First BBQ

Would anyone like some sausages? Last Sunday was our first BBQ, and we have quite a few left over! (There's a limit to how many nights in the week you can give sausages to your children for dinner.)

It was a great morning though. We put on a barbie breakfast in the park, for anyone in the local community. This is one of the things we're doing to centre our new church around mission - so we can connect with people in the community, and so they can get to know other locals.

We weren't sure how many people would come. We ended up printing about 90 little flyers to put in letterboxes, in our townhouse complex and in the next street over. We wanted to start with this, to see what would happen. 90 houses is potentially more than 50 families, and seeing as the flyers said "FREE BBQ" on them, we realised there could be anywhere from 5 to 50 people show up!

As it turned out, there was only one person from those houses who came, and she's already a friend of ours. This shouldn't really have been a surprise, because we've said over and over that it's all about relationships. You have to have a friendship with people first. It seems that really is true.

She wasn't the only person we connected with, though. There were a few other people in the park that morning - going for a walk, doing a dog obedience class, bringing their kids to the playground - and it was nice to have a cup of tea and a chat with some of these.

As Tam and I were saying on the way home (about a one-minute drive, around the corner), I love that this is what church is for us now. It's so much fun! We get to do this every month - chatting with nice people, making new friends, having a BBQ, having a morning tea...

I'm really looking forward to the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that... We're going to be meeting some amazing people, being church with some amazing people, and doing what we love! It's such a great way to grow a church. Who doesn't like a relaxing BBQ breakfast in the park on a Sunday morning?