Author: soulrevivalchurch

Meet Joel McMaster

My name is Joel McMaster and I am married to Karen. We have three children – Leon (7), Everly (5) and Remi (7 months). We have been lucky to be part of Soul Revival from the very beginning and love serving here.

My role will be focused on three main areas:

(1) Overseeing the Soul Revival Digital gathering and the amazing team behind it; (2) Building the Shock Absorber podcast into a weekly release schedule (starting very soon!) (3) Developing a Shock Absorber network for churches and pastors who are interested in expressing church in a similar way to Soul Revival

In the near future, we will also be releasing the first volume of the Shock Absorber book and holding a Shock Absorber conference later in the year.

I’m really excited to be serving God in this role and building His kingdom. I’d love your prayers for us and can’t wait to get stuck in! We are really grateful for everyone’s support.

International Women’s Day was celebrated this week in various ways across the community and across the world. So in line with this, across all our gatherings this weekend, we will have an interview with a different woman from the Soul Revival family. We hope you enjoy getting to know some of the faithful women who are part of our church.

Meet Louisa Zhang

Louisa is a member of our West Ryde Connected Community. Born in Sydney, she grew up and still lives in the suburb of Eastwood with her younger brother. Louisa attended Ryde Secondary College, and then majored in Finance and Psychology at UNSW. Currently she works at Woolworths in the Data and Analytics space.

To get to know Louisa a little better, we asked her the following questions.

Q. How did you first encounter Jesus?

A. Reading about Jesus in the Bible at youth group.

Q. As a committed Christian, how do you balance your priorities and responsibilities?

A. I try to manage my own energy and holistic health well, and plan ahead so that urgent doesn’t trump the important.

Q. What are some of the things that matter to you as a Christian in 2021?

A. Gratitude, community, and innovation

Welcome to Brayden Wall

We were excited to welcome Brayden to our pastoral team late last year as our student pastor.

Brayden commenced study at Moore Theological College this year studying a Bachelor of Divinity.

Brayden is happily married to his wife Bek. Bek works at the Australian College of Theology as an Academic Administration Officer. Bek is also involved in the welcoming and youth teams.

Brayden’s responsibilities will include the oversight of the Friday gathering and being part of the youth team.

Brayden is a big fan of music and Liverpool FC and will happily discuss these topics at length. Bek and Brayden are also awaiting the arrival of their new Cavoodle – Ivy.

We are extremely excited to partner with Brayden and Bek in ministry and please keep them in your prayers.

Soul Revival is cancelling all public services this Christmas weekend due to the ongoing Covid outbreaks across Sydney. We will have no public gatherings this Thursday (Christmas Eve), Friday (Christmas Day), Saturday (Boxing Day) and Sunday. These cancelled public gatherings will be replaced with Digital gatherings across the Christmas weekend.

The Premier spoke again this morning. While the case numbers are pleasingly lower than at the end of last week, the situation across Sydney remains unstable. The Wardens met and decided that it would be in the interest of the safety of our members and guests that we suspend services this Christmas weekend and replace them with digital gatherings. The Staff have agreed with this decision. We are very blessed to be led by our wise, careful and caring Wardens in these health decisions. While the Premier did not mandate the suspension of public gatherings, she did urge caution and mandated no congregational singing, strongly recommended mask wearing and the 4 square meter rule remains in place for worship services.

The numbers we set on our booking website a month ago were based on the previous 2 square meter rule. Almost all our services have been booked out. The new 4 square meter rule means we can only host half the number of people who have booked in. So now our services are over subscribed. Added to this, it is still uncertain how many cases will emerge in the Sutherland Shire over the weekend. The Wardens and Staff considered these 2 problems and decided today that it would be wise to suspend our public gatherings this weekend and replace them with digital gatherings.

Our digital services will be at the following times:

Christmas Eve Kids
Thursday Night at 5:30pm.
Streamed via:
our website: soulrevivalchurch.com
our Kirrawee Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchkirrawee

Christmas Eve Celebration
Thursday Night at 7:30pm.
Streamed via:
our website: soulrevivalchurch.com
our Kirrawee Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchkirrawee

Christmas Day
Friday Morning at 9:30am.
Streamed via:
our website: soulrevivalchurch.com
our Kirrawee Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchkirrawee

Saturday Night (26th) at 5:30pm.
Streamed via:
our website: soulrevivalchurch.com
our Kirrawee Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchkirrawee

Sunday Morning (27th) at 9.30am.
Streamed via:
our website: soulrevivalchurch.com
our Kirrawee Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchkirrawee

There will be no Yarrawarrah or Woolooware Gatherings this Weekend

There will no online Kids Zoom this weekend.Our Children’s Minister Tim would like to encourage all the children to watch and participate in the Christmas services with their families online. And of course we will have a great online Christmas Eve kids gathering to watch on Thursday night.

