.
We have 5 core values as a church and have core value leaders that champion their value so together with core team they lead the church.
The existing core team of 3 of which I am one is transitioning to a new core team of 5 people in September. All in their 40’s, all with either fulltime or parttime jobs. All busy people but all who feel the call to pastor and lead the church in this next season.
As a church we have ‘active’ attendees of 185 people which includes 50 kids under 12. Average age in the church is in the 30’s which is not common in the uniting church.
We still have no building we call home – we hire space of another Uniting church that we can only have Sunday mornings, Wednesday morning for playgroup and we use their chapel space for 40 youth on a Friday night. We set up and pack up every Sunday in a hall that otherwise is hired to a dance lady.
We are excited by what’s happening at the church and we reckon the best is yet to come. We are excited by the move to this new core team. The existing team will be around in some capacity – available to do whatever the new core team need – which will probably include set up and pack up and behind the scenes to support this new leadership.
