Our Stories

Unprecedented Love is a 5 week devotion series from the BUV
Part 1 by Rev Jonathan Stark – #unprecedentedlove for unprecedented times
Part 2 by Rev Graeme Semple – How can we express Jesus’ unprecedented love?
Part 3 by Kimberly Smith – Unprecedented Power to Act in Unprecedented Ways
Part 4 by Rev Robert Hayman – Unprecedented Love – Good Friday
Part 5 by Rev Dr Bill Brown – Unprecedented Love – Resurrection

A call to be praying together for one another, our churches, our neighbourhood, our families, our world.

Free song and video for use at Easter by Andrew Naylor

Often after a major trauma or incident we find ourselves having strong emotional, spiritual or physical reactions. I think COVID-19 would count as a major trauma! If you are in leadership in a church, over the last few weeks you have been forced to lead your church through a massive change process that has happened at very short notice. You have totally transformed your mode of church; had to learn how to stream services, provide pastoral care remotely, run meetings online and deliver sermons to camera rather than a present congregation. Some or all of this has been outside of your experience.

It is important for Victorian Baptist Pastors to remember that while visitation is now severely limited, there are still so many ways to provide pastoral care.

Rev Jonathan Stark, BUV’s Head of Pastoral Leadership, Support and Development, details the most effective ways to care for God’s people through this COVID-19 crisis, encouraging Pastors to: Go old school, Go new school and Go all out.

At the beginning of this year if someone had said that all church gatherings would be banned we would have thought our society had been overturned and the world was going mad. In the space of a month however, we have moved from concerns about the Covid-19 illness to being asked to remain at home with all gatherings of two or more people banned. This has thrown all of us into quick action to try and work out how to be church when we cannot gather.

Luke Williams, the lead pastor at Follow Baptist Church in Officer, went live on Facebook in his neighbourhood park on the 20th March. His house is neatly situated adjacent to the park and playground – a great common area where neighbours gather. He confesses that as a family, they are connected to their immediate neighbours, but not so much with the wider neighbourhood.

Kylie Butler from New Peninsula Baptist arrived home from South Africa two weeks ago to a Federal Government imposed quarantine at home. She had sought out an earlier flight home, sensing that things were escalating. But the climate into which she arrived was unexpected. “Once I landed, everything started to go haywire.” On the flight from Sydney to Melbourne, Kylie created a neighbourhood WhatsApp group, in a bid to support one another in whatever the future would hold.

While the whole world is rapidly changing before our eyes it almost seems out-of-tune to talk about the bushfires that affected the Victorian communities earlier this year.  However, for those impacted by the bushfires, COVID-19 comes as something of a double-hit.  The last thing they need is to be forgotten. Whilst we are all struggling with our own new realities, many of those who are bushfire-affected are having to do so within a different new reality they were forced into just weeks ago.

Last Sunday, almost 20 Baptist Churches in Victoria live-streamed their services. A month ago, there was very few. The last four weeks have brought with them progressively tighter government restrictions on gatherings all across Australia. These have presented a gargantuan challenge to the church, which intuitively recognises the deep need we all have to “not give up on meeting together” (Hebrews 10:25). With social gatherings now limited to two, and physical distancing in place, all traditional ways of thinking about community and communal worship need to be radically changed. In this challenge, leaders have been extended and have needed to work well outside their natural abilities in order to achieve the great feat of gathering online.