January
We are hopeful at this stage that we will be able to return to public gatherings in January. We will inform you if this changes at any stage.

Thanks For Your Grace
We apologise for the disappointment and we ask you to join with us in prayer that this outbreak will be contained and that we will celebrate the birth of Christ this weekend in our homes. We would also recognise that our family Christmas plans have been disrupted over the weekend. But we pray that we will still be able to share the truth and love of Jesus this weekend. If you need support or encouragement over the Christmas weekend please contact Paul.

The Wardens and Staff would especially like to thank all the teams that have worked so hard to prepare for Carols gatherings last weekend and the Christmas gatherings this weekend. We also appreciate the effort that the Arts and Communications teams will put in to get our digital gatherings together at short notice. We are sorry for the inconvenience of calling off this weekend. We thank you for your grace and generosity.

We will contact all those who are serving with us in the gatherings this weekend to explain how we will record the digital gatherings. If you have any concerns contact Jai.

Jesus Changes Everything
We are excited that even though we can’t get together physically this weekend, we will be preaching the good news about the coming of Jesus at this Christmas time and we pray that people will be blessed and trust in Jesus as he Changes everything even during Covid.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact Stu.

Soul Revival is cancelling all public services this weekend due to COVID outbreaks across Sydney. We are streaming a digital service three times across the weekend.

After the premier announced yesterday that COVID outbreaks were detected in the Northern Beaches and other parts of the City, including Cronulla, the Wardens met and decided that it would be in the interest of the safety of our members and guests that we suspend services this weekend and replace them with a digital gathering.

This morning the Premier has given further information and advice. The Northern Beaches will go back into lockdown from 5pm tonight and she has asked everybody in other parts of Sydney outside the Northern Beaches, to please limit our activity. The Premier said, “We are asking you to do this in good faith. We are asking you not to undertake nonessential travel, or nonessential activity. If you are planning a night out tonight, we ask you to consider changing those plans and staying at home.”

In the interest of being good citizens and following the Premier’s advice, the Wardens and Staff consider it wise to suspend our public gatherings.

We will have digital services this weekend at the following times:

Saturday Night at 5pm.
Streamed via:
our website: soulrevivalchurch.com
Our Kirrawee Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchkirrawee

Sunday Morning at 9.30am
Streamed via:
our website: soulrevivalchurch.com
Our Yarrawarrah Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchyarrawarrah
Our Kirrawee Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchkirrawee

Sunday Night at 5pm
Streamed via:
our website: soulrevivalchurch.com
Our Woolooware Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchwoolooware
Our Kirrawee Facebook Page: soulrevivalchurchkirrawee

There will no online Kids Zoom this weekend. Our Children’s Minister, Tim would like to encourage all the children to watch and participate in the carols service with their families online.

We are hopeful at this stage that the Christmas gatherings on Thursday, Friday and on the weekend will be able to go ahead as planned. We will inform you if this changes at any stage during the week.

We apologise for the disappointment and we ask you to join with us in prayer that this outbreak will be contained and that we will be able to celebrate Christmas together next weekend.

The Wardens and Staff would especially like to thank all the teams that have worked so hard to prepare for this weekend. We are sorry for the inconvenience of calling this weekend off at the last minute. We thank you for your grace and generosity.

We are excited that even though we can’t get together physically this weekend, we will be preaching the good news about the coming of Jesus at this Christmas time and we pray that people will be blessed and trust in Jesus as he changes everything even during COVID.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact Stu on 0418960226

light up the world in the name of jesus

Now that we are in December we are so close to celebrating Christmas together. What a blessing it is that some of the restrictions have eased and we can gather in larger groups and sing praises to God together.

To manage numbers we will need people to register to attend the services of their choice. Please see below a list of all the Christmas services and details about how to register for each. Spaces at each service will be reserved for people to register at the door.

Christmas Services

Carol Service: Saturday 19th December @ 5.30pm
Carol Service: Sunday 20th December @ 4.30pm

Christmas Eve Kids Service: 24th December @ 5.30pm
Christmas Eve Service: 24th December @ 7.30pm
Christmas Day: 25th December @ 9.30am

Register For Christmas Services Here

Our usual services will also be running at the following times

Saturday 26th December: 5.30pm service @ Kirrawee
Sunday 27th December: 9.30am service @ Kirrawee.

