SATURDAY APRIL 8TH BRISBANE MINISTRY AT RIVER CITY CHURCH, WEST END

The Redcliff peninsula creates the north eastern tip of the city of Brisbane. Those of you who have been there will easily identify the long bridge that separates other northern suburbs from these. It is a relatively small municipal area that has been under some threat from the “big is beautiful” ideologies to be dissolved and merge with Pine Rivers or Brisbane Councils. Just where I am staying the house looks out across the water to Deception Bay. Along from here is a whole string of Florida style developments that have houses with water channels at the back so that people can have their car parked at the front and their yacht out the back. Some of the yacht’s are amazing.

Mark picked me up at about 9:00 am to take us to the city. It only took about forty five minutes on this occasion but would take much longer in normal traffic. The link road joins the main double carriageway road between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. It is part of the Gateway Motorway that takes you over the very impressive Gateway bridge and down onto the Gold Coast motorway. We headed for the city once we’d passed the airport and crossed the winding Brisbane River at the Story Bridge, then along past the Gabba. West End sits just south of the South Bank area where the World Expo was held and where there are all kinds of arts facilities and lots of places to buy lattes. The demography changes dramatically. Even though there is a great lot of development going on and apartments and other yuppie priced homes being built, West End still comprises a lot of government houses, boarding houses and the like.

Wayne and Jenny Spivey started running a soup kitchen out of the Seventh Day Adventist Church just west of the city (and very close to Suncorp Stadium). When they became filled with the Spirit they were more or less shunted out. By that time they had taken up the use of premises in West End. They use an Aboriginal Centre for their worship time. Because they read a lot of marginalized people they always have food as part of anything they do. Apart from the Saturday worship time, they have a welfare centre to the west of the West End main centre. It is a house not far from the river where they run street vans and clothing redistribution and the like.

I always like coming to this church. About forty or fifty people gathered there for worship and we sang worship songs to Hills DVD tracks. Jenny led the meeting. Jenny and Wayne and their two children had just been to Israel, Turkey and Greece in a tour with a hundred and fifty other people (but only two other Aussies) led by Chuck Missler. They had a great time but when they were at the Jordan River, their son Jaemin was baptized. In telling the church about this story they all gathered around and prayed for him as they would have done if he had been baptized as part of their own church family. It was very special.

One of the guys in the church is called Rodney. He has a modest mental disability. I’m not sure how it came about but he was in Vietnam for two tours, so it must have happened sometime later in his life. He has a very unfettered way of commenting on anything and everything and his soft nature and good humour make his contribution almost as priceless as it is unsolicited. I preached about the ever present help of the Father’s love based on Mark chapter three. Jesus was teaching in the synagogue where there was a man with a shriveled hand. Rob also shared a prophetic word and we ended up praying for a lot of people at the conclusion.

Rob and I were shouted lunch by Wayne and Jenny and went to the absolute original Coffee Club for the occasion. It is an Australian café chain started in Brisbane. I thought it might have been the original one so we asked and were told very proudly that it was so. We talked flat out over lunch and went for a wander down the street and back. Wayne is a deep thinking guy with a pure heart of love for marginalized people.

On one of the days of our meetings here we had come across the title of a book by Loren Sanford called, “Purifying the Prophetic” and there was a Koorong shop just on the other side of the Gabba, so we went over there and purchased a copy. We were also after another one called, “God’s Politics” by Jim Wallis (American Christian journalist and author). Ian Shelton had been reading this book following a session with Bill Hybels in Sydney recently where it was recommended. The subtitle for this book is “Why the American right is wrong and the left don’t get it.” It takes a new and I think refreshing look at where Christians should connect with the issues that get placed on our political agendas by the conservatives and the social liberals in politics. Even though it refers to the American scene, I think many of the points he makes about taking a Biblical view on issues rather than the ones often taken that simply shadow other secular views is important. He also proposes that in a lot of issues we should be thinking about what represents God’s justice and mercy not just straight morality.

We had to go into town to Dymocks for the second of these, so by the time we had done that and then the drive to Redcliff it was after five o’clock. We spent a bit of time with Mark talking about the merger they have just taken up with a Full Gospel church in Redcliffe. It came about in a left field kind of way. They were told the school they meet in was going to be refurbished because of problems with asbestos. When they tried to find another place to worship, they approached the Full Gospel church and discovered that the thirty people who still met in their building had no pastor and were being looked after by a loving but very busy guy in their church who was in business. He had been praying for Mark since he had heard of his departure from the Uniting Church and was asking God whether it would be in His purpose for the two congregations to come together and for Mark to become their pastor as well. Rob and I had a good time talking with Mark about the issue involved. He is a very wise person, but also full of faith and is able to take a journey down an uncharted road. Tomorrow will be the first time they have worshipped together and in the Full Gospel building.

Mark dropped me back to the Taylors and after a walk to the shops to buy a paper and a very nice evening meal with the Taylors I spent the rest of the night reading and praying and preparing for tomorrow.