The crowd

LiVE is going gang-busters as a vehicle for promoting gospel growth amongst FNC members aged between 17-30 years.
I’m hugely grateful to God and those who drive it for the blessing it is.

But FNC is more than 17-30 year olds, and for a while I’ve been concerned about feeding/encouraging/motivating/mobilising our FNC Seniors/Elders (maybe to be known collectively as ‘Staying aLiVE).
So today we had a gathering of a number of that group of people to begin the process of talking through those issues.
I was hugely encouraged by the turn out and the quality discussion, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes under God.

Some things that emerged:

  • A fair number of those present are in a Growth Group and really happy there.
  • A fair number of those present are NOT in a Growth Group – some would like to be, some feel they are too busy, some want to explore other options.
  • Our Growth Groups are poorly promoted and advertised.
  • There is real interest in building mentoring style relationships with young FNC people – reading the Bible, praying with them.
  • We have a plan to establish a ‘Care and Communication Team’ of 12+ FNC people of mixed ages to help with pastoral care of members and visitors.
  • People really enjoyed doing the meeting today on a Sunday morning over coffee and croissants (and tea, fruit, muffins, etc). Future versions could also be Sunday Arvo Tea
  • Need to do welcoming better at FNC. -[Edit:VB] Current welcoming teams do a fine job, but would be good to have a better spread of FNC ages in the teams, and perhaps work on ways to ‘value add’ to our current welcoming strategy
  • There was a mixed response to doing church around tables – what are some acceptable alternatives to further relationship building at church?
  • [edit: DT] Men’s Ministry – we have some men’s events at a SWAC-wide level, but a strategic, consistent men’s ministry is totally absent. This can be seen as a major missing link in encouraging/mentoring of younger men. What ministry there is for men has a strong focus on ‘blokiness’ (sport/car/beer/meat) – what about men with different tastes/pastimes? Katoomba Men’s Convention poorly promoted and attended from SWAC/FNC
  • We really valued the serving of Brad, Sam and Sam this morning!

There was a lot more than that we was discussed, and more will be added to this post in due course.
Likewise, as some suggested solutions and ways forward are developed, they will be posted here too…

Stay tuned…