Please Note: – Yarrawarrah, Woolooware and Kirrawee Services will be combined and run on Sunday morning at Kirrawee.

Registrations are not required for the services on the 26th and 27th.

 

We are excited to welcome two new members to our team at Soul Revival Church.

Ethan Crawshaw will join us as a Youth Pastor who will be responsible for youth mission. He is being employed on a 1 day per week basis.

Ethan has completed a Diploma of Christian Studies from Youthworks Year 13 program. He has also had 4 years experience as a youth leader at Soul Revival. Ethan has also led our schools ministry over the past few years. He leads the lunch time meeting and volunteer scripture.

We asked Ethan about some of his likes and he said he loves ” reading stuff, Filming stuff, dog stuff, burning stuff, Jesus stuff.

Tim Beilharz will be joining our staff on 1 day a week basis as our new Children’s minister. He will lead our great Kids ministry team.

Tim is married to Ros, father of Micaiah and Azaliah. He is also a Youthworks Children’s Ministry Advisor. He has a BA, has been ordained as a Deacon and has a M. Div from Presbyterian Theological College and a Masters of Arts from Moore College.

Tim lectures in family and intergenerational ministry at Youthworks College.

Tim likes Batman, 90’s punk rock, a good pizza, reading, podcasts, and helping kids love Jesus.

The trial gatherings were a success last weekend. It was different to what we are used to but we were so glad to have the opportunity to see each other again! If you didn’t get a chance to come along, the good news is that we have set up flexible practices so that everyone can attend their gathering of choice this weekend. There is no longer any need to hold off coming to let others come. Read this edition to find out more. We will also remain committed to our Soul Revival Digital Gathering so if you can’t get along this weekend you can still watch Soul Revival Digital through our website or on facebook.

Trial Physical Gatherings a Success but there is still room for more

Last weekend we went back to physical Soul Revival Gatherings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

We ran Fuse and Youth on Friday night. Our Kids programs at the other gatherings also started to go back too. About 67% of our members returned to gatherings last weekend but there is still room for everyone this weekend.

Why did we decide to return to gatherings last weekend?

As you may know, we have not rushed to public gatherings. We were ready to return a couple of weeks ago when we were allowed to fit 110 people in the factory at Kirrawee. But when the rules tightened around religious public gatherings and it changed back to only 100 people, we opted to wait to start all our campuses back at the same time. In the last couple of weeks we have adjusted our preparations to meet the new criteria that a maximum of 100 people can attend a religious public gathering.

The Leadership of Soul Revival took into account the current situation in NSW, the Government’s and Archbishop’s permission to meet, the fact that other churches in the Shire have started meeting and the need for people at Soul Revival who are feeling isolated to meet together. So we opted for a continuation of the Soul Revival Digital gathering format and also re-launched our public services. This gave all our members the choice to watch online or attend. This decision reflected the results of the survey of the community we put out earlier this year that showed that people wanted us to get back to physical gatherings but also continue our digital option.

So how many people came along?

Last weekend 67% of our members returned to our physical gatherings. If you also take into account those online last weekend, our attendances were 88% of our pre-covid numbers. That means that our attendances were down only 12% when you count the people who connected physically online or in person on the weekend.

What did the gatherings feel like?

As we knew, the physical gatherings felt a little different. Many people wore masks, we were learning to staying at a safe distance, we did not sing out loud and we did not have meals on Saturday and Sunday but did trial a meal at the Friday Gathering.

Masks

Masks were not mandatory but encouraged as per the Archbishops guidelines. Not everyone wore a mask, which was fine, and many did. Masks made the gathering feel very different. We made a go of it and most people were more excited to see each other and appreciated how good we were at smiling with our eyes.

Safe Distancing

We also found it different not standing around to talk. But the seating has been arranged in all our gatherings to allow us to sit down and have a chat which was fine. We still are not used to distancing but we got better and better at it as the gathering went on.

Singing

We did not sing out loud but sang with our hearts as our musicians did a great job at helping us to worship God.

Meals

We are trialing meals on Friday night with our young people but we are going to hold off on meals for the time being as we make sure we can be good citizens and seek to keep everyone safe.

Kids

It was so good having our kids with us on the weekend. Some of the kids stayed with their parents and some enjoyed the kids program.

The Formal Gathering

Even though the music was different, the prayers and teaching and Bible reading were great.

Love

One thing that did not change is that we met together to share the truth and love of Jesus person to person. And that was the sweetest thing about the whole weekend. We were reminded that is not up to us to build community but we are community because of what Jesus has done for us. We can express this great truth no matter how times may change.

