baulkham hills baptist church iii

I had an e-mail from Heather and Gary the other day, asking whether I’d been to Church at all in the last three months. There I was, thinking that no one was even bothering to read my blog ... Oops! Sorry guys. I’ll try to keep you up-to-date more regularly in the future.

Since my last entry, I’ve been going to Baulkham Hills Baptist (BHBC) morning services just about every Sunday. I like the music; a good mix of favourite choruses and traditional hymns ... and mostly songs I know well. They’re a really friendly bunch of people, and have been keen to make sure they always introduce themselves to me, and try to make sure I feel comfortable and welcome. I’m slowly getting to know more people by name.

I’ve been interpreting the songs into Auslan most a.m. services. This has been a good opportunity for me, and I hope my skills will improve with time and practice in this area.

Twice now I’ve been able to go to an evening service. The vibe is definitely different ... but still good. The people have so far been very keen to chat to me and make me feel at home. The evening services are much more “youth” oriented, and I don’t know as many of the songs (last night, for example, I didn’t recognise a single one!). Still, as one woman said to me, “That just means you need to come to the evening services more often!” I can’t go to an evening service every week, because I’m now playing piano at Wesley Mission on a fortnightly basis (more about that next time...).

I am keen to find out more about their community activities ... they seem to be very into community work and social justice stuff. I just need to find out what their programmes are and slot myself in wherever I best fit.

This is a very short entry ... I hope it sates your appetites for the time being. I’ll make sure I fill you in with more detail next time.

Cheers,
Andy

baulkham hills baptist church i and ii

The past two weeks have been pretty good, church-wise. I was very kindly invited to Baulkham Hills Baptist, by a friend of mine who completed the sign language interpreting diploma at the same time as me. She has been doing volunteer interpreting for the handful of deaf people who attend the services.

As it turns out, the Church is only five minutes’ drive from my house. Literally. If I hadn’t been invited, I probably would have come across it anyway, in the “search for a church”. The service starts at 9:30am, and both times has finished about 11am. The first week was a special one, with an emphasis on “beach missions”, which is something the church has been involved in. We heard from a number of people who spoke about their involvement in the mission, and their experiences.

There were about 50 or so people at both services, and all-in-all, I had a pretty good time. There are a fair few older people, but also a lot of new families — couples with toddler babies. It’s been interesting, because twice now people have suggested I should come along to the evening service also, because there are more “young” people there, who are “more my age” … (I don’t know how old they think I am?!) In general, people are friendly, and have made a point of coming up to me an introducing themselves either before or after the service. After last week’s service, the senior minister encouraged me to sign the guest book (which I did). Then a couple of days later, I received a very nicely worded card in the post, thanking me for my involvement in the service, hoping I enjoyed it, and welcoming me if I ever chose to come again. It was a very nice touch, and greatly appreciated.

They have a ministry team of piano, KB, a few vocalists, and some brass/woodwind players too, so the music has been nice. I’ve known just about all the songs, and been able to participate really well here. (When was the last time you sang “Your Love Keeps Following Me”?)

It’s pretty late at the moment, so I’ll keep this entry pretty short. But I will hopefully write a bit more next time … I plan to go back again. They are looking for someone to help with interpreting on a volunteer basis, so this might be somewhere I could fit in and also be useful. So far, so good!

Cheers,
Andy

quest

/kwεst/ n. a search or hunt. SYN: pursuit.

Welcome to my revamped blog ... It’s been a long time since the last posting.

I apologise for the melodramatic title of this particular entry. It’s been more than a year since I got back from Fiji. In that time, I’ve been working at my old job, but with a new cohort of staff. It has been a struggle for me, in lots of different ways. I also went in an amateur production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, which was a lot of hard work, but fun, too. In the middle of the year, I moved out from mum and dad’s house into a rented granny flat. Perhaps the biggest thing that’s taken up my spare time this year was my enrolment in the Diploma of Auslan/English Interpreting. Auslan is the official name of Australian Sign Language, used by the deaf community of Australia. I was going to TAFE two nights a week for most of the year. In the end, the time flew by, and we had our final exam in November. A mark of 70% or more qualifies me as an accredited Auslan/English interpreter; we’re still waiting on our final results to be posted to us.

The other day, I realised (much to my dismay) that it has been about eighteen months since I attended Church regularly. This is not a good thing. For various reasons, I have not wanted to go back to my regular Church — the Church of the Nazarene close by my parents’ house. But, I do need to “plug myself in” somewhere.

So, I present this updated website, to hopefully chronicle my search for a church.

There are almost too many churches to choose from in Sydney, and the range and diversity is enormous. So, I thought it would be a good idea to work out some “essential criteria” ... the basics of what I’m looking for.

• 
  
  Solid, biblical preaching/teaching and sound theology. This is an absolute must-have.


• 
  
  A passion for, and action on social justice issues. If the church is full of people who just wanna rock up once a week and warm the seats while they wait for the cup of tea and a chat after the service, then trot off home again, it’s not for me.


• 
  
  Something which is friendly and approachable.


• 
  
  Music ... Hmm. I’ve been thinking about this one. I’m not quite sure what I want. I am a very musical person, but I feel like I don’t want to place too much emphasis on the music itself. I think I’d be disappointed if they didn’t sing any hymns, though.

I’d really like this blog to be very interactive. I’m interested in your thoughts, comments, opinions, chastisements, and so on. So please add your own two cents whenever you feel like it ... I think it’ll help me in the process.

Anyway. That’ll do for now, I think. It being the end of 2007, my first outing to a Church will be in early January 2008, I suppose. I’ll keep you up to date!

Cheers,
Andy