Category: Blog

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.

Time and place

The Soul Revival Church Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday 22 July 2020 at 7.30 pm.

The meeting will be at the factory at Kirrawee – 40 Flora Street Kirrawee.

You can only participate by attending in person.

Our COVID safe plan for Kirrawee will apply.  For the protection of our community, everyone attending must follow social distancing practices and comply with guidelines as indicated.

Meeting business

At the meeting we will hold elections for wardens, elected council representatives, nominators and synod representatives.

We will receive a report from the treasurer and senior pastor.

Nominations

We are calling for nominations for the elected positions to be sent in by email by Sunday 19 July 2020.

To nominate someone, send an email to office@soulrevivalchurch.com with the name of the person you are nominating and the position.  We need the person who is nominated to consent, so we suggest that you copy them on the email and they should “reply all” indicating consent.

Questions?

Any questions, ask a warden.  Wardens’ contacts:

Adam Darvell:  adarvell@gmail.com

Leonie Stanfield: leonie@leoniestanfield.com

Hayden Fox: hayden.fox@ablawyers.com.au

We hope you can join us for the meeting.

With the lifting of restrictions we now have the exciting prospect of planning when we can physically gather together again. Given that we do things a little bit differently at Soul Revival and have a regular practice of sharing meals together, there are many protocols we need to work out to ensure we are meeting together safely.

We know that the last few months have been challenging as we have sought to remain connected as a community using digital technology, so we are very keen to move back to physical gatherings as soon as possible. But we are also mindful that we need to do it carefully.

Outlined below is our road map for our return to physical gatherings. We are almost there, but please be patient as we navigate these last few weeks and put plans in place.

Drawing up the Roadmap

Our planning processes have ramped up this week as we have begun gathering information through surveys and meetings with our service teams. Earlier this week we sent you the results of our first survey and have sent out a new survey to dig a bit deeper into your ideas about our ministry practices. We have also been conducting service team meetings and beginning to draw up the protocols for our ministry practices.

Each of our 10 service teams have met this week to discuss plans and responses to the challenges related to safe gathering in the COVID environment. This includes issues related to hospitality, welcoming, Kids ministry, youth ministry, community groups, Berea training, life support, communications, arts and world mission.

All the information we are gathering through these processes will be collated into a set of church wide COVID safe protocols and formalised in our COVIDSafe plan. If you would like to see a copy of the plan please speak to one of our pastors.

Gathering Workshops

Following the development of the road map we will conduct leadership workshops with our pastors, volunteer pastors, wardens and gathering leadership teams to analyse the road maps and consider the readiness of each gathering to implement the plans and meet physically.

There are many complex issues to be considered which will take some time to trial and refine. Some of the factors that will be considered include:the readiness of the factory, including signage and required modifications to the kitchen for hand washing; availability and readiness of the school halls for Woolooware and Yarrawarrah; people available to join new cleaning and hygiene teams.

These workshops will give the gathering teams a chance to revisit our core values, the structures that we have in place in our teams and the gaps and training that are needed prior to physical meetings.

Road Test

As we implement these new protocols it will mean that some things we do remain the same but other things will be a bit different. Because there will be so many new things being implemented at once it is important that we take the gatherings for a test drive to practice and refine our new systems. These trials will allow us to ease ourselves back into gathering together without expecting all ministry practices to be fully ready at the same time.

We will communicate when these gatherings are happening, which we hope will happen in early to mid July.

These trials will help us to identify the things we need to get in place before we hit the road. In other words, to stretch the car analogies as far as we can, we need all the items on the checklist ticked off so we can get our pink slip.

Hit the Road

When a gathering is ready and has its pink slip we can go live with a public meeting. This means that under God we can be confident of running a safe gathering which helps us to encourage each other to grow in the faith.

Community Groups
Physical Meetings can resume from 22nd June

Gatherings in homes with up to 20 visitors are now permitted. There is no 4m2 rule applicable to gatherings in homes. However, we continue to encourage people to practice 1.5m social distancing and good hygiene in home group gatherings.

So if your group would like to meet physically please follow the steps in the diagram above to consider whether your group should stay meeting on Zoom or start physical meetings.

In summary please check if numbers allow group to meet; determine if home can accommodate numbers with social distancing; if not continue to meet online or find an alternate venue. If you can meet: Tell Central Coordinators that group is going to meet; check that all community group members are listed in your group on pulse; check that each group member has name, email and phone number listed.

Youth Return

 

Our amazing Youth team have run an exciting and engaging program on Zoom for the last few months but now will be able to return to live meetings from 24th July.