We are really excited to announce that we will be running our first trial gatherings this weekend. It is going to be great to see each other face to face rather than screen to screen. We recognise that we will need to be flexible over the coming weeks and may need to modify our practices again if the advice from the Premier and the Archbishop changes.

So for now, in our current climate we have some different practices that will help to provide a safe environment. Please read more about these changes below.

We’re back baby!!!

Woohoo we are back this weekend, 7th-9th of August, for our first trial gatherings.

Here is a list of the times of our gatherings:

• Friday Night Kirrawee 6.30pm – 7.30pm @ the Factory (Take away Pizza from 6.00pm)
• Saturday Night Kirrawee 5.30pm – 6.30pm @ the Factory (Coffee available from 5.00pm)
• Sunday Morning Kirrawee 9.30am – 10.30am @ the Factory (Coffee available from 9.00am)
• Sunday Morning Yarrawarrah 9.00am – 10.00am @ Yarrawarrah Community Hall (Coffee available from 8.30am)
• Sunday Afternoon Woolooware 5.00pm – 6.00pm @ the Factory (Coffee available from 4.30pm)

What to expect during our trial gathering

It is great that we are getting back together, but you will notice that things will be a little bit different. We will still be able to gather together and chat face to face, we will read the Bible, pray, be encouraged by a sermon and be ministered to by our music teams, because sadly we still cant sing as a group. But of course in our current climate we have some different practices that will help to provide a safe environment.

Please read through the information below to help you prepare for attending a gathering.

Check-in on arrival

There is no need to preregister. As you arrive you will be greeted by the Welcoming team who will record your attendance as per Government requirements.

Management of Capacity

Our venue at Kirrawee is limited to 100 people, including kids. The venue at Yarrawarrah is limited to 26 people. We have plans in place to manage our capacity if we exceed these limits, so please feel free to come along to your usual gathering. For those people who usually attend more than one gathering each week, it would be helpful if you choose one gathering for this weekend.

Providing a Safe Environment

We have implemented a COVID Safe plan and have a range of cleaning and hygiene protocols in place, which includes cleaning the venue prior to each gathering. You can assist us in providing a safe environment for everyone. Please:

Stay home if you are unwell or have any flu like symptoms
Bring your own bible and blanket (if needed)
Bring your own drink bottle or buy a drink at the Factory
Consider wearing a mask to church as encouraged by the Premier and Archbishop. This is not compulsory, but encouraged. If you choose not to wear a mask you will still be warmly welcomed.

Moving around at the Gathering

One of the lovely things about gathering together is that we get to see each other and spend time in community. We want to encourage that, but also need to balance that with safe practices, so please be aware that while you are the gathering you will need to:

• Maintain 1.5 meters distance from others
• Leave the seats where they are
• Stay seated as much as possible during the gathering. To comply with government guidelines please don’t mingle and stand in groups, before, during or after the gathering
• Listen to the directions of the welcoming team as they guide us in moving around the space and arriving and leaving safely.

Food and Coffee

For our Friday Gathering we will be providing Pizza at 6pm for people attending the gathering.

As this is our first weekend of trial gatherings we wont be serving food at any other gathering, however coffee and tea will be available from the coffee machine. We will trial the inclusion of food in smaller gatherings over the coming weeks.

Digital Gatherings are Still Available

The good news for the digital streaming of our services is that we are now connected to the NBN which improves our capacity to live stream a service.

We will be live streaming our Kirrawee Saturday Night gathering and Kirrawee Sunday morning and afternoon gatherings on Facebook.

If you cant come to our physical gatherings you can still access one of the gatherings via Facebook or our website.

We are not going ahead with our trial gatherings this weekend.

In response to the changes announced by the Government this morning, I have consulted with the staff, Wardens and Parish Council to make this decision. I understand this is disappointing as we were looking forward to being back together again this weekend.

This morning the Government announced that churches will be restricted to numbers of 100 with no mingling. This new order will legally come into effect next week, however the Government have asked us to begin implementing these new orders as soon as possible for the health of the community, as the situation is changing quickly. While the Arch Bishop has announced today that we do not need to comply immediately, we want to be good citizens and want to keep everyone safe, and so we will seek to enact these changes immediately.

The heightened restrictions announced today have made the managing of logistics more complicated and we need to revisit the practicalities of running gatherings with smaller numbers. We do not have time to prepare the weekend services to come in line with the new announcements.

We will be resuming online services this weekend and the zoom hangouts after each service. These gatherings will go live at the regular times. The zoom links will be added to the events on Pulse.

I appreciate your grace and patience at this time and I am looking forward to when we can meet together again face to face.